Marwa Kechaou: A Keen Eye for Computer Vision

With a PhD in machine learning and a specialization in computer vision, Marwa has done deep learning projects across several industries and is currently at Alohi, a Switzerland-based startup with 4 million users of document solutions like Sign.Plus, Fax.Plus and Scan.Plus. In this episode, she describes her journey from formal studies to hands-on work in industry, to her present role as a primary engineer at Alohi. The conversation also touches on what it’s like to maintain a connection to a top university as a Research Fellow, while also working full-time at a startup. Marwa also discusses the challenge of staying current on new developments, because many papers have only marginal value, which makes it hard to quickly identify the important ones. The conversation concludes with a discussion about emerging technologies that Marwa considers to be quite promising in her field, especially diffusion models and LLM foundational vision models.