Vincent Gripon is a permanent researcher with IMT-Atlantique. He obtained his M.S from École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay in 2008 and his PhD from IMT-Atlantique in 2011. He spent one year as a visiting scientist at McGill University between 2011 and 2012 and he is currently an invited Professor at Mila and Université de Montréal. His research mainly focus on efficient implementation of artificial neural networks, graph signal processing, deep learning robustness and associative memories. He co-authored more than 70 papers in these domains in prestigious venues (AAAI, tPAMI, Statistical Physics, TNNLS, TSP).

Mr. Richard Hogue is currently Director of the Meteorological Service of Canada’s Forecast System Integration & Innovation Division. His Division plays a key role in supporting systems and forecast applications for the operational weather centers across the country and for the development and modernization of the modernization of forecast systems. Before September 2016 Mr. Hogue was Director of the Radar and Upper Air Division for an 18 month period, managing key operational monitoring networks as well as playing a leadership role in the transformation and modernization of these networks. Prior to that, Mr. Hogue was Director of the Canadian Meteorological Center Operations Division for 7 years and, before that position, he was over a 10 year period manager of the Implementation and Operational Services Division and the Environmental Emergency Response Section. He has lead Meteorological Service of Canada’s automated numerical weather prediction system which operates around the clock to ensure key input and support to the Departments mission critical meteorological forecast services as well as to a wide range of external users. He has also managed national and international mandates including the provision of specialized atmospheric dispersion modeling services regarding radioactive material and volcanic ash. Mr. Hogue started his career at Environment Canada in 1986 as a meteorologist in Toronto following a BSc and MSc in atmospheric sciences. He has been actively working in the area of technological transfer and managing mission critical governmental operational systems for the past 25 years, and as a manager for the last 20 years.

Jeff Watters is the Director of Strategic System Manufacturer Engagements in HPC organization, responsible for driving initiatives for HPC end user needs and supplying manufacturer’s HPC requirements to roadmap planning. Since his days at the University of Illinois in 1986, Jeff has had a continuous career in computing-related roles. Jeff is highly interested in the future of high performance computing in light of new algorithmic paradigms, such as machine learning and data analytics, and the advent of the cloud democratization of HPC datacenters. Jeff’s current role focuses on these new HPC trends and the requirements that will drive product definition for 2020 through 2024.