To enhance innovation within scientific areas and experience transforming a research project into a marketable product, the University of Paris-Saclay launched a 4-day training course entitled "Boost your entrepreneurial spirit!". Researchers and students from diverse fields and countries worked as a team on eleven research projects on health and the environment.
Out of more than 100 applications, 26 candidates had been accepted for the course through a competitive selection process. The participants attended the EUGLOH workshop from December 12-15, 2022, taking place at UPSaclay’s design center Design Spot and their graduate engineering school CentraleSupélec as well as at the research center Genopole. The wide variety of sessions included interactive workshops, testimonies by renowned experts, round tables with entrepreneurs, student presentations, competition of pitch decks, and visits to incubators. All of these formats focused on the constant dialogue between trainees and experts in the form of questions and answers based on real case studies.
Throughout the intensive training, students had the opportunity to acquire new skills and competencies such as design thinking canvas models, entrepreneurial mindset, market exploration, written and oral communication as well as team working. Additionally, the pitch competition challenged students to solve distinct health and environmental problems. The jury chose the “Building Assessment Software and Engineering Services (BSafe)” project by Amir Tavallaie Nejad, Leticia Carvalho Moreira Dafico, Suherman Suherman, and Achmad Hidayatullah for its innovative and valuable competencies in integrated data, data analysis, and inspection reports on safety issues. The developed prototype built by these students stood out for evidencing the use of the skills learned during the first three days of the training program.
Left picture: December 12, 2022 - Visit to the Paris-Saclay cluster’s shared technology incubator and presentation by its CEO Arielle Santé.
Right picture: December 15, 2022 – Visiting Genopôle. Meetings with startups and entrepreneurs.