Work­day, the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion and UTC have entered into a spon­sor­ship part­ner­ship with the aim of prepar­ing tomor­row’s engi­neers through arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and respon­si­ble innovation.

UTC, the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion and Work­day have joined forces with the shared aim of prepar­ing future engi­neers for respon­si­ble AI. By focussing on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, inno­va­tion and soci­etal respon­si­bil­i­ty, this alliance aims to strength­en the skills of stu­dents to enable them to meet tech­no­log­i­cal and soci­etal chal­lenges while respond­ing to the needs of com­pa­nies in the midst of a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. The UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion, chaired by Patrick Dupin, Deputy Direc­tor Gen­er­al and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for the North­ern Europe Region of the Saint-Gob­ain Group, brings togeth­er play­ers com­mit­ted to sci­en­tif­ic excel­lence and applied research along­side the UTC, which is direct­ed by Prof. Claire Rossi. By includ­ing Work­day, world leader in cloud solu­tions for man­ag­ing human and finan­cial resources, as a new spon­sor, the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion is strength­en­ing its net­work of aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al part­ners. The part­ner­ship with Work­day will enable UTC to strength­en its exper­tise in AI, in line with the needs of com­pa­nies under­go­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. ‘We have been involved in AI for a very long time now. We wel­come these exchanges between acad­e­mia and indus­try. We have a lot to learn from engi­neer­ing schools like UTC, which is tak­ing con­crete action to pro­mote inno­v­a­tive train­ing and a con­nect­ed future,’ says Hervé Uzan, Group Vice Pres­i­dent, EMEA South at Work­day and a 1989 UTC grad­u­ate in com­put­er engineering.

A partnership that undertakes concrete initiatives

Work­day, a US com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in cloud appli­ca­tions for human resources and finance, was intro­duced to the stock mar­ket in 2012 and now has more than 20 000 employ­ees serv­ing 11 000 cus­tomers world­wide. ‘How­ev­er, we are always on the look­out for inno­va­tions. For exam­ple, we have met a num­ber of start-ups from UTC, such as Ont­bo, the first AI to analyse emo­tions. We’re look­ing into the pos­si­bil­i­ty of inte­grat­ing it into our HR tech­nolo­gies. At the same time, Work­day is going to offer UTC stu­dents the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pre­pare them­selves even bet­ter for the chal­lenges of their future careers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the field of AI, by offer­ing stu­dents immer­sions in Work­day’s busi­ness­es through vis­its to the premis­es and dis­cov­er­ing how an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny works and the career prospects in the fields of finance, human resources and plan­ning. ‘One of the most inno­v­a­tive aspects of this part­ner­ship is the col­lab­o­ra­tion with UTC’s Chair on Safe IA. This sci­en­tif­ic part­ner­ship will strength­en the links between teach­ing, research and indus­try,’ con­cludes Hervé Uzan. The aim is to pre­pare stu­dents to become the inno­va­tors of tomor­row, capa­ble of under­stand­ing the com­plex inter­ac­tions between tech­nol­o­gy, peo­ple and Soci­ety, while con­tribut­ing to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Togeth­er, we are cre­at­ing the con­di­tions that will enable these future tal­ents to flour­ish in a con­stant­ly chang­ing world and meet the chal­lenges of the glob­al econ­o­my and tech­no­log­i­cal issues.

KD