ACP Summer School 2023

From July 10 to July 14, I attended the ACP Summer School 2023 about Machine Learning for Constraint Programming which took place in Leuven. The summer school offered a wide range of talks and hands-on sessions on the use of Machine Learning for Constraint Programming.

The program was oriented for researchers in constraint solving (constraint programming, knowledge representation, SAT/SMT solving and more) and those at the intersection of constraint solving and machine learning. As a power systems engineer, it was sometimes challenging to understand all the subtleties of the different talks. Fortunately, the numerous hands-on sessions were the perfect opportunity to deeply understand the topic and anchor knowledge. I discovered the world of Decision Focus Learning thanks to the talk of Elias Khalil and Michele Lombardi. They will surely inspire my future work.

One of the highlights of the summer school was the poster session and its walking diner. It is always so enriching to discuss with other about their own research and experience. I presented my work about Pumped Hydro Energy Storage and our latest results. My poster is accessible here.

I particularly liked the dynamism of the organization team lead by Tias Guns which prepared plenty of activities and made us discover Leuven. It is a splendid city with historical buildings at every corner and excellent museum named M. I highly recommend you visit if you ever have the opportunity.

As you can see in the picture below, we all had to think very hard (but with style) during the whole week!

*photo by H. Verhaeghe