Modar Alaoui is a Moroccan-American serial entrepreneur based in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. He is mostly known for his work in the field of

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and Computer Vision-based face analytics and

emotion recognition Emotion recognition is the process of identifying human emotion. People vary widely in their accuracy at recognizing the emotions of others. Use of technology to help people with emotion recognition is a relatively nascent research area. Genera ...

technologies. Alaoui is the founder and CEO of Eyeris Technologies, Inc., a Deep Learning-based face analytics and emotion recognition software.

Early life

Alaoui was born in

Fez Fez most often refers to: * Fez (hat), a type of felt hat commonly worn in the Ottoman Empire * Fez, Morocco (or Fes), the second largest city of Morocco Fez or FEZ may also refer to: Media * ''Fez'' (Frank Stella), a 1964 painting by the moder ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

and then moved to

Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...

to complete his education from

HEC Montréal HEC Montréal (french: École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal) is a public Canadian business school located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1907, HEC Montréal is the graduate business school of the Université de Montréa ...

and subsequently from

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

. He received an

Integrated Marketing Communications Marketing Communications (MC, marcom(s), marcomm(s) or just simply communications) refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination.Tomse, & Snoj, 2014 Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate ...

degree with a concentration on User Behavioral Measurement. While in Concordia University, Alaoui founded AIM Banking Solutions; a

FinTech Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data are r ...

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 at Concordia University, Alaoui moved to the United States where he worked for

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

for two years and subsequently joined InVision. Two years later, the company was purchased by AudioVox and Alaoui left the company. In March 2008, he founded Eyeris TV, the first US facial recognition-measured in-store TV network franchise. The company targeted short-bite video content and advertisements in real-time 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

microexpression A microexpression is a facial expression that only lasts for a short moment. It is the innate result of a voluntary and an involuntary emotional response occurring simultaneously and conflicting with one another, and occurs when the amygdala respon ...

s among other face analytics beyond age and gender recognition. After relocating the company to

in 2013, the company adopted Deep Learning techniques based on

Convolutional Neural Networks In deep learning, a convolutional neural network (CNN, or ConvNet) is a class of artificial neural network (ANN), most commonly applied to analyze visual imagery. CNNs are also known as Shift Invariant or Space Invariant Artificial Neural Netwo ...

for face analytics and then pivoted into Eyeris Technologies, Inc. The company's flagship product, EmoVu, is a software that reads people's facial micro-expressions in real-time using regular camera sensors. The company works today with

embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

manufacturers including car makers,

social robot A social robot is an autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviors and rules attached to its role. Like other robots, a social robot is physically embodied (avatars ...

ics and camera-enabled IoT devices. In Automotive ADAS, the company integrates EmoVu DMS, an automotive-grade driver monitoring AI that measures drivers' inattention, cognitive awareness and emotional distraction. In Social Robotics, Eyeris enables the next generation of Robot-Human Interaction by integrating its software and enabling OTA updates. Eyeris also integrates its embeddable software into camera-enabled IoT devices. Alaoui is a frequent keynoter on

Ambient Intelligence In computing, ambient intelligence (AmI) refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Ambient intelligence was a projection on the future of consumer electronics, telecommunications and computing ...

and a winner of several technology and innovation awards. He is also an advisor to several startups including Veylinx, Ersatz Lab and Trans-Robotics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alaoui, Modar Concordia University alumni Living people Moroccan emigrants to the United States Year of birth missing (living people)