Modar Alaoui | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | Fez, Morocco |
Other names | Modar JR Alaoui |
Modar Alaoui is a Moroccan-American serial tech entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, California in the United States.[1] He is mostly known for his work in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Computer Vision technologies. Alaoui is the founder and CEO of Eyeris Technologies, Inc., an artificial intelligence software company for automotive in-cabin sensing AI and sensor fusion technologies inside autonomous vehicles (AV) and highly automated vehicles (HAV).[2]
Alaoui was born in Fez, Morocco and then moved to Montréal to complete his education from HEC Montréal and subsequently from Concordia University.[3] He received an Integrated Marketing Communications degree with a concentration on Human Behavior Understanding (HBU) and User Behavioral Measurement.[4] While at Concordia, Alaoui founded AIM Banking Solutions; a FinTech 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.[5][6]
Alaoui worked for Dell for two years and subsequently joined InVision. Two years later, the company was purchased by AudioVox and Alaoui left the company.[citation needed] In March 2008, he founded Eyeris TV, the first US-based 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.[3] The company won The Innovation and Technology award presented by the Florida Business Expo.[7] In 2011, the company invested in a small R&D project that aimed at developing emotion recognition from facial microexpressions among other face analytics beyond age and gender recognition.[8] After relocating the company to Silicon Valley in 2013, the company adopted Deep Learning techniques based on Artificial Neural Networks for Emotion AI and related face analytics, and then became Eyeris Technologies, Inc.[9]
In early 2014, Alaoui and his team of engineers further developed the technology targeting automotive applications to enhance Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). In June 2014, in Detroit, Michigan, Alaoui publicly announced a driver monitoring system (DMS) that detects driver attention, cognitive awareness and emotional distraction.[10][11]
In 2020, Alaoui introduced the world’s first in-cabin sensor fusion AI solutions at the CES 2020 which was held in Las Vegas, Nevada.[12]
Alaoui's work has been featured and appeared in Bloomberg TV, CNBC TV, Reuters TV, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine.[13]
Alaoui has been a keynote speaker on Ambient Intelligence.[where?][14][15] Alaoui, together with Eyeris have been named award finalists for 9 consecutive years at the TU Automotive Awards in Detroit and have won 4 automotive awards at AutoSens in Brussels and at the Global Automotive Awards including: