Innovation Events to come

- Helping startups meet their target audiences and investors

One major event scheduled for early autumn is the Fundtruck, an original happening in which 20 startups will travel the streets of Paris in an actual food truck. Stopping at strategic locations, the startups will pitch their ideas to people from the general public, institutions and investors.

Four travel itineraries are planned, after which five startups will be chosen to defend their projects in the final round.

Fun, delicious and original, this event combines public voting and a selection process involving investors, business angels and investment funds like as ENGIE New Ventures.

The Fund Truck will stop in front of ENGIE’s offices at La Défense on October 8^th!

Read more about the Fund Truck

The program for this autumn will include a number of events outside of France, such as the Innovation Breakfast on October 13^th in Newcastle (UK) and a startup pitch session, on the 14^th of October, in Zurich (Switzerland).

OpenInnov is also participating the in SmartCity Expo in Barcelona from November 17^th-19^th.

- Sports and startup team spirit

After having sponsored theFrench Startup Cup, in which 23 startups raced each other at La Rochelle from September 11^th to 13^th, OpenInnov is now partnering withTechRun, a relay race for startups to be held in Vincennes on October 10^th. Acompetition is currently being held inwhich 5 participants will win free number bibs for this festive sports event.

- Our Innovation Morning Meetings in Paris

The innovation Morning Meetings are starting up again. The next one, entitled “Health: new issues”, will take place on October 30^th at the Village by CA and, as always, will be led by Erik Orsenna.

The following one will deal with energy storage on December 2^nd, 2015.

- Hackathons to incite innovation

Hackathons are great opportunities for discovering new talent. These coding competitions are becoming more and more prevalent and increasingly successful. OpenInnov by ENGIE is sponsoring two hackathons this autumn:

The Climate Hackathon called "48 hours to boost the energy transition in cities" will take place in Nancy on November 6^th-8^th. Alongside a preparatory workshop (on October 26^th), this hackathon co-hosted by Greater Nancy aims to provide responses—whether technological (energy savings in buildings, etc.) or behavioral (encouraging virtuous behaviors, gamification)— to issues related to climate change.

From November 27^th to 29^th, a women’s only hackathon will be held by "Grandes Ecoles au Féminin". Naturally, OpenInnov is also sponsoring this event, which we will be able to say more about soon.

- Other events where you will be able to meet up with us:

The Bordeaux Innovation Day on October 13^th, the Mulhouse Innovation Day on November 13^th, the Saint Malo Innovation Day on November 20^th, which will include the awards ceremony for the Rural Mobility call for projects: so many opportunities for ENGIE to meet startups and innovators, and for them to introduce themselves to other companies, investors and institutions.

We are also pleased to announce that a very special event will be held in early 2016: the Incubator Grand Prize, organized by OpenInnov and Maddyness, for incubators from across Europe. We’ll tell you more soon…