Accompanied Projects at the UTC Innovation Centre

One of the objectives of UTC, over and above the training mission, is to accompany students, lecturers and research staff in the processes of creating business concerns, as well as outside companies who wish to see their projects mature. The UTC Daniel Thomas Innovation Centre is a key UTC academic creativity focal point, bringing together training, research and valorisation to serve the overall innovation objective, enabling a concentration of pluridisciplinary skills and actors in the innovation field. The objective of the Innovation Centre is to stimulate innovation (in all its forms) and creativity with an international outlook.

To accompagy students, PhDs and graduates who wish to enter the market-place

UTC encourages its students, PHDs and graduates to develop their personal projects and to set up business concerns, by availing of the various 'innovation-intensive' tools adapted to the situations:

Providing access to a wide range of Credit courses (CCs), open to all UTC students.
Participating in national and international competitive exams that relate to innovation:
- The Innovative Project Competition was designed to help the maturation phase of projects presented by students, lecturers and research staff from UTC or in its Local Ecosystem via the facilities of the Innovation Centre. This competition enabled the pre-maturation of several internal UTC projects that led to the creation of start-ups: Novitact, Aspic Engine, Sensovery, Closycom, VirtualSensitive…
- The "24h Innovation challenge", created in 2007, is an international event that aims at developing innovative and creative objects and concepts – in team formations: of between 5 to 8 students, lecturers or research staff. The teams have exactly 24h to propose innovative solutions to problems set by participating enterprises, laboratories or external 'creatives' all partners to the event. The teams present their findings and proposals in a two-minute video.
- The operation 48h to promote your ideas® is an event organized in the framework of InnovENT‑E. For two days, the teams, comprising around 10 students tackle a subject proposed by an enterprise, with a view to identifying an innovative answer to the problem. The main aim of the 48h® incentive is to encourage students (and others) to adopt a more open view on innovation and its dissemination to SMEs in particular, while initiating the students to using tools and methodology that will enhance their creativity.
- The Start-up Weekend: the principle and objective of the Weekend is to create a start-up company in 54h. To begin the process, the participants have 60 seconds to present an idea and elicit interest from the others present, leading to a team. Then, accompanied by the entrepreneurs, they start making a prototype of the product and the necessary business plan for it. During the weekend a Jury convenes and selects the best projects, viz., those they feel can proceed to create viable start-ups.
- The Guy Deniélou Thesis Prize was set up to reward three PhDs after a selection process by a Jury composed of Members outside the PhD school, to have six finalists who meet the criteria of thesis quality, participation in campus life, popularizing their knowledge, etc. The Prize aims at valorising the UTC PhDs and to add some publicity to their research and its impact on day-to-day life, whilst attempting to answer some of today's major challenges (food, energy, security …)

Proposing the Innovation Centre's 'Creativity Rooms' and the equipment at their disposal, as and when they see fit.
To enrol for a special "UTC elite entrepreneurship" course! students with an entrepreneurial inclination can choose this elective course lasting minimum one year and their lecture time-table is arranged in such a way that the students can develop their projects and test their chances to become a future entrepreneur.
The possibility to adapt their timetables to develop personal projects
The possibility to be supervised by personal coaches who can guide and orient the students to make the best choices while at UTC and for the duration of the course.
The possibility to leave the "elite entrepreneurship" status at any time
The possibility to seek advice and help from various 'structures' installed in the Innovation Centre, for example, in relation to intellectual property rights, business plans, patents … (INPI (France's national intellectual property agency), Bpifrance and ADIT (agency for the dissemination of technology-intensive information)) the skills acquired during this proto-entrepreneurial period will prove useful later both for those who set up a business or those who move into profession al positions in the business world.
An entrepreneurial nursery for young graduates with adapted structures: young UTC graduates can, if they so wish, move into the UTC business nursery.

Sucess stories

Inasmuch as these innovative projects developed at the Innovation Centre provide a new window for UTC with an opportunity for local 'networking' of various skills: scientific, technical and technological, artistic, cultural … These projects can come from SMEs, local authorities, research activities, the students, artists …

The Novitact start-up company was founded by Thibaud Séverini, who graduated from UTC in 2013; his company develops the Feeltact bracelet, which enables silent communication, thanks to vibrations set up in the bracelet when activated. It is a product-device that addresses essentially the security market niches.

The company Nemopay, set up jointly by Arthur Puyou and Thomas Recouvreux, both student engineers at UTC, proposes a personal electronic purse aims mainly at the engineering and other HE schools/universities and event organizers. This particular start-up was bought out by Vente Privée in March 2015.

The tactile table was developed by Thierry Gidel and Atman Kendira, research scientist and lecturers at UTC. The table is an aid to design, creativity and project management, with a turn-key software package for users.

The Sensovery project was developed by Anne Guénand, a research scientist and lecturer at UTC; it sheds new light on the plight of handicapped persons, is easy to use and embodies the 7 principles of "universal design"

Exolife is a project developed by Samuel Veilerette, president of UTC's Uteam. It is an interface to help keep patients at home for care, and is not only an aid to neuro-functional rehabilitation, reduction of physically stressful work, but also serves the needs of virtual training courses for design/ haptic monitoring for new interactive media and an interface for remote control of macro/micro/nano robots that can operate in hostile or inaccessible environments.

UTC and the Glass Valley* (then world's premier site for luxury perfume bottles) joined forces to design a new 'flacon' to demonstrate the qualities and capacities of the various actors of this sector. The role played by UTC consisted essentially of studying the flow charts for materials/products/services among the local actors in Glass Valley: glass-makers, moulders, packagers …

*North France's Glass Valley corresponds geographically to the river Bresle basin, where some 60 companies, all specialists of glass-making for both the perfume sector and alcohols, are installed. They are members of the "World Pole for Luxury Bottling", employ some 7 500 persons and produce 70% of all luxury bottles produced in the world.

The SensorWake® is an olfactory alarm-clock which as the name suggests wakes you up with diffusion of your favourite scent. The clock was designed and developed by Guillaume Rolland, when he was a UTC first year student. He received several distinction at the famous Concours Lépine (for inventors) and was distinguished as one of the 15 best inventions "that could change the course of the world" at the annual (2014) Google Science Fair. Via Kickstarter, Guillaume Roland launched and was successful in a fund raising operation.

This apparatus was jointly developed with the teaching hospital, CHU Amiens; it is a prosthesis used for lower jaw reconstruction operations.

The RenoValve project is managed and monitored by Adrien Laperroussaz, a student engineer in the elective specialty UTC-GSM (Mechanical systems engineering). The design of the device is being carried forward and assembled in collaboration with heart surgeons at the Henri Mondor Hospital (Creteil). It will be used to repair the mitral heart valve and help treat leakage problems. The implant operation will be percutaneous (button-hole surgery) which considerably decreases the risk level of the operation. A. Laperroussaz was the 2015 Laureate of the BPI Emergence competition.