Toulouse is a magnificent and hot city in the summer. And a great one to meet fellow PhD students from around the world! I was able to join the young game theory community in southern France, learning more about contract theory, prophet inequalities/online optimization, and signaling games.
- Paul Dütting introduced contracts, a game-theoretical model of a sequential-move game where one player hires another one for getting a job done. How can contracted people be motivated to assert effort?
- Jose Correa gave a lecture on prophet inequalities and online learning in general. You might have heard of the “secretary problem” before, but there is much more …
- Penélopé Hernandez and Tristan Tomala dived deeper into signaling games with us. These games are mostly characterized by the idea of a sender (who has private information) and a receiver, who needs to take an action based on the information that the sender provides.
The associated workshop gave me, fellow PhD students, and researches from the community the opportunity to present their latest findings. I was very happy sharing my work on Bandit algorithms in games and disucssingmy findings with experienced and curious like-minded.
Aside from the summer school and workshop, I had the pleasure to meet fellow PhD students with whom I met every evening. It is fascinating how quickly strangers can grow into friends!