Modar Alaoui is a Moroccan-American serial tech entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, California in the United States.[1] 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]
Early life
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]
Career
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 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:
2015: TU Automotive Awards finalist in the Best Commercial Vehicle System Integrator, the Best Safety or ADAS Solution and the Best Industry Newcomer categories.[16]
2017: TU Automotive Awards winner in the Best Connected Service or Product for Commercial Market for driver and occupants monitoring AI category.[17]
2018: TU Automotive Awards finalist in the Best Auto Mobility Product or Service and the Best Connected Product or Service categories.[18]
2019: TU Automotive Awards finalist in the Best Auto Mobility Product/Service and the Best Data/A.I. Product/Service categories.[19]
2019: AutoSens Silver Awards winner in the Best Automotive Safety System and the Most Innovative In-Cabin Application categories.[20]
2020: Informa Tech Automotive Awards finalist in the Best Automotive AI Product of the Year Mobility Product/Service category.[21]
2020: Global Automotive Awards winner in the Best AV In-Cabin Sensor Innovator category.[22]
2021: Informa Tech Automotive Awards winner in the Cockpit of the Future Product/Service of the Year category.[23]
2021: Informa Tech Automotive Awards finalist in the Startup of the Year, Automotive Tech Company of the Year, and Cockpit of the Future Product/Service of the Year categories.[24]
2022: AutoSens Award finalist in the Most Novel Research Award category.[25]
2022: Informa Tech Automotive Award finalist in the Cockpit of the Future Product/Service of the Year and the Automotive AI Product/Service of the Year categories.[26]
2023: Informa Tech Automotive Award finalist in the Software Supplier of the Year and the Automotive Cockpit of the Future categories.[27]
