In 2017, when the research program was launched, Hugo Bouquet was 30 years old, a member of the team at AES Chemunex, a Breton company acquired by the Lyon-based group in 2011, and had been running the design office and its 20 employees for three years. Young and already in a position of responsibility, he had an unconventional academic background behind him, which showed his character: “I had a first Baccalauréat S, but during my final year, I realized that my record wasn't good enough to do what I wanted to do. I took my baccalaureate again to improve my record and gain in maturity”.

After that, Hugo Bouquet went on to take a DUT in electrical engineering and industrial computing in Rennes, and a sandwich course at the Ecole Supérieure d'Électronique de l'Ouest-ESEO in Angers, before being hired by AES as the first design engineer in charge of electronics. This R&D position, based in Ker Lann, on the Bruz site near Rennes, was an innovative one. “Right from the start, there was everything I'm passionate about: people and exploring potential”. With this dynamic in mind, Hugo Bouquet has always worked passionately “to find solutions”, and has made his home in Brittany... 

With his wife Maud, also in the health sector, he became the father of three children, while continuing to invest in sport and supporting young people. This spirit, which has inspired him from the outset, has grown stronger over the years... “I try to talk to my 8-year-old daughter, to explain to her what I'm doing, so that it makes sense”. For example, he credits his father with playing a role, as he was a mechanical engineering teacher who talked about robotics.

For Hugo, meaning is also about finding alignment within ourselves and with others: “I work in the diagnostics sector. And when I hear of product recalls because of contamination that can have dramatic consequences, particularly on children, on babies... I tell myself that there's still work to be done and that our work is not neutral.”.

For years, between 2017 and 2021, Hugo Bouquet has been searching and groping. Augmented Diagnostics, this revolutionary approach, emerged “after meeting our customers for a year and a half to understand their problems, not their needs! If we'd asked them what they needed, they wouldn't have known how to respond,” he explains. "It's like the mobile phone.... At the time, before it was created, people explained that they needed more wire length”. Augmented Diagnostics is this same shift in thinking, “it's the transition to another dimension”, from traditional diagnostics to a synergy between expertise, data and genomics.

Hugo Bouquet also recalls that the adventure of designing Augmented Diagnostics began with “the Covid period which, from an initial constraint paralyzing all the dynamics in place, created new opportunities” and the industrialists who opened their doors to understand what was going on in their factories. “The situation was very tense during the pandemic, with staff restrictions, health constraints... We had to think differently”. 

To find solutions, Hugo Bouquet and his colleagues decided to reinforce the team with new skills in bio-computing and genomics. “And right from the start, it worked. For us, it was the green light!”