Being a student AND an entrepreneur
During their school career at ECE, students have the possibility to undertake and are encouraged and supported for that!
Entrepreneurship is above all a taste for commitment and strength of conviction. These are key skills for the engineer of tomorrow! Through student projects, and from the first year of school, students can put their passions and entrepreneurial desires into play, motivate their friends and report back to their teachers.
Pedagogical approaches specific to the activity of a startup, but increasingly developed in large companies, are taught throughout the school (design thinking, lean startup, agile methods, hackhatons and numerous pitch sessions).
A program to promote student projects (VPE), supported by the French government since 2012, supports these approaches and helps convince audiences outside the School through competitions, partnerships, patents filed, scientific publications, etc.
This feedback from the field is then a real springboard to launch his startup!
Entrepreneurship at ECE
Like Victoria, Maxime and Vianney but also all the others, discover the paths of these young entrepreneurs who do good around them.
The incubator of the ECE
The ECE incubator allows students with a coherent entrepreneurial project to benefit from a personalized follow-up, contact with experts on different aspects of entrepreneurship and mentoring with ECE alumni. It welcomes young engineers as well as alumni with innovative ideas and supports them with a wide range of services.
A selection committee, composed of experts in innovation support and technology company managers, meets once a year to select the new companies that will be able to join the incubator. The candidates are selected according to several criteria: the cohesion, the quality and the motivation of their team, but also on the compatibility of the project with the expertise of the ECE.
Becoming a business owner
The final project can be used by the student to work on the proof of concept and the business model of his future startup. The end-of-studies internship allows students to launch their own company and enter the school’s incubator.
Material resources and support for prototyping are available to the student at the fablab. Entrepreneurs come to talk about their activities, challenge the students and coach the projects that aim at setting up a startup.
To accompany and support this dynamic, the ECE is a member of a PEPITE.
Thus, students with startup projects can apply for the Student Entrepreneur status during the course of their studies or in view of continuing their studies through the Student Entrepreneur Diploma.