Centrale Méditerranée · DDEFI option · 2026–2027
Machine Learning
We spend hours deriving gradients, yet the course starts elsewhere: the decision someone has to make, the target, the metric, the guard-rails. Only then the maths, checked in code, on a real credit-default score.
- 54 hours in three two-day blocks
- October, December, January
- Taught in French
- Technopôle de Château-Gombert, Marseille
Block 1: the four half-days of 14 and 15 October
Half-day 1: Cadrer avant de modéliser, puis les moindres carrés
Wednesday 14 October 2026 · 08:30–12:30 · on campus
Half-day 2: Vraisemblance, généralisation, lancement du projet
Wednesday 14 October 2026 · 13:30–18:30 · on campus
Half-day 3: Optimisation convexe et régularisation
Thursday 15 October 2026 · 08:30–12:30 · on campus
Half-day 4: Décider sous coût, livrer un dépôt reproductible
Thursday 15 October 2026 · 13:30–18:30 · on campus
The slides open with the session password. On a laptop they display in reading mode with the notes under each slide, so an absent student can follow.
How it works
1
Frame first
Decision, question, target, business metric and model metric, guard-rails, working frame, data pipeline. Before any formula.
2
Derive, then check
Every session starts from a derivation and ends with code that reproduces it and compares it with scikit-learn.
3
One project all the way
A credit-default score on open data, in teams of three: calibrated, thresholded by cost, tested, served behind an API.
4
AI allowed, and declared
For the plumbing, yes. The grade rests on what you can derive and explain without it: 55 % in class, without AI.
The full programme
All 26 sessions, the milestones, the grading grid and the AI policy are on the course companion page, with four field pages: ML in finance, generative AI, the jobs, and the basics in animations.
The lecturer
Sitraka Forler works with data and systems every day in industry (Enterprise System Architect, POST Luxembourg) and teaches at Centrale Méditerranée, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, IAE Metz, the Université Catholique de Lille and Durham University Business School.