David Louapre: pursuing scientific outreach through video game development

Perimeter Institute alumni have gone on to a wide variety of role after leaving the Institute. David Louapre’s journey has taken him to places he himself didn’t expect. He is now the Scientific Director at one of the largest video game companies in the world, and runs an enormously successful French-language YouTube channel that teaches scientific concepts in engaging ways. We sat down with David to learn more about his journey.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What is your current role, and how are you trying to push boundaries in your field?

I am the Scientific Director at Ubisoft, one of the biggest video game companies. I'm helping with the integration of science and artificial intelligence (in particular, large language models) into the game mechanics of video games.

What brought you to where you are now?

Surprisingly, I got many professional opportunities thanks to something I did in parallel to my industrial career : my YouTube channel "Science étonnante", which has now almost 1.5 M subscribers and brings science to a broad audience.

What are you passionate about?

I've always been passionate about the transmission of science, and education in general. I felt that internet videos were a wonderful way to engage the general public (and in particular young people) into STEM. I then realized that video games could have an even bigger impact because of their appeal, and the fact that in a video game you have to act and decide, which is a great way to learn problem solving and the scientific method.

How has your work impacted your industry and community?

I believe the biggest impact is what I've done with my YouTube channel, which has almost 1.5M subscribers and some videos have been seen more than 2M times. I'm especially proud of the fact that "only" 70% of my audience is in France. I got a lot of viewers from other French-speaking countries, of course, Canada and Belgium, but especially in Africa. I also receive a lot of testimonies from students who tell me they got attracted to science thanks to my channel.

How do you give back to your community?

When I decided to leave academia after my PhD, I was considering both becoming a teacher and becoming a researcher in industry. I've chose the industrial career, but I've always felt a bit guilty about not giving back to youth and students all the wonderful knowledge I was lucky to acquire thanks to my teachers from high school to university. I believe that with my YouTube channel, I had more impact than if I had chosen to be a teacher. So I feel in hindsight it was the best way to give back to the community what I was lucky to receive.