Frédéric Kaplan

Biography

Frédéric Kaplan holds the Chair of Digital Humanities at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he heads the Digital Humanities Lab (DHLAB). His projects combine archive digitization, modeling and museographic design. He is working on the Venice Time Machine, an international project in collaboration with Ca’Foscari University in Venice, which aims to model the evolution and history of Venice over a 1,000-year period. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des télécommunications, he completed a thesis in artificial intelligence at the Université Paris-6 on the modeling of language dynamics. He then worked for 10 years at the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in the field of robotics, making regular trips to Japan to collaborate with the teams developing the AIBO robot. He then worked for 6 years in EPFL’s educational research unit at the Rolex Learning Center. Frédéric Kaplan is the author of numerous books, around a hundred scientific publications and ten patents. His work has been exhibited in several museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Frédéric Kaplan is also the founder of OZWE, a company active in the design and production of innovative interfaces, electronic products and digital publications.

Conference: Is there enough information about the past to build a time machine?

The European Time Machine consortium will define a detailed program to design and implement innovative, advanced digitization and artificial intelligence technologies with the aim of preserving and exploiting Europe’s cultural heritage, transforming it into an open, intelligent information system. Ultimately, this infrastructure will offer a comprehensive mapping of Europe’s social, cultural and geographical evolution. As Frédéric Kaplan, Professor of Digital Humanities at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Time Machine project coordinator, explains, “the Time Machine project has the potential to become one of the most advanced artificial intelligence systems ever created, exploiting data from wider geographical and temporal horizons”. Time Machine will develop advanced artificial intelligence technologies to extract vast amounts of information from complex historical data. This will enable heterogeneous historical data (medieval manuscripts, historical objects, smartphone images, satellite data, etc.) to be exploited and cross-referenced, providing a broad base of knowledge that can be used to create innovative applications and services. Time Machine will provide real leverage for the emergence of new professions, services and products in all sectors: education, intelligent tourism, creative industries, etc. Time Machine is the opportunity that will help position Europe on the world stage of artificial intelligence.