Who Is Laurent Barme?
17/05/2019
Photo July 2024
Like most people today, one can get an idea of the answer to this question by browsing the trace they leave on the internet, intentionally or not. But here, you will find the only authorized and authentic source of information about Laurent Barme.
So, who is Laurent Barme? In one word, he’s an informartist—a current trend is to create new words by merging others, but in this case, it’s perfectly fitting :-)
Passionate about computing since his encounter with an hp 25 in 1980, he sold his first program (for backing up programs in the form of barcodes for the hp 41) in 1984, which he imagined, designed, and implemented entirely on his own.
Self-taught out of necessity at a time when computer science training was almost nonexistent, he nonetheless earned an Electrical Engineering degree in 1990 (top of the computer science option at ESIGELEC), a DEA (equivalent to a Master’s today) in fundamental computer science in 1992, and completed his education with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Science and Technology in Lille in 1996, with honors, on “Sound in Computer Systems for Cooperative Work.”
Laurent Barme remained active during his studies on diverse topics, with computing as the common thread:
- 1988:
- design and implementation of software to assist in analyzing laboratory experiments on PC,
- printing information from an Oracle database on an IBM AS 400 using SQL,
- 1989: design and development of a system for archiving automation programs with dBase III+ and C on PC,
- 1988 - 1989: Initiator and coordinator of a computer and electronics project:
- design and implementation of a Videotex server running on a PC and managing up to 16 Minitels,
- leading a team of about ten engineering students,
- deploying the system at the Salon de l'Etudiant, the Marathon International Jeanne d'Arc, and the Voiles de la liberté (the first gathering of tall ships in Rouen),
- 1990: three-month engineering internship in England, enhancing the work of a technical support service, implemented in C under Unix, transferring data from Unix to PC, and creating charts on PC.
He then held the following salaried positions:
- 1990 - 1991: Development engineer for the maintenance and evolution of software for real-time management and display of financial information on workstations in C under Unix and Xwindows (Xview toolkit).
- 1992 - 1996: Teaching Researcher in Computer Science at the University of Lille (as a monitor, then ATER):
- 7 publications in scientific conference proceedings,
- design, implementation, and evaluation of an experimental computer-assisted audioconferencing system: ergonomics, object-oriented programming, C++, Windows NT, multimedia, client/server systems (TCP/IP),
- setup and administration of a server and a fleet of Windows NT workstations,
- teaching Pascal and Scheme (a LISP dialect) in undergraduate courses,
- design and teaching of an Internet course in continuing education,
- teaching a course on architecture and networks in continuing education,
- supervising six interns.
- 1997 - 2001: Project manager in Paris:
- defining and monitoring schedules, budget management, subcontractor oversight, client relations,
- expert in train movement management: monitoring and coordinating developments (C++, Unix, Windows NT, Excel 97 / VBA),
- user training (including a notable one for defining metro schedules between Lantau and Hong Kong),
- R&D specifications and support for proposals.
- 2001 - 2007: Project manager, then project director in Roubaix:
- interface between clients and commercial, technical, and administrative services,
- implementation of commercial management software in central offices and stores (Windows, SQL),
- training and complex maintenance operations,
- hierarchical supervision of five project managers.
Since 2008, Laurent Barme has held all positions (each part-time) in the company he founded in Lille. An overview is presented in the form of an organizational chart…
That covers the computer scientist side; there’s also the artist side. Since 2017, Laurent Barme has had access through a fablab in Lille to a range of professional machines, some computer-controlled. This has allowed him to finally capitalize on his initial training in industrial design from preparatory classes for grandes écoles and, above all, to fulfill his creativity through tangible, useful objects, a glimpse of which can be found on the blog dedicated to this part of his activity.
The two activities of Laurent Barme, as a computer scientist and an artist, share the design and implementation of innovative, carefully tailored projects with no equivalent in common, off-the-shelf products.
Both activities follow the same approach: using generic tools or basic functions that, taken individually, remain sterile but, when skillfully and methodically combined, lead to exceptional results.