SMARTPLAN: The intelligent platform for education
Duration: 10m 36s
Liette Lamonde, General Manager of PROMPT, welcomes Nathalie Myara from Eduplan Solutions and Michel Desmarais, professor at Polytechnique Montréal, who will present an intelligent platform dedicated to the development and management of intervention plans for people with disabilities, accessible to stakeholders in the education and social services network. Their project was awarded the RSRI prize at theADRIQ Innovation Awards Gala on November 21.
Discover captivating excerpts from the podcast :
What was the need behind this innovation, Nathalie?
In fact, I’ve been working in the field for over 20 years. At a certain point in my career, I was concerned about the effectiveness of plans. For me, an intervention plan is a communication tool, a planning tool that should guide me in my interventions. Then I came across a research and development methodology at university. And I embarked on this adventure during my doctoral thesis.
And Michel, how did you get involved in this project, and what interested you?
I’ve always been passionate about the application of innovations in business. With ten years’ experience in a technology transfer research center, the Centre de recherche informatique de Montréal, and four years in the corporate world, I’ve developed a strong affinity for applied projects.
For students, getting involved in a company is a valuable opportunity to see how innovation takes shape. They can put into practice the theories learned at school and understand how to apply their knowledge. What’s more, this involvement provides a source of funding during their studies, which is obviously a considerable advantage.
What are you achieving with the project, and how are you using artificial intelligence?
Well, in fact, expertise in artificial intelligence enables us to integrate, to take advantage of this intelligence to make, I wouldn’t say more accessible, but rather to help people who make intervention plans in their decision-making process, and to facilitate, to make it faster, because there’s also a problem of time that people have to give up. And we all know, we’re all aware, that teachers and other professionals in the school context are always tied up with time, and there’s also a lack of resources.
So, it’s an aid to using the repository that structures the plans, that helps define good quality plans. And we’re developing help for the agent who defines these plans. It’s going to have a big impact.
There are, however, challenges involved in a collaboration between university researchers and private enterprise. What are these challenges?
(Michel) There’s no doubt that researchers, students and PhD students need to publish, conduct research and take their courses. This can sometimes require patience on the part of entrepreneurs, as these academic objectives have to be reconciled with those of creating a product. It’s also important to remember that you have to deliver something that will work. So, this means special techniques that are sometimes a little far away, closer to development than to research. But we have to do it, because it’s part of the necessity of working to have a product that runs.
Nathalie, how do you make a beautiful collaboration like this work?
Yes, it can be a challenge. As Michel mentioned, I consider myself first and foremost a researcher and practitioner. I’m not particularly good at marketing. I have common interests regarding impacts and publishing these elements. However, I think what makes our collaboration fruitful is communication. Communication can be a big challenge.
