EAGER TO LEARN AND A HARD WORKER, THOUGH NOT GIFTED
Foremost, Hugo is a hard worker and he is eager to learn.
The subject: ‘CCTV record pictures and analyse them. Yet storing data on a cloud server is expensive and the idea would be to create a technological alternative.’
He was strongly supported by his professors and thesis supervisors.
An operational prototype was soon created and it was a success for Hugo, the team who carried out the research, and the whole Lab.
20 April 2018: Hugo was allowed to defend his thesis by his supervisor Samy Meftali, a young professor, aged 40, with whom Hugo has a great relationship. The thesis took place in the Cristal Lab of Lille.
Olivier Colot, Professor and Head of the Cristal Lab was astonished by the fact that the thesis had been completed in just 13 months but also by the calm, peacefulness and ease of Hugo.
So Hugo completed his thesis in just 13 months when it normally requires three years. ‘Yet Hugo speaks as if everything was normal, without any sign of arrogance and he has a way to put everything in perspective,’ so explain his supervisors. Hugo claims gladly:
• « I consider myself as a regular student »
• « About Law, he says: ‘It’s very useful for our daily life to know what we are or are not allowed to do’ »
• « It requires a lot of work but I was lucky, during my studies to be supported by my two aunts that are both doctors. Still I have the time to do other activities outside my studies.»
Research
He chose Oxford to follow the path of his aunt Florence and also because it remains the best university in the world.He studied Law because he would like to be a lawyer just like his mentor Joseph Cohen Sabban who is a criminal lawyer that he knows personally.
Hugo loves research for ’ the freedom it gives us, the power to go further with the solutions that already exist and to try to adapt them to our problem’.
Online course
He speaks English fluently because the courses he followed in Lausanne were in English.
Yet Hugo does not consider himself as a gifted child, and as a matter of fact, he never took any test to confirm it. ‘It requires a lot of work but I was lucky, during my studies, to be supported by my two aunts that are both doctors. Still I have the time to do other activities outside my studies.’
He chooses to study law because, since the EPFL does not allow the reduction of an academic curriculum, he thinks he can, in this way, follow a second curriculum by distance learning.
IT
At the end of his master at the EPFL, a small project gave him the opportunity to do research, so he applied to Lille.He chose Lille for its big campus, the quality of their publications in his area of interest which gave him the motivation to write a thesis on a subject that he likes: IT Cyber-security.
In addition, he chose Lille because he was missing France, his homeland.
Willingness to learn
‘I have always been eager to learn and studying is a great opportunity’, explains Hugo.He will continue his research related to Cyber-security in Oxford.
He wants to offer new solutions to the industrial world.
He still considers being a lawyer later, ‘I am always open to opportunities. I have time to finish my research.’
No Privileges
He always made decisions about his studies after analysing each situation, whether it was related to his family or his opportunities.Furthermore, his decisions were always made with a great sense of objectivity which proves that this young man managed succeeded not because of some privileges but thanks to his eagerness to learn.
He chose the EPFL in Lausanne because his family has been working in the IT sector for 12 years in Switzerland.