At EDHEC, a day dedicated to innovation in all its forms

Highlighting a day dedicated to innovation, EDHEC and its Foundation welcomed Florent Menégaux, President of Michelin, on December 6th.

During his address, Florent Ménégaux reflected on the significance of the long term at Michelin, stating, "Given their innovative nature, some of our products have required nearly 20 years of research and development." The CEO also touched upon the diversification of the company's activities, saying, "We are currently developing products for the aerospace or medical sectors, such as prostheses integrable into the human body," and the reduction of CO2 emissions: "We have optimized the energy consumption of tire manufacturing, especially during the baking phase, to reduce their carbon footprint."

This speech concluded the Innovation Day, a day dedicated to the challenges of nutrition and well-being, organized by the Foresight, Innovation, and Transformation (FIT) Chair led by Professor René Rohrbeck, as part of its research program "Future of Wellbeing and Nutrition." Over a three-year period, in collaboration with industry players (Roquette, Bonduelle, La Vie Claire, ...), this project aims to find solutions to address challenges in the food industry such as soil management in farms, the search for alternatives to animal proteins, and the impact of AI in understanding nutritional needs.

A key milestone in the first year of this program, the Innovation Day focused on the final of the Hackathon "Future of Wellbeing and Nutrition." This student challenge allowed nearly 120 students from the MSc in Strategy, Organization & Consulting to think for several weeks, in small working groups, about one of the 8 issues proposed by the FIT Chair, such as the role of robotics in meal preparation or education on food and nutrition. The jury consisted of industry professionals such as Christelle Le Hir (EDHEC 2000), CEO of La Vie Claire and godmother of the program, Valérie le Bihan, Head of Global Marketing Food at Roquette, Laetitia Guerin-Deremaux, Head of Nutrition & R&D at Roquette, Sergio Neves, Head of plant protein research at Roquette, Olivier Ponthieux, Agro industry domain transformation leader at Bonduelle, and Laura Van Eeckhout, Lead foresight across categories, Foresight factory at Danone.