| From | Morocco | ||
| Gender | male | ||
| Birth | Fez, Fez Prefecture, Fès-Meknès, Morocco | ||
| Education |
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Modar Alaoui is a Moroccan-American technology entrepreneur and frequent public speaker based in Silicon Valley, California in the United States. He is mostly known for his work in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision for autonomous vehicles (AV) and highly automated vehicles. Alaoui is the founder and CEO of Eyeris Technologies, Inc., a pioneer in Computer Vision AI software for In-Cabin Sensing and in-vehicle scene understanding.
Early life
Alaoui was born in Fez, Morocco and then moved to Montréal to complete his education from HEC Montréal and subsequently from Concordia University. He received an Integrated Marketing Communications degree with a concentration on Human Behavioral Understanding and Modeling. While in Concordia University, Alaoui founded AIM Banking Solutions; a FinTech startup that sold debit and credit card terminals to merchants and negotiated card processing rates on their behalf. He later sold the company and moved to the United States.
Career
Upon completing his education from Concordia University, Alaoui moved to the United States where he worked for Dell for two years and subsequently joined InVision. Two years later, the company was acquired by Voxx International and Alaoui left the company. In March 2008, he founded Eyeris TV, the first computer vision-measured in-store TV network. The company targeted short-bite video content and advertisements in high traffic public venues based on viewers’ gender and age group.
The company won several awards including The Innovation and technology award presented by the Florida Business Expo. In 2011, the company invested in a small R&D project that aimed at developing emotion recognition from facial microexpressions among other face analytics beyond age and gender recognition.
After relocating the company to Silicon Valley in 2013, the company adopted Deep Learning techniques based on Convolutional Neural Networks for a wider portfolio of face analytics and then pivoted into Eyeris Technologies, Inc. The company’s deep learning flagship product was a computer vision software that analyzed people’s facial micro-expressions in real-time using regular camera sensors. Since then, the company has expanded its portfolio of AI algorithms that analyze the entire automotive interior space and has partnered with established image sensor and AI chip hardware providers. In January 2020, Alaoui announced at CES the world’s first in-cabin sensor fusion AI. The company today works with major automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers.
Advisory
Alaoui serves as an advisor to The Khronos Group’s Neural Network Exchange Format (NNEF), an organization that facilitates the deployment of trained neural networks from deep learning frameworks to hardware accelerated inference engines.
Alaoui also serves as an advisor to several startups, including Veylinx an AI-based platform that measures consumers purchase intent of products and services.
Alaoui is also a member advisor to silicon valley education foundation (SVEF), a leading non profit organization that advocates for public education in Silicon Valley, specifically in STEM, by leveraging technology for education.