Inria Academy provides training in free software

When you have researchers on the front lines of knowledge developing technologies of the highest international standard, it would be a shame not to make it known. And especially not to share it with others.

It was on this premise of technology transfer that Inria Academy was launched in 2020. "It's Inria's [National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology] continuing education program," explains its manager David Simplot. "It supports the move upmarket and acceleration in the adoption of digital technology by French and European companies." More specifically, by relying on software distributed in open source by Inria and its partners.

Neutrality and sovereignty

Open source means free to use. "The training courses are paid for, but we don't have a commercial objective," the manager emphasizes. The speakers—developers, scientists, engineers, and other researchers—who provide the training are experts in their field, all from one of the nine Inria centers in France. "They are primarily scientists who are neutral: they are not there to sell a product, but to train." The choice of open source software is not insignificant, insists David Simplot. "It addresses the issue of digital sovereignty." In short, it means offering an alternative to proprietary software, which is often extraterritorial, and therefore avoiding dependency. "With more than 1,500 references, the software developed by Inria teams provides a solution to the needs of companies in the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, digital health, 5G, quantum, etc." and the tailor-made training courses are aimed at all organizations, regardless of their size or sector of activity, "that have a digital innovation strategy and that need to take their teams' skills to the next level." Inria Academy offers three ranges of training. The first, Deeptech, is aimed at R&D engineers and developers. The bestseller acclaimed by all? "Scikit-Learn," continues David Simplot, "which, by meeting 80% of needs, is the most widely used open source machine learning software in the world." In addition, there is a State of the Art range dedicated to R&D engineers and researchers who need to be updated in a specific field. Executive Education, the third and final range, is intended for executives and managers. "We developed short modules for them that explain, for example, the impact of quantum computing... We were also present in February at the World AI Cannes Festival where we led awareness workshops on artificial intelligence software building blocks for SMEs." Last year, Inria Academy trained more than 3,000 people and David Simplot intends to do as well, or even better, this year.