Archives EPFL
A review of Parisian newspaper archives by EPFL’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (LIA) has turned up some astonishing discoveries. Among them, we now know that reinforced concrete was developed in Lausanne by a previously unknown daughter of Gustave Eiffel – who also turned out to be EPFL’s first female student.
Data mining can sometimes yield incredible surprises. By cross-referencing genealogical data, an archive of Parisian tabloids from the late 19th century and old EPFL enrollment records, an AI algorithm developed at LIA, within EPFL’s School of Computer and Communication Sciences, came up with a real scoop: EPFL’s very first female student actually graduated in 1903, but disguised as a man! What’s more she was a real celebrity: Gustave’s previously unknown daughter, born in 1879.