European entrepreneurial cooperation at the heart of the INNOVA Europe final

This article was originally published on edhec.edu - 02/10/2024 

On Thursday 26 September 2024, EDHEC Business School organised the final of the second INNOVA Europe competition at STATION F, in partnership with BNP Paribas Company Engagement, BNP Paribas Banque Privée and BivwAk! with the support of Ring Capital and STATION F. This competition, of which EDHEC is a founding member alongside ESMT Berlin and POLIMI Graduate School of Management, aims to encourage competition between European students through responsible entrepreneurial projects. This year, nine European higher education institutions took part. Ahead of the final, EDHEC welcomed its partners to its Paris campus to present the RED (Responsible Entrepreneurship by Design) methodology, developed by EDHEC Entrepreneurs. This approach encourages the creation of start-ups that integrate global performance objectives (economic, environmental and social) right from the design stage.

Workshop on the RED methodology on EDHEC's Paris campus

On the morning of 26 September, Ludovic Cailluet, Associate Dean of the Centre for Responsible Entrepreneurship at EDHEC, and Yasmine Machwate, Head of the EDHEC Entrepreneurs incubators, led a workshop on the RED methodology for the partner institutions of the INNOVA Europe competition. Participants came from institutions in several countries, including UCD College of Business in Ireland, Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego (Kozminski University) in Poland, KSE Graduate Business School in Ukraine, ETH Zurich in Switzerland, IE University in Spain, Aalto University in Finland, POLIMI Graduate school of management in Italy and ESMT Berlin in Germany. The aim of the presentation was to disseminate more sustainable business models on a European scale.

After outlining the methodology, Ludovic Cailluet and Yasmine Machwate invited the partners to take part in a card game based on the RED approach. Divided into groups, the participants worked together to associate actions such as adopting inclusive recruitment, defining a raison d'être, or paying attention to the mental health of founders, with the different stages in creating a start-up (defining the project, seeking funding, etc.). 

The workshop concluded with a working session focusing on strengthening the existing partnership and new avenues for European collaboration. Several ideas were explored by the partners, such as the organisation of seminars to share resources on responsible entrepreneurship or the creation of an annual observatory on the responsibility of start-ups.

Presentation of projects and awards ceremony at STATION F

As part of INNOVA Europe, students competed in two categories: ‘Young Hopes’, which rewards a project at the ideation stage, and ‘Rising Stars’, for start-ups at the development stage. Each project developed responds to one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as providing clean and affordable energy, promoting responsible consumption, ensuring gender equality or reducing poverty on a global scale.

At STATION F, on the afternoon of Thursday 26 September, the participants presented their projects to a panel of judges and around 120 spectators, made up of students, alumni, teachers from various institutions and professionals. Each team was given three minutes to pitch and the same amount of time to answer questions from the jury.

During the ceremony, Élisabeth Moreno, former Minister for Equality between Women and Men and Chairman of the Board of Ring Capital, gave a speech on diversity and inclusion. She placed particular emphasis on the gender prejudices that hamper women's professional lives, the obstacles they face in developing their careers and their limited access to positions of responsibility.

After the deliberations, Antoine Sire, Senior Advisor for Impact Economy and Social Inclusion at BNP Paribas Group, and Benoît Arnaud, Dean of the EDHEC programmes, presented the two prizes to the winners. The start-up Solar Optic (KSE Graduate Business School - Ukraine) won the ‘Rising Stars’ category thanks to a technology that allows sunlight to penetrate buildings directly without the need for electricity. This innovation earned the company a €20,000 prize, as well as a year's support in one of the incubators of the nine partner schools. In the ‘Young Hopes’ category, the winner was Reduco (ESMT Berlin - Germany), a PropTech* platform designed to reduce CO2 emissions in buildings. Reduco received €5,000 to help bring its project to fruition. A ‘Coup de Coeur’ prize in the ‘Young Hopes’ category was also awarded to the start-up Krishi Krate (Aalto University - Finland), which is developing a technology to improve the accessibility of cold chains for small farmers in South Asia.

*PropTech refers to the application of information technology and the platform economy to the property sector.