A new academic year focused on the three axes of ESSEC's RISE strategy

The Together approach applied to students for a socially-engaged start to the school year!

 

Since 2014, over400 students have attended  lectures and workshops on sustainable development issues, with two weeks of immersion in the Comprendre et Changer le Monde' seminar (find the lecture podcasts here).

Once again this year, inspired by speeches by economic and political decision-makers, over 430 pre-master's students worked together to come up with  concrete recommendations to meet the current challenges of sustainable development, considering both  environmental and social issues . In particular, they participated in a ‘Parcours Climat’ in September, led by Professor Bernard Leca, with the participation of many inspiring people , including Cécile Duflot (E00), Pascal Canfin, Stéphane Crouzat, Mikaël Lemarchand, Jean-Marc Jancovici, Adriana Zacarias Farah, Sébastien Kopp and Farid Baddache.

All  students also worked on the Climate Fresco to raise awareness of the challenges of climate change, and on the Diversity Fresco to understand the mechanisms of discrimination and better combat them.

The master’s and specialized master’s students attended the "Business & Society" seminar, coordinated by Professor Anne-Claire Pache, with presentations by Professor. Radu Vranceanu and Professor Giuseppe Berlingieri. Inspired by moving speeches such as those of Julia Faure, Philippe Zaouati and  Timothée Parrique, over 400 students examined the societal issues applied to companies. They worked in groups to better understand the new responsibilities of companies in society, to identify their impact, to question their practices, and also to better define the role they wish to play as future leaders. 

Start-up Shaker: students immersed in a 30-hour marathon of entrepreneurial experience

With this in mind, 430 pre-master's students, coordinated by Professor Jan Lepoutre, Thomas Fraudet and Lionel Chouraqui, set out for two days to discover entrepreneurship on the Cergy campus in October. Twenty  entrepreneurial coaches, most of them ESSEC alumni, and David Benhaïm (E17), co-founder of the start-up Wethenew, supported and inspired them. ESSEC is strongly committed to its entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem, its courses, its incubation tools and its coaching processes in order to offer its students a unique platform for entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation.

After 30 hours of intensive work, three  winning teams won over the jury with projects at the crossroads of ESSEC's three strategic axes:

- Innovation prize awarded to the "Health" team with its “Memories” project: stimulating the memory of Alzheimer's patients through virtual reality, by recreating their happiest memories in a virtual world

- Prize for eloquence awarded to the "Sport" team with its project “LeasX”: to offer extreme sports equipment rental

- Jury Prize awarded to the "Grande Conso" team for its project 'Glacepillage': transforming yogurts at the end of their shelf life into ice cream to reduce food waste. 

Data Science and Artificial Intelligence among the new year's seminars 

To further their learning, the Metalab inaugurated a new seminar this fall for Data, Technology & Society: "Transforming Organizations through Data & AI", led by Professor Guillaume Chevillon.

Designed and taught by the Onepoint group,  a partner of the Metalab, this seminar aims to help our students navigate the data and artificial intelligence revolution that we’ve seen develop over the last few years. 

This revolution is influencing all of our lives, and it is essential that all ESSEC graduates understand its foundations and understand the stakes.

Students were given an introduction to the fundamentals of data, followed by workshops on the challenges of data at the heart of the 4th industrial revolution and on automatic language processing. They also discussed issues related to security and protection as well as responsible digital technology and its ethical and societal challenges.