Meet the team | Antoine

You may be familiar with our technology but do you know the brains behind it? Every now and then, we’d like to bring the Voltaware team closer to you and what makes who we are.

Meet Antoine - our Head of Data Science Team and a pivotal part of Voltaware. Antoine joined Voltaware 4 years ago and has built our disaggregation algorithm, which is at the core of IRIS and all our actionable energy insights. His role has been increasingly more important as he now leads the Data Science Team. He shares his journey with us.

What is your background?

Antoine: My academic background is in pure mathematics. In 2014, I completed a PhD at the University of Lille (in the north of France), in the field of "geometric group theory”. After spending two more years doing mathematical research in academia, I got increasingly interested in AI-applications as I found that my mathematical skills could apply not only to abstract, but also to real business problems.

I then started a career transition towards Data Science and applied for jobs in the private sector. For that, London was (and still is) the place in Europe with the most opportunities. At the end of 2016, I found an internship in a London-based company specialising in data analytics applied to marketing. I moved to London, did my internship, applied for jobs and was contacted by Voltaware at the beginning of 2017. This is how my Voltaware journey started.

Outside work, I like to read (novels and poetry) and run along the Thames river or around Greenwich park. Although now, most of my spare time is dedicated to my baby girl born in December 2020!

What is your role at Voltaware?

Antoine: In one sentence, my role is to head the Data Science team to ensure we are building the best AI-algorithms that will be the base for our actionable insights. My role is to guarantee that the work of our team is aligned with business, but also in turn that business expectations are aligned with the Data Science team.

On the one side, we have 8 people in the team - all of them carrying different backgrounds and levels of experience. I am speaking with each of them on a daily basis to make sure they know what tasks they need to prioritise, but also how they need to accomplish these and why they are important.

On the other side we have a product and a business team that is using our AI-algorithms to develop features and use cases driven from it, which are then available on our IRIS platform for utilities. We have many European utility partners in Europe and are consistently expanding to new markets, which means that the Data Science team needs to constantly refine and improve our algorithms.

Finally, my role is to supervise the implementation of Data Science products by the team and to draw the roadmap of development with the product team.

How would you describe your journey since you’ve joined Voltaware?

Antoine: Voltaware was my first permanent experience in the private sector. At the same time, I was the first data scientist to join the company. So my first months inside the company were a learning process both for me and the existing team.

Back then, I was mainly working hands-on the code: implementing and testing algorithms for disaggregation. Quickly though, data analysts and scientists joined the team and my role continuously evolved since then (and the company as well) growing until where we are now.

Why is the Data Science Team so important to Voltaware?

Voltaware was founded by people that believe in the power of data for good. With the climate crisis being every day more concerning, we want to use the power of data to help people change the way they use energy and help them align closer to their goals.

We have proven that energy disaggregation allows customers to get more transparent energy bills, helping them to save energy and money - which is very important to them. Disaggregation is also at the base of many more personalised energy insights, allowing us to engage customers further.

As we grow and rapidly expand, we are collecting large volumes of insights which will help us enhance our AI-powered algorithms and bring exciting features to our customers. Data and our team are key to Voltaware’s global ambition.

Can you tell us about your personal and professional goals this year?

Antoine: My personal goals this year are to become a great father, to run a semi-marathon (if allowed by Covid) and to read an English classical novel.

My professional goal - speaking on the company’s behalf here - is to connect IRIS to 1m new homes.

What do you like at Voltaware?

Voltaware is a company where every employee is trusted and encouraged to actively contribute to collective efforts even outside of their strict domain of expertise. This is particularly important to support the development of young and inexperienced people and those joining our teams without specific experience in our field.

As I had no experience in the private sector, giving me crucial responsibilities at the very beginning was a great testimony of Voltaware management’s trust in me. I now try to introduce a similar culture of trust and courage across all DS newcomers.

Watch our space for exciting updates!