How Nassim Barhoumi turned curiosity into real-world AI experience
Experience Ventures helped a computer science student build confidence and a working product
The gap between theory and practice was becoming impossible for Nassim Barhoumi to ignore.
As a computer science student at Université de Montréal, he enjoyed problem-solving and coding, but his academic experience left him wanting an opportunity to work on something more tangible.
That opportunity arrived in the form of an unexpected email.
“I saw ‘Experience Ventures’,” Barhoumi recalls. “I had no idea what that was.”
Experience Ventures is a program powered by the Hunter Hub of Entrepreneurial Thinking at the University of Calgary and funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Initiative (I-WIL). The program’s goal is to enable college and university students to practice entrepreneurial thinking alongside real-world innovators.
The email led Barhoumi to a posting at ManipAI — a company helping businesses transform by providing them with tailor-made AI solutions. Intrigued, he applied and was rewarded with an 80-hour work placement.
He joined ManipAI as part of a small student team working on a computer vision use case for the moving industry. Using AI to analyze user-submitted photos, the system needed to identify household objects, estimate the volume they would take up, and recommend an appropriate moving truck.
It was a project that pushed Barhoumi well beyond what he had learned in class. While he was comfortable coding, computer vision was new territory. Mentorship made the learning curve more manageable, as he worked directly with ManipAI co-founder Primous Pomalegni, who supervised the project.
“He knows a lot about programming and AI,” Barhoumi says. “When I had a question, he would answer instantly.”
As a mentor, Pomalegni intentionally gives students autonomy while staying closely involved.
“They were autonomous because I like the fact they can do whatever idea they want to implement,” he explains. “But I was there to help them to get to their ideas and find good tools to develop.”
“At the end we had a product that I could use on my PC and on my phone,” Barhoumi says. “I went on my phone, I took pictures of my fridge and it would estimate the volume of it. It was amazing to see something real come out of the project.”
For Pomalegni, that outcome was a big success.
“My goal was to develop a use case that we can show to maybe our future client to show them what we can do,” he says.
The application was deployed to the cloud and became part of ManipAI’s demonstration portfolio. Barhoumi adds that one of his most valuable takeaways was non-technical.
“I think a big part of working in a company is communication,” he reflects.
Pomalegni noticed that growth as well.
“If they had a problem or a coding problem they communicated about it with me,” he says, noting that he appreciated how the students learned to troubleshoot before escalating. “They would think about another way to manage the issue before talking to me.”
Outside of the office, Pomalegni invited Barhoumi to attend Demo Day, where startups present their work and ideas.
“The event inspired me to even start my own startup,” Barhoumi says. “I’ve always wanted to work in AI. This is what I want to do in the future.”
Looking back, Barhoumi is direct about what he’d tell other students who see an Experience Ventures email land in their inbox.
“You’re going to meet great people. You’re going to learn a lot and you’re going to have something to show people in the future.”
Pomalegni says the value flows both ways.
“It’s a good opportunity for them to have a first experience that they can put on their resume. And I learn a lot from them too.”