Etienne Caron
Tech Founder, Kanastruk Inc.
Montréal, Canada
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Etienne Caron is the technical founder of Kanastruk, an innovation lab specializing in software development, IoT, machine learning, and embedded systems. He has led projects with clients such as Bell Canada and Instacart.
Etienne began his career as a back-end developer in the late nineties, pivoting to mobile development in the early 2010s. He has worked across all tiers of large-scale software platforms, including server, web, mobile, and embedded systems.
• Staff Developer — Shopify e-commerce store management app (1M+ downloads)
• Senior Android Developer — Shopify Hatchful™ Logo Maker (1M+ downloads)
• Android Team Lead — Passwordbox™ password manager (1M+ downloads, acquired by Intel/McAfee)
• Senior Backend Developer — 8D Technologies (Bixi, New York Citi Bikes, London Bike Share; acquired by Lyft)
With over 25 years of experience, Etienne remains an active community mentor, supporting startups, developers, and students. He lives in Montreal with his wife and daughter and is fluent in French and English.
Area of Expertise
Topics
DiY Android Kiosks: Turning a Raspberry Pi into a Modular Workhorse
What happens when you take a Raspberry Pi with a touchscreen, slap Android on it, and bolt it onto an 80/20 aluminum cube? You get a kiosk that does way more than your average locked-down tablet.
I'll show you how to build your own modular Android-based system that plays nice with USB peripherals you wouldn’t normally expect: Think webcams, and servos for automated 3D scanning and photography. We'll see how to stream or record video and audio, process it with ML models, and generate time-stamped work logs.
Add a barcode scanner, a payment terminal, and a scale to verify weights, and suddenly, you’ve got a DIY point-of-sale for pop-up stores, warehouses, or even recycling centers.
Join us for a fun exploration into how Android can be pushed beyond its usual limits, in kiosk mode!
Practical Intro to OpenCV & TensorFlow Lite
There is a growing interest in OpenCV and TensorFlow Lite, mainly due to the hype around LLMs. This talk will guide attendees on how to use these tools on Android and explain the tasks they are best suited for. The presentation is based on real-world experiences of supporting the Caper Cart computer vision (CV) team at Instacart.
We will begin by discussing the fundamental concepts of OpenCV and TensorFlow Lite, followed by their implementation in practical computer vision scenarios. The presentation will offer valuable insights on image and video analysis, object detection, and real-time object tracking, all of which are essential components in the development of the Caper Cart product.
During the discussion, we will talk about the challenges faced during development and the solutions found. We'll also focus on using tools like Perfetto to optimize performance in CV applications.
If you're interested in learning about practical applications of OpenCV and TensorFlow Lite, this talk is for you. I look forward to meeting you!
Building an ML-powered Android Livestreaming App
This presentation explores the application of computer vision and machine learning models for real-time video and audio processing. We'll demonstrate how this technology can enable the creation of a whole new category of live-streaming applications.
Developing a video conferencing application has historically been fairly complex. We will start with a brief overview of the Livekit open-source APIs, showcasing how to build a simple and intuitive video streaming Android application.
Next, we will explore integrating various ML-powered agents into the experience. We will also illustrate how to use reactive programming techniques to create easily understandable and modifiable multi-stage processing pipelines.
Looking forward to exploring this exciting and innovative topic with you!
Web and Android United: Kotlin-Powered Cross-Platform Excellence
Dive into the heart of multiplatform app development in this talk, grounded in my experience building for both Android and the web. I'll reveal how Kotlin, with its powerful Coroutines and Flow, can efficiently handle asynchronous tasks and data streams, enabling seamless code-sharing across platforms.
The session will then focus on building backend processes in a multiplatform environment. We'll examine effective strategies for constructing simple architectures that promote efficient cross-platform development.
Finally, I'll share unique programming patterns I've discovered during my journey. These patterns significantly simplify simultaneous targeting of Android and web platforms. Whether a seasoned developer or a beginner in multiplatform development, this talk will share insights on enhancing your toolkit and development approach.
Off to the Races with Android
With the advent of modern 5G, single digits millisecond network latency is no longer a pipe dream, and on public networks, you can typically get 40ms to 50ms latency. To create buzz around these performance numbers, Bell 5G/MEC Innovation Lab came to us with an exciting project proposition: Create a remote-presence, high-performance model car racing experience for the Montreal Formula One Grand Prix.
We will present our approach to building this unique experience using cutting-edge technologies such as computer vision, machine learning and real-time communication. We'll discuss the technical challenges we faced and our solutions. Our core pillar is an Android phone controlling customized microcontrollers over USB integrating multiple sensors. Supervising the races, an overseeing machine-learning model. We'll also have a rare look into the cell network hardware needed to keep everything responsive and exciting.
