The EFELIA - MIAI(2) project is the MIAI Institute's response to the “Skills and Professions of the Future - Artificial Intelligence” call for expressions of interest, the aim of which is to expand the range of training courses available in artificial intelligence. It is part of a joint programme to create a French AI school, proposed by the network of four 3IA institutes (Interdisciplinary Institutes for Artificial Intelligence): MIAI in Grenoble, 3IA Nice Côte d'Azur in Nice, PRAIRIE in Paris and ANITI in Toulouse.
The project, named EFELIA - MIAI, brings together a number of partners,(3) including Grenoble INP - UGA and UGA, the main partners, and will be funded by the French government to the tune of €6.4 million, of which €2 million will go to Grenoble INP and €3.6 million to UGA. “Since it was set up in 2019, the MIAI Institute, through its Training department, which brings together around fifteen training components, has developed various initiatives at Master's and Engineering degree level in Grenoble that have doubled the number of students trained in AI”, explains Jean-Louis Roch, faculty member at Grenoble INP - Ensimag and project leader. “Unfortunately, due to a lack of external resources, we have reached our limits, particularly in terms of human resources, and we see this new call for tenders as an opportunity to shift up a gear and continue developing the MIAI Institute's AI training offer.”
By drawing on the environment and expertise of the local 3IA, the project will in particular extend AI teaching to all levels: from the undergraduate level (Licence, BUT) to vocational training and lifelong learning, via Master’s degrees and Doctorates. To achieve this, teaching aids and platforms will be set up to train teachers of all subjects who want to incorporate AI into their lessons. “These will be local initiatives that can be rolled out on a national scale, such as open platforms with shared computing resources, MOOCs, acculturation modules, and so on. Around twenty teaching engineers will be specially recruited over 5 years to provide support.”
Among the initiatives planned are MOOCs, which will be developed by the four 3IA institutes, two of which will be piloted by MIAI: “Automatic Language Processing” and “Frugal AI”. And the expansion of FIDLE, an online training course on Deep Learning which is already attracting more than 17,000 views a month. Activities to raise awareness of artificial intelligence among secondary school pupils are also being developed in partnership with the Campus des Métiers et des Compétences (CMQ). Finally, a certification course for executive AI technicians has been set up for audiences with little technical training.
1- Calls for expressions of interest, Skills and Professions of the Future
2- Institut MIAI Grenoble Alpes (Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence)
3- The partners in the EFELIA - MIAI project are Grenoble INP - UGA and UGA, but also, to a lesser extent, ENSAG - UGA, SciencesPo - UGA and GEM. The Campus des Métiers et des Qualifications (CMQ) and the Campus du Numérique Alpes (CNA) are also involved in the project, as are almost 90 companies.
