EDHEC Entrepreneurs of the year : Aurélien Leprêtre, Insitaction and Jean-Marc Lazard, OpenDataSoft

2 entrepreneurs recieve the Edhec Entrepreneurship Award this year.

Aurélien Leprêtre,  Insitaction and Jean-Marc Lazard, OpenDataSoft.

In 2012, Jean-Marc Lazard convinced that the value of data is all about how it is used, Jean-Marc Lazard created OpenDataSoft, the first online platform designed to make all data shareable and easily reusable.

As a pioneer of open data as a way to support the initiatives of public stakeholders on transparency and innovation, in 2012 Jean-Marc quickly expanded his market to companies in the private sector to help them innovate with their data. After 5 years, more than 100 major cities, public administrations and companies in 13 different countries have placed their trust in OpenDataSoft as a way to share their data between staff members and with their partners: examples include Paris, Brussels, Toulouse, Eindhoven, Potsdam and Lille, as well as Veolia, Schneider Electric, Saint-Gobain, Solvay, BPCE and SNCF.

After raising €6.5 M from investors including Salesforce Ventures and Caisse des Dépôts, being named as one of the top 10 most innovative partners of Amazon Web Services for its Smart Cities solution, and signing partnerships with General Electric and Cisco, in 2016 OpenDataSoft established its first team in the US (10 out of a total staff of 50).

Find out more about : www.opendatasoft.fr

Aurélien Lepretre has always been passionate about technology and driven by a desire to innovate since his early years. After a short spell with Publicis Conseil and later Accenture, in 2004 he decided to see through the project he had been working on since leaving EDHEC: setting up Insitaction! For 13 years, Insitaction and its staff of 40 have been supporting players in the retail sector through their digital transformation. Sport, luxury items, catering and transport are all sectors in which Insitaction is excelling!

The company’s primary value added is its human resources and the passion that drives them! A passion for technology, innovation and intrapreneurship! Insitaction and its in-house lab have given rise to 3 start-ups! With 22% of its revenue coming from overseas, the company decided to team up with the Altavia group in 2017 to boost its development. Their shared ambition is to increase their business twofold by 2020 and generate 50% of revenue internationally.

 6 candidates have been chosen

About Edhec Entrepreneur award

The EDHEC Entrepreneur of the Year prize is awarded to an Edhec entrepreneur who has decided to take a leap into the unknown and has contributed to EDHEC’s image as a creator of talent by their taste for risk and adventure.
Their daring and sense of innovation will have impacted on the winner’s sector or region, or on the vision others have of the sector. .

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