#53 Women in Machine Learning and Data Science: Online Convex Reinforcement Learning, AI Revolution and the Broligarchy
Once in a while, we organize special events to visit museums. For this meetup, we killed two birds with one stone: we were hosted by EDF Fundation, which happens to be a museum with a large room for events, for a perfect match! We had a full room, it was very pleasant for the speakers to see so many curious faces.
The meetup kicked off with a warm welcome from Carmen Munoz, Director at EDF. Next, our co-organizer Marie took the stage to introduce the WiMLDS community. She also shared some exciting news: we’re proud to announce a new partnership with LeBonCoin!
We started the event with the most technical talk for the day, by Bianca Marin Moreno.
She shared her research on how to use AI and smart control to help manage energy more efficiently. Her work focuses on making sure that energy production and energy use always stay balanced, especially now that more and more energy comes from renewable sources like solar and wind, which can be hard to predict.
Instead of only trying to control how much energy is produced, Bianca’s idea is to also adjust how and when we use energy. This is called demand-side management. For example, if we can slightly change when water heaters turn on or off without affecting our comfort, we can help avoid energy spikes and reduce stress on the power grid.
To do this, Bianca uses reinforcement learning and more specifically convex reinforcement learning, which makes the problem easier to solve and more flexible for real-world situations.
She showed how this could work in practice by simulating thousands of smart water heaters. Her algorithm was able to shift their energy use to better match the supply, without needing to control each heater individually. Even better, it works for large-scale systems, like all the water heaters in a city, because it focuses on average behavior rather than every device on its own.
Her talk showed how AI can be applied to solve real problems in energy. Bianca’s work is a great example of using research to build a smarter future. Thanks for your great talk, Bianca!
If you want to know more, check out her slides below:
Then we had the chance to hear from Alina Krasnobrizha as she presented her new book, La Révolution IA : quand l’intelligence artificielle réinvente l’entreprise, co-written with Arnaud Contival. The book brings together Alina’s technical background and Arnaud’s business experience to explore how AI is changing the way companies work.
Originally from Ukraine, Alina shared her inspiring journey, moving to France for her PhD without speaking French, becoming a professor, starting a robotics project, and then shifting to Silicon Valley to work in tech startups.
A big part of her presentation was about AI agents, programs that use AI to take action on their own. Alina showed a demo of a simple agent she built in less than an hour. It could understand client messages, detect emotions, and suggest responses to help keep customers happy. She also introduced a new protocol called MCP (Model Context Protocol), which makes it much easier to connect AI systems to apps, tools, and databases.
Her message was clear: you don’t need to be an expert to start building. Tools are getting easier to use, and AI is opening new doors for everyone, even people who’ve never written code.
Alina’s book is full of stories from her experience in Silicon Valley, along with interviews and insights into what’s coming next. She reminds us that this is a unique time in tech history: full of change, but also full of opportunity.
Thank you Alina for your inspiring talk!
If you want to know more, check out her slides below:
We didn’t plan in on purpose, but it happened to be very interesting to have another view of the tech presented by Mathilde Saliou for the last talk. As a tech journalist and author of Technofeminism, she invited us to examine the intersection of technology, power, and societal control, with a focus on the influence of major tech companies and figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. From Meta’s ambitions for control to Elon Musk’s influence on governments, tech isn’t neutral, and those who lead it hold an enormous amount of power.
Mathilde warned us against the rise of authoritarian tendencies in tech culture and introduced the “broligarchy”, a group of powerful men in tech and politics who shape the rules of the digital world. In their minds, democracy is outdated, and “tech progress” means ignoring ideas like ethics, inclusion, or sustainability.
She showed how this attitude has real-world effects, like removing the word “climate change” from government websites and shutting down public science programs. Their version of “free speech” is often used to silence others, especially women, marginalized groups, and critics of tech.
The talk was also a call to action. Mathilde highlighted the growing resistance against unchecked tech power, pointing to grassroots movements, civil society organizations, tech worker unions, and communities like WiMLDS. These communities are fighting for safer, fairer, and more responsible digital futures.
Mathilde calls for activism and political engagement to challenge these issues, emphasizing the importance of protecting personal data and resources. “Don’t obey in advance,” she quoted from historian Timothy Snyder, warning that the biggest tool of control is often distraction.
“Your attention is a resource.
Your creativity is a resource.
Use them wisely.”
Thank you Mathilde for this empowering talk!
If you want to know more, check out her slides below:
Our next event will take place on May 13th for a joint event with Women in Product. Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to the date!
If you do not want to miss our events, you can:
🔗 follow us on Meetup and LinkedIn
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📩 send an email to the Paris WiMLDS team to paris@wimlds.org
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