This talk should be of interest to Android developers, robotics and IoT enthusiasts, as well as ML specialists looking for novel ways to combine the use of these technologies.
Kotlin likes to Demoparty
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained computer programs that show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. The `scene` has its roots in the home computer revolution of the 80s and is the first digital culture officially accepted as cultural heritage by the UNESCO.
This talk will show how to build a demo using Kotlin. We'll explore the demoscene's rich history and see how to write various effects from the old-school 80s and early 90s to the advent of so-called 'chunky-pixel' effects in the mid-90s. Then, we'll move on to more modern techniques, like procedural content generation and shader code.
We'll close by looking at how you can combine these techniques into a cohesive production and explore how demoscene know-how can be applied to modern app development.
Building Multi-Platform Projects with MVI Architecture
For modern applications, targeting multiple platforms has become table-stakes. That can be an insurmountable challenge for a team working on a project with limited resources. Kotlin Multiplatform is a promising solution to this problem, allowing you to target mobile platforms and the web.
The strength of Kotlin Multiplatform is that it allows you to write _native_ applications, unlike cross-platform frameworks like React-Native and Flutter. While having access to native APIs can lead to a superior user experience, you need to be careful to avoid code duplication.
We've decided to embrace the Kotlin multiplatform approach at my company, convinced it will help us build better quality products. And in this talk, I will show how we've used MVI architecture patterns to help us maximize code sharing.
Kotlin Reactive Programming Patterns
Managing state in client-server applications is challenging. User operations spanning multiple screens, flaky network calls, rolling back stale transactions, offline mode support, the list goes on and on.
Functional-Reactive architectures have become a popular choice over the last few years to solve these types of problems. But, whether you choose MVVM or MVI, Redux or Flux, RxJava or Flow, React over Flutter over Native development, it shouldn't matter. Aren't there some core ideas you could reuse everywhere?
In this session, we'll be focusing on Unidirectional Data Flow, Immutable Data Stores, State Machines, and error handling strategies. Using these core ideas, we'll build a mental toolbox that you can use in your own Kotlin multi-platform projects.
Stately and Composed
Libraries like RxJava, LiveData and Flow have made it easy to build, observe and react to data streams. But the story sours when you try to consume those streams with a static, XML-backed UI.
Jetpack Compose is the missing puzzle piece. We'll soon have an excellent first-party solution that will make it easy to build reactive UIs with dynamic data streams.
In this session, we will explore how Jetpack Compose empowers us to push the envelope of UI and UX interactions. We'll learn about State management, Unidirectional Data Flow, and how Jetpack Compose keeps things efficient while reacting to changes in your application State.
Coroutine + Flow = MVI ❤
Managing state in Android applications can be painful. Over the years, various architectural patterns have evolved to try and tame it: MVC, MVP, and MVVM.
MVI (Model-View-Intent) is an evolution of these patterns. Thanks to Immutable State management and Unidirectional Data Flow, we can finally say goodbye to race conditions and rogue mutations. Combine the power of MVI with Kotlin Coroutines alongside the recently released Kotlin Flows library. The result? Real magic. No RxJava incantations required!
In this session, you'll learn how to build a Model-View-Intent (MVI) Android App, using both Kotlin Coroutines and Kotlin Flows. You'll walk away understanding the core principles of this pattern, as well as its key benefits.
Get ready to fall for MVI❤!
The Urban Mine - Smart Android Shipping Containers for Reuse, Recycling and Recovery
'Urban mining' is the practice of reclaiming valuable resources from the waste stream of cities and organizations.
All over the world, organizations big and small struggle with surplus inventory, including office equipment, furniture, and electronics that inevitably end up as waste. Thanks to laws and enlightened self-interest, more and more organizations try to tackle this problem by adopting the 'Four Rs': Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover. Adopting the 'Four Rs' can be challenging for organizations due to the administrative costs and overhead involved.
My startup is currently developing a smart container system, equipped with embedded Android devices, as part of a platform that automates the surplus inventory lifecycle. These containers track the contents added to them, and can adapt to different reuse, recycling, or recovery scenarios.
This talk will explore the technical challenges of building such an embedded system, including hardware selection, solar power integration, interfacing with sensors, edge-based machine learning, and cloud connectivity solutions.
droidcon NYC 2023 Sessionize Event
AndroidMakers by droidcon 2023 Sessionize Event
KotlinConf 2023 Sessionize Event
droidcon NYC 2022 Sessionize Event
Android Worldwide July 2022 Sessionize Event
droidcon EMEA 2020 Sessionize Event
Android Makers Paris 2020 Sessionize Event
droidcon NYC 2019 Sessionize Event
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