Live from EURECOM - April 2014

BMW Research and Technology, sponsor of the 2015 Class

On April 10th, EURECOM welcomed Dr Christophe Grôte, director of research at BMW and sponsor of the 2015 Class.  The German auto manufacturer has a long-standing relationship with EURECOM in information and communication technologies, particularly in the area of tomorrow's vehicles.  During this day-long meeting with students, Dr Grôte presented BMW's latest technological innovations and shared his experience as student, researcher and manager.  This dialog was an inspiration for students who will have the chance to get a private tour of the BMW plant during their field trip to Germany. 
Dr Grôte also met with EURECOM's research team and identified new collaboration areas.

BMW R&D, EURECOM, and TUM Summer school

EURECOM, the R&D Division of BMW, and the Technical University of Munich, with the support of the French-Bavarian University Cooperation Center are organizing a summer school for doctoral students and young researchers on "Autonomous Vehicles and the Internet of Things". 
It will take place in Lake Tegernsee, South of Munich, between July 27th and August 1st. 
The goal is to create a forum for key industrial and academic experts in connected mobility to exchange  and work on the main social, economic and technological challenges impacting our lives and the industry.

Information and registration

How to avoid identity theft?  Live on France 5 TV

The daily mid-day show "La Quotidienne" of April 7th was devoted to biometrics and the ways to protect our identity and data from cyber-criminals.  Jean-Luc Dugelay, professor in the Multimedia Communications Department and expert in biometrics explained how the mathematical analysis of a person's biological characteristics can irrefutably determine his/her identity, becoming an ally in our private lives.  Aurélien Francillon, Assistant Professor in the Networking and Security Department also explained how to protect data stored on hard disks from hackers.

Watch the TV report

End of the DATALIFT project, the semantic Web becomes the data Web!

Supported by ANR, the successful DATALIFT research project ended with the commercial introduction of an open source platform late last March.  The purpose of the platform is to observe the transformation of raw data into enriched and linked data and to use this new information flow management and sharing solution.  During the conference organized in Paris by the project team (EURECOM, Inria, Atos, Mondeca, Ign, Insee, Lirmm, Fing), Dr Raphael Troncy, semantic Web specialist and Assistant Professor in EURECOM's Multimedia Communications Department presented the latest news and the future perspectives of the new generation of tools to link data

Datalift demonstration

First assessment of the Com4Innov platform

As member of the Telecom Platform, EURECOM is bringing its expertise to Com4Innov for the future development of the TE and LTE-A standards, particularly for the definition of technical specifications.  Last March, the first progress report and services of Com4Innov–a genuine development and testing tool in 4G/LTE/IMS and M2M environments–was presented to more that 50 French and Monegasque companies focusing on mobility and digital technologies.  The extension of the platform's service coverage between Sophia Antipolis, La Ciotat and Monaco via the core-to-core connection of the Monaco Telecom and Com4Innov LTE networks shows the platform's ability to offer leading-edge technology to businesses over time.

EURECOM 2d at the Steria Hacking Challenge

Each year, the most talented IT security students attend the annual inter-school hacking contest, the Steria Hacking Challenge. 
The 2014 edition took place on the night of March 21th with 160 students from 16 schools competing to solve cyber-attack challenges in the Capture the Flag contest.
Represented for the first time by a team of five international students, the Nops, EURECOM took second place. Congratulations to our young IT security specialists who prepared for the competition with their networking and security professors, Davide Balzarrotti and Aurélien Francillon.

Watch the Steria Hacking Challenge video

Three days to promote the SophiaTech Campus

About thirty Master's students from various Mediterranean countries attended the second edition of the Mediterranean Student Days on March 12-14 organized by Labex and its partners, UNC@Sophia, Inria, EURECOM, i3S and the LEAT (UNS-CNRS).  They spent three days working on the training and research activities that the Campus and its partners had set up for these potential future students.  They also met with current students as well as professors from each institution who explained their curricula.  This immersion in the largest campus in the Alpes Maritimes will no doubt inspire them to come back to complete their studies.

CGEIET visits EURECOM

On February 4, EURECOM's executive board received Luc Rousseau, Vice-President of the Economic Board at the French Ministry of Economy, and Emmanuel Caquot, Mission Head for Ecole des Mines et Télécommunications during their official visit. 
Their day centered around presentations, lab visits and exchanges where they learned more about EURECOM's special organization as consortium, its strategy in the teaching and research areas, and how EURECOM's development is backed by Institut Mines Télécom's own strategy.

The SCS Cluster holds its innovation strategy conference at EURECOM

Challenges of technology, usage and markets in 2014.  This theme was debated by the participants in the six roundtables of the conference held last January at EURECOM.  As founding member of the SCS Cluster, EURECOM is actively involved in the cluster's strategy.  Professor Christian Bonnet presided over the roundtable on the technological challenges of secure data storing and the cloud.  Sergio Loureiro, a EURECOM alumnus, now President and founder of Seclud IT, a company that specializes in cloud elasticity, also spoke at the conference as well representatives of HP, I3S and Orange Labs.  This event illustrates how the key actors of the SCS Cluster are stepping up their innovation strategy.

The Orange Campus partners with EURECOM

With its partner schools, Orange has been running a program intended to present the various IT professions to students and showcase its latest innovations.  This year, EURECOM's ambassadorial role in the program is endorsed by Judhakitt TIRATHUMCHAROEN, student in EURECOM's specialty curriculum.  Judhakitt is sponsored by Sawssan Taha, an Orange employee, also a past EURECOM student.  A CV coaching session will be led by a Human Resource specialist at Orange and a visit of Orange's Lab in Sophia Antipolis will enable participants to exchange with experts in the areas of Big and Fast Data, LiveBox and sensor networks.

Orange campus partners program

The Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship awarded to a EURECOM doctoral student

Congratulations to Martina Cardone, doctoral student in the Mobile Communications Department supervised by Professors Raymond Knopp and Daniela Tuninetti.  Martina received the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship for her work on relay-assisted mobile downlink channels.  The goal of her research is to maximize system capacity through the use of relays in a communication channel.
The prize is awarded every year to the most innovative doctoral students throughout Europe and the United States.  This year, 137 projects representing 18 schools were competing.

A EURECOM student honored by the Future and Breakthrough program from Institut Mines-Télécom

Competing for the Best Thesis prize from the Télécom Foundation, Dr Xuran Zhao presented research he carried out at EURECOM under the supervision of Professors J.L. Dugelay and N. Evans on multiview dimensionality reduction for multimodal biometrics.
Xuran Zhao received the 3rd prize ex-aequo on April 9th at the annual award ceremony in Paris.  Honoring excellent research work, the prize is also the opportunity to present Télécom Foundation’s large-scale programs in training, research, innovation and future prospects

They successfully defended their theses!

• Claudiu TANASE, on April 24, on “Towards effective spatio-temporal analysis for content-based video retrieval”
• Neslihan Kose, on April 14, on "Spoofing and Disguise Variations in Face Recognition"
• Canali Davide, on February 12, on “A Multidimensional Analysis of Malicious and Compromised Websites”
• Fradi Hajer, on January 28, on “New insights into crowd density analysis in video surveillance systems”

Accreditation to supervise research

Congratulations to Florian Kaltenberger, assistant professor in the Mobile Communications Dept at EURECOM ! He has successfully defended his HDR (french accreditation to supervise research) on April 18 on the following topic: "Experimental Analysis of Multi-user MIMO Communication Systems"
This accreditation validates a candidate’s high scientific level and his/her original approach toward a scientific domain, ability to master a research strategy in a scientific or technological domain and capacity to direct young researchers".