Kesk'IA, incubator of artificial intelligence talents at the service of municipalities

On the stage of the "Pitch Studio" at VivaTech, the largest European show in the sector, it is the baptism of fire for the team of Omar and Sakina, the last representatives of Trappes, in competition with the teams of the seven cities selected by this national program, with Lens, Marseille, Rouen, Nantes, Grigny and Meaux.

The challenge: convince a jury of tech professionals that their "proof of concept" (POC) named "C Du Propre", using AI to improve waste collection in their municipality using a simple photo on smartphone, is more successful than those of their competitors, after four months of development and support by technology specialist mentors.

If the service of Lensois, with the "Safer Road" prototype to reduce accidents by identifying faulty road infrastructures, or Nantes residents, with "Predictive canteen" to fight against food waste, make a strong impression, the demonstration of the application Trappists is no exception.

In front of more than 200 people, including their families, friends and loved ones, stress often takes precedence over the popularization of their project. But the energy and the determination to win one of the three trophies for the best "pitch", and especially the trip to Silicon Valley, prize for the winners, end up winning.

Lack of diversity

The purpose of the Kesk'IA program is to identify nuggets among the hundred young people in higher education in the fields of technology, from working-class neighborhoods and with high potential for success, selected for the first class of the program out of the 500 applications received in total.

"These neighborhoods will be mainly known for their footballers or their rappers. What we want through Kesk'IA is to show that there is something else", explains to AFP Morad Attik, former professor of mathematics and co-founder of the start-up Evolukid, behind the program with his brother Rabah Attik, a robotics engineer.

Tech "cracks" like Omar Konaté, 17 and already in the 2nd year of a mathematics-computer science license after skipping two classes, or Sakina Faouzi, a student in a master's 2 "data management" in a business school.

"When I saw the wanted profiles on LinkedIn, I immediately felt like I was on target," says Sakina, 23. When you come from "a working-class neighborhood, it's true that you have less social capital than others. We sometimes put up barriers and we don't dare to apply ourselves" in large companies in the sector.

The accumulated experience in terms of soft skills, professional network, combined with technological excellence, is intended to "open doors" to them and strengthen their employability in these large groups, which often move on to side of these profiles.

"Create Models"

"We know that, in technologies, there is a shortage of vocations. There are not enough women who are employed and there is a lack of diversity", deplores Grégoire du Peloux, director of innovation at TCS, a subsidiary company of the Indian giant Tata and partner of the program, like L'Oréal, Publicis or Société Générale.

"This program aims to create models to make young people want to engage in this type of career, in which they can have an impact on society, and also achieve personal fulfillment", he adds.

While the rise of generative AI has unleashed passions since the eruption of ChatGPT, "it also allows us to get out of fantasies, not to imagine that AI is something beyond us, which is dangerous and completely off topic for people in towns like Trappes," said Ali Rabeh, mayor of Trappes, to AFP.

"On the contrary, we have young people in our families who work in IT and who will domesticate the material and put it at our service", he adds. "It's also a way of saying to citizens: + artificial intelligence is a bit like the internet +. At the time, no one understood what it would be like. From now on, it's part of our daily use".