After years of publishing papers on sentiment analysis and emotion detection with the Language and Translation Technology Team (LT3), we were ready for a bigger challenge. We decided to launch a new project with the aim of bridging the gap between research results and current sentiment analysis tools on the market. We needed a very specific profile for this. Someone like Ellen.
Els Lefever
Head of LT3 (UGent), Co-founder and advisor AlfaSent
Under Els and Veronique's supervision I started creating high-quality prototypes of machine learning models that could analyse any type of customer feedback: reviews, surveys, chat messages, social media posts and more. We also performed tests on data our partners provided and outperformed the commercial systems they were using. The results were so impressive that we decided to create a spin-off.
Ellen De Geyndt
Co-founder AlfaSent
Ellen participated in the Ghent University incubator programme Expedition DO! to take this project to the next level. She refined the business plan, started talking with stakeholders, and found partners to create a customer-facing dashboard. In February 2024, we officially founded AlfaSent. Ellen runs the operations, while Els and I are proud advisors.
Veronique Hoste
Department Head VTC (UGent), Co-founder and advisor AlfaSent
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