I grew up in a Parisian family where art was valued above all else. I initially studied classics but despite my love for literature, I soon felt restless. As Tesla announced the Roadster and 23andme began commercialising DNA-kits, I could not help thinking that I was not in the place I wanted to be.
The barriers to study science/tech were numerous in France with most universities requiring advanced maths credits. I dropped out of my course to study business, with a growing interest for entrepreneurship. I discovered the works of Kahneman and Nassim Taleb and spent countless hours reading about decision-making, risk-taking or reinforcement learning.
I graduated with an avid curiosity and a drive to learn more about the factors that drive human behaviour. I was admitted to the University of Cambridge in neuroscience. To finance my degree, I deferred entry and worked in the risk department of a large investment bank. This experience was key in developing my interest in data analytics and cybersecurity.
This interest was reinforced throughout my studies and during my PhD at the Sanger Institute where I discovered the excitement and caveats of scientific research. I observed that one of the biggest obstacle to progress was a lack of access to relevant data. The process to collect and access information was often slow, static and costly.
This was the beginning of Heterogeneous. My co-founders and I developed a dynamic platform that connects individuals with genetic data directly to the researchers. From the development of the platform to the launch of the first study, I was thrown in at the deep end.
Web and back-end development, growth hacking, pitching: we were on every front. Heterogeneous is my first venture and there is a lot more I want to achieve within the company. I am becoming increasingly passionate about the ethics of data ownership and the power of intelligent analytics and hope to extend the success of the platform to other type of data integration in the future.
