Company
Odia was founded in 2020 by Ekaterina Balnikov and Luc Julia, who shared a passion for the press and access to information in general.
Ekaterina had the idea of a platform that would transform newspaper articles into audio files, along the lines of radio podcasts. It is sometimes difficult to find the time in the day to read a newspaper, so why not listen to it?
But it was after reading an article about Luc Julia, highlighting his expertise in artificial intelligence and speech synthesis, that she told him about her project. Delighted to see one of his old ideas back in the news, he got involved. Back in 2002, when he was in the United States, he had already created a programme that read French newspapers to him while he was in his car in the long Californian traffic jams…
Today, it is this passion, this shared vision and this shared expertise that continue to guide Odia in its mission to reinvent the way we consume information, by letting the voice convey the richness of words.
LUC JULIA
Luc Julia, a leading figure in artificial intelligence and technology, embodies a forward-thinking vision of innovation. As the creator of Siri, Apple’s iconic voice assistant, he helped revolutionise the way we interact with technology. He was CTO at HP and co-founded several start-ups in Silicon Valley, including ORB Netwoks. He began his career at SRI International, where he co-founded the Computer Human Interaction Center and helped create Nuance Communications, now the world leader in speech recognition. A member of the French Academy of Technology, he is the author of the best-selling book “There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence”.
EKATERINA BALNIKOV
Trained as a lawyer, she worked for 12 years in print and digital communications. After 4 years with the Pilipili group (a subsidiary of TF1 and Artemis Média), she joined Geolid, then a leader in digital communications, as Regional Director and National Training Coordinator. She chairs the France AVC association for the Occitanie region.
PHILIPPE JANNET
After many years in key positions in the press (ex-CEO of Le Monde.fr, founder and ex-CEO of Les Echos.fr), this serial entrepreneur is now a coach for managers and organisations and a company founder: he is co-founder of Yaniro, dedicated to coaching start-ups and startuppers.
MATHIEU CAPCARRÈRE
With a financial background focused on innovation management (DESS Innovation Management at IAE Toulouse), he founded and ran IINNOtech – a company specialising in embedded multimedia systems – for 7 years. He was Financial Director of Airborne Systems and Management Controller in the media sector (M6, Sony Music & Milan Presse).
