Son of a professor of macroeconomics, Jean-Baptiste Kempf attended the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, passed a scientific baccalaureate, studied in a preparatory class for the Grandes Ecoles and then joined the École Centrale Paris in September 2003. He graduated in 2006 , specializing in IT and Telecommunications. He began his work on VideoLAN, a second year study project at the École centrale, and on VLC in 2003. He got involved in the VIA Centrale Réseaux association as vice-president, which works at the improvement of the computer network of the students. To give the project independence vis-à-vis the École centrale, in 2008 he founded the VideoLAN association, of which he has been president since. In 2012, he created the company Videolabs which sells services around VLC and financially supports the development of the software4. In September 2020, he was appointed Chief Technology Officer at Blade, replacing Arnaud Lamy. When Blade was taken over by OVHcloud in 2021, he was relieved of his duties as technical director. In 2022, he became a member of the Board of Directors of Weytop, a French Cloud PC company.