Vincent Cautaerts

Civil engineer (ULB, Belgium) and PhD in telecommunications engineering (Osaka University, Japan), Vincent Cautaerts is the founder of Cipher Brain. He has a broad experience in programming (Java, PHP, Perl,…) and project organisation. He speaks fluently French, English and Japanese.

Contact

Dr Vincent Cautaerts
Cipher Brain SPRL
927, chaussée de Haecht
1140 Bruxelles
Email: vincent at cipherbrain.be

Professional experience

During my PhD (April 1997-March 2000), I made extensive numerical simulations. To this effect, I wrote programs, libraries to easily reuse the code, post-processing programs, scripts for data extraction, classification and plotting,… All of this was made essentially in C, C++ and Perl.

I’ve then worked from May 2000 to June 2002 for TRW, in the division TRW-ISCS as a consultant. My main projects were:

• E-business site architecture development (mostly in Java)
• E.A.I.(Enterprise Application Integration) implementation auditing and development.
• J.I.T.(Just In Time) Synchronous managing of a factory, in Tcl/Tk.

Since June 2002, I’m an independant consultant. My main projects were/are:

• E-business site maintenance and enhancements, in Java
• Newspaper web site: debugging, maintenance and enhancements of a existing program to syndicate and publish a high volume web site for a newspaper, in Perl.
• Misc. new developpements for the above web site (caching, data handling,…)
• Searches of articles from a newspaper archive, in Java and PHP.
• Archiving of all published articles and pictures, for a newspaper company. In Java.
• ERP (Enterprise ressource planning) with Compiere, to manage the subscriptions at a newspaper company. In Java.

Computer experience

• Main computer languages used: Java, Perl, PHP, Bash, XML and XSL
• Languages extensively used in the past, but not recently: C++, C, Tcl/Tk
• Other computer languages used: Basic, Logo, Assembler, Pascal, Fortran, Lisp, Visual Basic, Javascript, bash
• Broad experience in programming.
• Publications in an computer magazine (about 10 pages)
• Good knowledge of UNIX, and particularly Linux. Good understanding of LaTeX.
• Six years of professional development in server-side Java (see upper)
• Extensive interest and knowledge in open source and free software projects, like Apache (httpd, ant, maven,…), Jakarta (commons, log4j, Lucene, struts, tomcat,…), CVS,…
• Use of different IDE (Integrated Development Environment) depending on project constraints, and team choice (mainly NetBeans and Eclipse).

University

• Civil Engineer in Physics (great distinction) at ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (1991-1996)
• Fifth and last year partly made (6 months) in England, at University of Southampton.
• TFE (”Travail de Fin d’Etude”, about the same as a “Master Thesis”) titled Comparative Study of high bit-rate soliton sources and ultra-short pulses in a stretched-pulse mode-locked Ytterbium laser.
• 6 months of intensive Japanese course at the “International Students Center” of “Osaka University”. (Japan) (1996)
• PhD in “Telecommunication Engineering” at “Osaka University” (Japan) from April 1997 to March 2000. Thesis titled Evaluation and Domain of Applicability of Analytical Methods for Optical Solitons in Dispersion Managed Systems.
• Master in eBusiness at U.L.B (January 2001 to October 2001)

Languages

• Succeeded in TOEFL in April 99 with a score of 660 (more than 97% of the maximum possible:677).
• Good knowledge of Japanese (I have been in Japan from October 1996 to March 2000). I passed the Japanese Proficiency Test, level 2.

Society membership

• Became member of Mensa in 1996.

Secondary education

Classic school ( Latin (6 years), Greek (1 year), Mathematics) in the ‘Lycee Emile Jacqmain’ in Brussels. Special prize ‘Jenny Lagasse’ (for a student gifted in science) of 20.000 BF
I also participated in:

• Some contests (National mathematics Olympiads (7th place), National physics Olympiads (First place, two years), National chemistry Olympiads (4th place), French mathematical games (regional final)).
• Extra scientific courses: ESPOIR:organized by Solvay, ‘Ateliers du Savoir’ organized by ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
• Others courses: Language courses (Dutch and English in Belgium and in England), German courses during one year.
• IBM Challenge (contest oriented to general knowledge). Prize: one IBM PS/1 for the school

Other points

• International physics Olympiads (1990: Groeningen; 1991: Cuba)
• One month in the USA in a scientific laboratory of the University of Berkeley (San Francisco) to make data processing programs.
• Work at Olivetti during one month in 1992 (editorial work of documentation about the network products of Olivetti), and one month at CTS in 1995 (programming under Excel and Access)

Hobbies

I’m very interested in computers, physics and mathematics. I like traveling ( Europe, Cuba, USA, Rumania, Japan (6 weeks + 3.5 years)…)

My favorite sports are swimming, motorbike riding and skiing. I like wind-surfing, diving and sailing too, but I practice those sports only exceptionally. But my favorite time is the one I spend with my friends, whatever we do.