Elisenda Bou-Balust is CoFounder and CTO of Vilynx -an AI company revolutionizing how machines understand and learn by themselves- and Associate Professor at UPC. In Vilynx, Elisenda leads a team of more than 40 PhDs and MsCs in Computer Vision, Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence, to build the first self-learning AI brain. Elisenda specializes in Aritficial Intelligence, Satellites and Complex Distributed Systems. She has cooperated with University of Maryland, MIT, NASA and Google on Autonomous Satellite Missions.

I love to work with amazing people and try to push the boundaries of technology and science with them. I have always been passionate about crafting ideas and changing the world and I am lucky to call this my full-time occupation. Reach me to talk about Complex Systems, AI, Knowledge Graphs/Ontologies and Deep Learning. Especially if you are interested in Emergence and Reasoning!

Bou’s PhD was conducted on several research lines on Machine Learning, Distributed Task Scheduling, Nano-Satellite Constellations and Wireless Energy Transfer. Bou was also Lead SW Architect at UPC Nano-Satellite Lab (2012-2017) and collaborates with the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and the UMD Aerospace Engineering Department. She has been lecturing on Nano-satellites at UPC (Capstone Project, CDIO Initiative) since 2013 and was a recipient of the 2013 Google Faculty Research Awards on phone-based nano-satellite constellations. Since 2012, Elisenda has advised more than 12 Msc thesis, participated in several national and international research projects (NASA, DARPA, EU H2020 amongst others) and given invited talks in Asia, EU and US universities on Wireless Power Transfer, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Satellite Software Architecture and Entrepreneurship. She participated in a NASA Centennial Challenge at age 18 and, started cooperating with MIT at age 19.

With a strong interest in Software Development, AI and startups, Bou is also Co-Founder of EstimTrack (ML algorithms to optimize patient flow in hospitals) and advises high-tech startups/spinoffs. She also holds several patents on the fields of Machine Learning applied to Machine Learning, Video Processing and audience analytics.

PROFESSIONAL RESUME

Elisenda Bou-Balust has founded 3 startups with national and international presence: in Barcelona (Spain) and Palo Alto (California, US).  She currently is CTO at Vilynx, Inc, where she is building the first self-learning AI brain. In Vilynx, she oversees the engineering and technology departments to apply machine learning and deep learning at scale.  Vilynx has customers in media organizations worldwide and is currently serving 4B videos generated with AI a month.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• 2011-present. Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Vilynx. Based in Palo Alto, California, Vilynx has been funded with 2.1M seed and 14M round A and involves more than 45 people split into US (New York and San Francisco), Spain (Barcelona) and Asia (Hong Kong). Vilynx is devoted to understanding the visual world through AI.
• 2015-2017. Founder and Chief Technology Officer at EstimTrack. Based in Barcelona, Estimtrack is leading the use of Machine Learning algorithms to optimize patient flow in operating rooms. Currently being deployed at Hospital Clinic, EstimTrack is entering the EU and US markets.
• 2011-2013. Founder and CTO at Zeptocode, a company devoted to develop technology solutions for promotional marketing campaigns. Worked with 1st Marketing company in Spain and major customers (Desigual, Silestone, CocaCola, Rayban..).
• 2009-2011. Research Associate at University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC). Research on Handwriting Biometrics Recognition Systems.
• 2 Visiting Research Assistant. MIT Space Systems Laboratory, Aeronautics and Astronautics Department.
• Visiting Research Assistant at MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department.

ACADEMIC RESUME

Elisenda Bou-Balust received the M.Sc. in telecommunications engineering from UPC BarcelonaTech in 2010 and her M.Sc. in electronic engineering from ULPGC in 2011 and her PhD in electronic engineering from UPC in 2017. From 2007 to present, she has been conducting research on resonant inductive coupling wireless power transfer, scalable software architectures for fractionated spacecraft and autonomous systems (ML and distributed task scheduling). In 2008 and 2009 she carried out two stages at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she worked on the analysis and modelling of distributed systems for aerospace applications. From 2012-2017 she was a PhD Candidate with the Power Electronics Group in Technical University of Catalonia and participated in several international (NASA, EUH2020) and national (CDTI) research projects.

