SPIE Innovathon 2021: three prizes for the industry of tomorrow

Paris, 20 October 2021 - SPIE ICS and the Industrie division of SPIE Industrie & Tertiaire, French subsidiaries of the SPIE group, the independent European leader in multi-technical services in the areas of energy and communications, held the third Innovathon on the "industry of tomorrow" from 15 to 17 October. Three particularly innovative projects on improving energy efficiency and digital transformation in industries emerged.

Three days to anticipate the industrial challenges of tomorrow

"This year's Innovathon saw attendees work on 6 innovative projects enabling manufacturers to address the challenges of Industry 4.0, based around three main pillars: automation, digitisation and CSR," explains Emmanuel Houdaille, Innovation Director at SPIE ICS.

With 15 mentors (experts, senior managers, sales managers) from a wide range of backgrounds (SPIE, ADEME, Solvay, Energie IP, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Bretagne-Sud) on hand, 93 participants (freelancers, startuppers, students, entrepreneurs, SPIE staff members) were first split into multi-disciplinary teams. After pitching their ideas, they were then given 54 hours to design innovative solutions dedicated to the industry of tomorrow.

"These three days were particularly useful and fostered great intellectual rivalry. The participants showed a great deal of creativity and pragmatism and were successful in designing and presenting their very inspiring projects," reports Millàn Michelin-Jamois, Innovation & Energy Efficiency Manager within the Industrie division of SPIE Industrie & Tertiaire.

Prizes were awarded based on five criteria: innovation, technical feasibility, execution and design, business potential, and environmental and societal responsibility. The jury consisted of five members:

- Xavier Daubignard, Managing Director of SPIE ICS
- Corinne Figuereo, Director of Innovation and Transformation at SPIE France
- Millàn Michelin-Jamois, Innovation & Energy Efficiency Manager within the Industrie division of SPIE Industrie & Tertiaire
- Frédéric Le Mouël, Director of the CITI Laboratory and Professor at INSA Lyon
- Philippe Guillouzic, Digital Transformation Project Manager at ADEME

The winners presented projects that contribute very directly to the changes in the industry of tomorrow:

- First prize: Akanthas: an AI-based digital solution for identifying reuse opportunities for professional waste.
- Second prize: Hub: a platform that promotes a greener future by connecting businesses, creating partnerships and challenges to promote re-employment.
- Third prize: Datapragma: a digital tool that provides and guarantees reliable, quality and clean data to give more autonomy to business experts.

"Accessing industry experts who are facing real problems has brought us a lot of value. This Innovathon has enabled us to accelerate the development of a new functionality that identifies reusable material. The next step is to work on data collection with field experiments, to then launch this new offer", say Viviana Contreras and Nicolas Jaouen, members of the winning Akanthas team.

The success of this third Innovathon bolsters SPIE France's conviction in the method and clear interest in sharing expertise and building together. The jury pays tribute to all the participants, especially the mentors who coached the very creative teams and helped them to progress in a very short time. They all contributed to the success of this third edition.