Jean-Christophe Baillie

Timeline

1. By 2010

   Sorbonne PhD and ENSTA lab

   By 2010, he completes a PhD in artificial intelligence and robotics at Sorbonne University while working with Luc Steels at Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris. He studies computer science and theoretical physics at École Polytechnique and establishes ENSTA ParisTech's Cognitive Robotics Lab. His developmental AI research investigates how intelligence develops through interaction with the physical and social world, and produces urbiscript, a programming language for robots.

2. 2006

   URBI and Gostai

   In 2006, he founds Gostai to develop URBI for robot programming. The Urbi SDK uses urbiscript, a domain-specific language to orchestrate its components.

3. 2010

   Events in urbiscript

   In 2010, he coauthors “Events! (Reactivity in urbiscript)” with Akim Demaille, Quentin Hocquet and Matthieu Nottale. The paper describes reactive, event-based programming in urbiscript for the Urbi SDK.

4. 2012

   An AI lab at SoftBank

   SoftBank Robotics Europe acquires Gostai in 2012. He founds its AI lab to continue research on developmental AI and language evolution.

5. 2014

   Novaquark and Dual Universe

   In 2014, he founds Novaquark and creates Dual Universe, a persistent online world in which players build economies, politics and cities. He explores simulations of online civilizations and tools for self-organizing governance through the game.

6. 2018

   Grounding Perception

   In 2018, he coauthors “Grounding Perception: A Developmental Approach to Sensorimotor Contingencies.” The paper proposes a developmental framework for robots to acquire sensorimotor contingencies.

7. As of October 2026

   Developmental Labs and Imagine

   As of October 2026, he directs Developmental Labs, which he founded, and serves as Principal Scientist at Imagine All The People. He contributes simulation architecture and cognitive models used to query synthetic populations.