Bou-Balust was a recipient of two Vodafone Scholarships (2008 and 2009), a research grant issued by Thales Alenia Space Spain (2012-2016) in wireless energy transfer for satellite constellations and a Google Faculty Research Award (2013). Bou-Balust lectures on nano-satellites at UPC since 2013 where she has advised more than 15 MsC students and leads SW Architecture at UPC Nano-Satellite Lab. She also collaborates with the Aerospace Engineering Department at University of Maryland and Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Space Applications of Resonant Inductive Coupling. She serves as a reviewer for the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and IEEE Transactions on Communications. She also co-organized sessions related to wireless energy transfer at at IEEE ISCAS (2013,2014,2015) and PIERS (2013,2014,2015,2016).

PARTICIPATION IN RESEARCH PROJECTS

• Horizon 2020-Earth Observation-3-2015. ONION: Operational Network of Individual Observation Nodes. 2016-2018.
• Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, state plan for Scientific and Technical research and innovation 2013-2016, State program for Research, Development and Research oriented to Society challenges (ref. DPI2013-47799-C2-2-R) “Health aware enhanced range Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems”, Sep 2014 – Sept 2017.
• Google Faculty Research Awards “Phone-satellite: Android beyond the stratosphere”, Sept. 2013 – Sept. 2014.
• Resonant Inductive Near-field Generation System (RINGS). Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). University of Maryland – Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jan 2012 – December 2014.
• Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, CONSOLIDER-INGENIO program “Advanced Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Devices for Rational Use of Energy (RUE)”,  Project period: Jan 2010 – Jan 2014.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Special Session Organizer «Wireless Power Transfer». PIERS Shanghai, August 2016.
• Organizing Committee. Advanced Electromagnetic Symposium AES Malaga, July 2016.
• Session Chair «Wireless Energy Transfer». ISCAS. Portugal, June 2015.
• Special Session Organizer «Wireless Power Transfer». PIERS. Prague, August 2015.
• Special Session Organizer «Wireless Power Transfer» with Qiaowei Yuan (Sendai National College of Technology). PIERS. Guangzhou, China. August 2014.
• Academy Chair. 10th International CDIO Conference, Barcelona. June 2014
• Special Session Organizer «Circuital aspects of emergent application-driven Wireless Power Transfer Systems» with Eduard Alarcon (UPC BarcelonaTech) and Patrick Hu (University of Auckland). ISCAS, Melbourne. June 2014.
• Special Session Organizer «Near-Field Wireless Energy Transmission» with Ki Young Kim (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology). PIERS. Stockholm, August 2013.
• Special Session Chair «Wireless Energy Harvesting» with Ki Young Kim (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology) and Alessandra Costanzo (University of Bologna). PIERS. Stockholm, August 2013.
• Special Session Organizer «Circuit Aspects of Non-Radiative Wireless Power Transfer» with Ki Young Kim (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology). ISCAS, Beijing. May 2013.

TEACHING

• Advanced Engineering Projects (Nano-Satellite Constellations) . 3rd year BSc degree. 2013-2017
• From academia to startups & beyond. 2nd year Msc degree. 2017-present.

ELISENDA BOU ´S AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS 

• Google Faculty Research Award «Android Beyond the Stratosphere». PIs: Prof. Eduard Alarcon, Prof. Adriano Camps.
• 0-Gravity Flight at NASA Johnson Space Center. RINGS Project. University of Maryland – Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• 2012-2016 Research grant by Thales Alenia Space to research on Space applications of WPT-RIC.
• Tecnova award to Best Technological and Innovative Business Idea (1st prize) for the MSc Thesis in electronic engineering «Wireless Information systems based on Radio Frequency Identification»
• GMV Aerospace & Defense Award to Best Engineering Thesis in Aeronautical field for the MSc Thesis in telecom engineering «Translayer Optimized Co-Design of in-space Wireless Power Transfer Systems».
• Vodafone Foundation Fellowship to attend MIT Space Systems Laboratory.
• Vodafone Foundation Fellowship to attend MIT Space Systems Laboratory.
• ESA Outreach Program Selected Student. Participation at International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, sponsored by ESA. 2006.  Contestant at Space Elevator Games 2006 (X Prize Cup, NASA Centennial Challenge). Las Cruces, New Mexico