Leeds University Hackathon

Welcome to the first UK Innovation Blog. A lot has happened at ENGIE UK with regards to innovation in the last 12 months, so we thought why not start by telling everyone about what we do. Someone might just read it, BE INSPIRED and send us a new idea. They may even enter the innovation trophies or sign up to become a UK innovation Champion; stranger things have happened!

So where does one start when writing a first Blog? October 2016 of course. Why? Well, we held a Hackathon at Leeds University in October and we thought you might want to read about.

On 19th October, ENGIE UK hosted a Hackathon at Leeds University in partnership with ThinkNation. 20 students working alongside ENGIE UK mentors and tacked the BIG question "What business model would you develop to disrupt building management costs to organisations?" Split into five teams, the students came up with some fantastic ideas, all of which will be developed further by ENGIE UK as part of an internal project.

The teams were: BSMarT, Accomaflex, Intelliground, The Disruptors and Digital Orientation Receptive Application (DORA).

The teams worked alongside ENGIE mentors for four hours before finalising their pitches for the last hour of the session. Following a break and some much needed Pizza, the teams then presented to a panel of judges from ENGIE UK, including Development and Innovation Director, Caroline Hopkins, Head of Talent, Chris Mayer and Marketing Director, Tony Galloni.

Following much deliberation, it was agreed that the Disruptors had the winning solution of the hackathon with their idea; 'Intelligent Space Utilisation - Smart workspaces where human behavior and space usage is monitored'. Using a scoring matrix designed by ThinkNation, The Disruptors scored highly in the following areas:

In line with ENGIE's vision of digitisation

It could easily integrate ENGIE UK's three divisions

It is something that ENGIE UK could easily add to our portfolio

Aligned to ENGIE UK's Corporate Social Responsibility commitments

What happens next? The students will be spending the day with ENGIE on 9th December, visiting our Head Office, brunch with a Director and then off for a tour (with the development team and some of our current graduates) at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, including our East London Energy center and a slide down the Orbit! We also made a short film for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks for reading. If you have a question about anything covered in the Blog, contact the innovation team on innovationuk[at]engie.com,we would love to hear from you.