About Automatants
Automatants is the AI student association of CentraleSupélec. It promotes machine learning by sharing knowledge, organizing events, competitions, and projects.
I first joined in my 3rd year out of curiosity, and half year later, from January 2021 to January 2022, I became its President. Leading the association was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my student life. We were around 20 members, organized dozens of events, and had a lot of fun. This blog is not about the technical projects, but about my journey as President and what I learned along the way.
How I Became President
In September 2020, I went to Automatants’ first meeting for new members. At that time, I was simply curious about AI. People were welcoming, but I found the association less structured than ViaRézo. At the end of the meeting, the older members asked if someone wanted to help organize the cohesion weekend in January 2021. I volunteered with two others, without knowing what it would lead to.
Organizing that weekend in the middle of the Covid pandemic was a nightmare. One week before the trip, our booking was cancelled. I spent hours calling every possible gîte within 3 hours of Paris, until I found one that accepted us with a deposit that looked suspicious. We did not have any other plan so I paid the deposit. In the end, it turned out to be a beautiful place with two houses and enough beds for everyone.
That weekend changed everything for me. At first, I was stressed and afraid of being bored among strangers. But once there, I spent my time making sure everyone was having fun. We cooked together, played games, hiked, partied… and I realized how much potential this association had. I thought that with some structure and leadership, this association could be amazing.
So I decided to run for President with two other members. One month later, I was elected unanimously. That was the real beginning.
Life as President
Courses and Projects
The essence of Automatants was to share knowledge and promote AI. Each semester, Automatants offered a series of open courses on AI: deep learning, computer vision, NLP, reinforcement learning, statistics… In total, 18 courses of 2 hours and 5 practical workshops of 4 hours, reaching 20 to 100+ students each.
I personally taught a course on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and helped in most of the practical workshops. You can find the material here or the video (in French) here.
We also organized two competitions (computer vision and reinforcement learning) and launched student projects. Each project was supervised by an experienced member with a small group of 2 to 5 students. Over two semesters, we had 16 projects, with 7 successful ones — not too bad considering that many students switched to other associations.
I supervised two projects myself: handwritten letter classification and neural style transfer.
Building the AI Hub of CentraleSupélec
My first big mission was to secure a dedicated room for Automatants at CentraleSupélec. Our predecessor had already started the process, but it was slowed down by bureaucracy and the pandemic. After many meetings and negotiations, we finally got it: the AI Hub.
It became our headquarters. We had the freedom to organize it as we wanted, in exchange for presenting projects to sponsors. We even received an incredible NVIDIA DGX A100 for our projects and negotiated with the school to get two huge sofas.
During the pandemic, having this place was priceless. It quickly became the center of our events, projects, and meetings. It became a real home for Automatants.
Events and Partnerships
The year was full of events and partnerships. Here are some highlights:
Humaviron (03/11/2021)
The Humaviron, organized by a student humanitarian association, is a 12-hour charity rowing competition aimed at raising funds. Teams take turns on rowing machines to cover the maximum distance possible. Since Automatants didn’t have many athletes, we partnered with the aeronautics association. Together, our 49 participants rowed a total of 179,453 meters over 12 hours.
Collaboration with Assas Legal Innovation (05/03/2021)
Pantheon-Assas University, one of France’s top law schools, is known for training future legal professionals. Assas Legal Innovation, a student association at the university, aims to foster innovation in the legal field and prepare the next generation of lawyers for the challenges and opportunities brought by technological change. We presented the basics of artificial intelligence to law students, illustrating how AI can impact legal processes and decision-making.
Soirée de l’IA (05/04/2021)
Our annual AI conference brings together students, professionals, and enthusiasts to give talks on artificial intelligence. For this edition, we invited three speakers:
- Anouk Barberousse, philosopher of science
- Jules Salzinger, deep learning engineer
- Marion Carré, entrepreneur and CEO of Ask Mona
Although the in-person event was cancelled just three weeks prior due to Covid restrictions, we quickly adapted and hosted the conference online. Despite the sudden change, the event attracted over 60 participants online.
Bouge la Science (05/07/2021)
This year, Automatants joined Bouge la Science, an event run by the humanitarian association Espérance en Béton. The goal is to bring science to middle school students in disadvantaged areas.
With another member of the association, I showed students aged 10 to 14 how a simple AI can play tic-tac-toe. It was fun to see their curiosity and excitement as they learned about science and AI.
Journée des Bourses (06/03/2021)
We presented our idea for a reinforcement learning competition, the Mind Games.
Barspé (09/10/2022)
At the start of the school year, associations can organize a temporary restaurant on campus. We teamed up with the marching band Bandajoe for a one-day pop-up. They made tiramisu, while we cooked Mexican tortillas.
Preparing for 200 meals was intense. 10 of us turned my small flat into a mini kitchen, peeling potatoes until 2AM. It was stressful, but also a lot of fun.
Ubisoft Conference (12/13/2021)
We invited Guillaume Gaudron, Research Director at Ubisoft, to share how the company connects academic AI research with video games.
Podcast with Polimi DataScientist (12/08/2021)
A student association from Politecnico di Milano invited us for a podcast discussion on Reinforcement Learning. The podcast (in English) is here.
Partnership with JCS
We worked with JCS (Junior Enterprise of CentraleSupélec), a student association that connects companies with students for short-term projects. Many of their projects were AI-related, so we trained their members to help them manage these projects. In return, they gave Automatants better access to AI-related company missions.
Other Memories
I’m also leaving a video here and my final legacy report here.
Looking Back
My year as President of Automatants was intense, challenging, and sometimes stressful, but also incredibly rewarding. I learned what it really means to lead a team, organize events, and bring people together around a shared passion.
Being President pushed me to grow. I had to stay social with all members, take responsibility when things went wrong, and set an example both technically and socially. I even set myself a personal challenge during the second semester: reading and summarizing one research paper per day. From November to February, I managed to go through more than 100 papers.
It all started with a simple weekend trip, and it turned into one of the most formative experiences of my life. Looking back, I realize I could never have done everything alone. We achieved a lot, balancing our studies and projects while still dedicating so much time and effort to the association.
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