How to make machines understand our written conversations
Narjès Boufaden is an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher turned entrepreneur. After completing her PhD with the imminent Yoshua Bengio, one of the world’s leading AI researchers, she decided to found her company, Keatext, to teach machines to understand our conversations. Interview.
How did you go from researcher to entrepreneur?
Research has always been a passion. I love finding innovative solutions to complex problems. When I started working at the Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal (CRIM), I discovered a great interest in finding concrete solutions to everyday problems that directly affect industry. Combined with a desire to push things further, I decided to start my own company.
My mother and father were entrepreneurs. That helped me make the leap, but it didn’t make my life any easier than any other entrepreneur. I had to develop my network, which I hadn’t really had to do as a researcher. When you’re in academia, you have your circle of acquaintances, which is essentially made up of other researchers, but you don’t have the concept of sales, which is essential in business.
And then Keatext had to pivot, as many startups do. We went from a company that sold services, to a company that sells a product. It was another steep learning curve made up of marketing, sales, R&D and so on. It’s a good thing I like to learn, because as an entrepreneur, it’s something you do all the time.
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