My name is Philippe Desjardins-Proulx and I come from Quebec (Canada). I’m a francophone and it’s always fun to hear people try to pronounce my name. Hint: like many French words, it has tons of silent letters to
foul you.

I’m interested in science, technology, programming, languages and a bunch of other stuff. Right now I’m doing a Ph.D. on Artificial Intelligence. I’m trying to build a hybrid A.I. to analyse the evolution of viruses (and biodiversity in general). Of course that’s just a cover, like most people in the field I hope to build an Evil A.I. and blackmail the world government for billions, only to be killed by my own creation. If you tell me the Earth is 6000 years old and evolution is a lie, I’ll grow big, green, angry, acknowledge our divergence of opinion and respectfully suggest that we discuss something else.

As for Japan and the Japanese language: I did a single university course, which means I don’t know much beyond basic words and hiragana/katakana. I would like to go to Japan for a few months/years after I graduate. Japan has a very strong tradition in evolution and A.I., it would be nice to experience another culture. Also I love the language.

Cheers!