Organised on ESILV’s campus on October 4th, the Digital and Innovation Day hackathon gathered 125 students. All of them worked on issues submitted by partner companies in the fields of IoT, Artificial Intelligence, virtual reality, chatbots and personalisation.
ESILV engineering students, used to working on real-life cases, put their specific skills at the service of cross-disciplinary teams.
Providing multinationals with digital solutions
Organised by ESILV, French business school IESEG and De Vinci FabLab, this one-day hackathon had over a hundred students from various higher education institutions work together : ESILV, IESEG, Epitech, Institut Mines Télécom and École Polytechnique.
Five multinationals partnered on this one-of-a-kind event: bank Crédit Agricole, hospitality group AccorHotels, real estate company Nexity, BicGroup and cosmetic company Talika.
All of them submitted issues for students to work on:
- Crédit Agricole: IoT opportunities in banking
- Nexity: a chatbot for customers
- AccorHotels: AI and VR: what applications in hospitality?
- Talika: prototyping a connected cosmetic app
- BicGroup: personalisation
What does a cross-disciplinary hackathon look like?
English subtitles available.
Think, make and pitch
Organised in cross-disciplinary teams mixing business schools and engineering schools, the students had a few hours only to present a solution at the end of the day. Brainstorming, decisions, preparation of the final pitch and Q/A time…
Throughout the whole process, all teams were supported by professional coaches from Oracle, Accenture, Total, Orange, Cap Gemini to name but a few.
In the late afternoon, teams pitched their solutions for each issue in front of jurys. The best teams were awarded and may see their digital and innovative solutions used by the partner companies. The day ended by a networking cocktail.
Learning by doing
All throughout their five-year course in the Parisian engineering school, ESILV students work on concrete projects. Hackathons, serious games, masterclasses…
The learning by doing mode is central in ESILV’s educational approach. Projects not only allow students to put theory into practice, they also enhance soft skills. Future engineers are expected to graduate with hard skills but also with interpersonal competencies such as teamwork, leadership, reflexivity…
ESILV shares one campus with business school EMLV and digital school IIM. Cross-discipline is part of the three schools’ DNA and shows in the various common projects. Future graduates will enter their careers with a solid collaboration experience with individuals from different professional backgrounds.
“My group is working on the issue submitted by Nexity: that is the creation of a chatbot for customer service. As an engineer, I was able to bring technical knowledge to define whether or not the solutions we came up with were possible or at least feasible within the short amount of time we had during this one-day hackathon”. Brice Parilusyan, ESILV, Class of 2020
Design thinking, a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to problem solving does benefit from this kind of profile mixity. It proved efficient during the Digital and Innovation day hackathon.
Interested in studying in a French engineering school? Find out more about the Master’s Programme at ESILV, engineering school in Paris.
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