EIT Manufacturing and Bpifrance Le Hub kick off their collaboration
24 June 2024
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More than 60 participants and more than 50 meetings are the outcome of an uplifting Access2Tech Europe event celebrated last Thursday in Paris.
The first French edition, co-organised by Bpifrance Le Hub, focused on green manufacturing, as the challenges of climate change force the manufacturing sector to rethink traditional economic models. The aim of the event was to bring together European startups with regional companies and SMEs in order to develop new approaches.
Access2Tech is the flagship event of EIT Manufacturing and for this first French edition, we have the pleasure to teaming up with Bpifrance to bring together groundbraking startups and established industrial players from our local and pan-European networks.
Jérémie Dalibot, Business Development and Innovation Manager at EIT Manufacturing West
Entrepreneurs from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK came together to propose their solutions on topics as diverse as circular economy applications, energy efficiency in manufacturing processes and carbon reduction strategies, among others. French companies such as Michelin, Renault, Saint-Gobain, Schneider Electric, Fives, Arkema, Alstom Stellantis and The Future is Neutral paid close attention to the pitches and took the opportunity to meet the solution providers directly on site or even online the following day.
Shared mission for greater impact
Although networking was at the heart of the event, there was no shortage of powerful messages. In their opening remarks, Caroline Viarouge, CEO of EIT Manufacturing, and Benoit Roblin, Director of Bpifrance Le Hub, demonstrated their commitment to their shared mission to support a more competitive and environmentally friendly manufacturing industry by speeding up innovation to market. Access2Tech is just the start of further joint activities with the ambitious goal of achieving greater impact.
From left to right: Eléonore de Galzain, Partnership Manager at Bpifrance Le Hub, Jérémie Dalibot, Business Development and Innovation Manager at EIT Manufacturing West, Benoit Roblin, Director of Bpifrance Le Hub, Caroline Viarouge, CEO at EIT Manufacturing, Antoni Pijoan, Managing Director, and Gala Maturana, Senior Manager Business Development and Innovation, both at EIT Manufacturing West.
We build the partnership with EIT Manufacturing for the first time and for this event, Access2Tech Europe, because this event is about matching the startups with big corporates needs. […] I think we will organise a lot of events like that together.
Eléonore de Galzain, Partnership Manager at Bpifrance Le Hub
Concrete ideas on how to make sustainable manufacturing a reality were discussed by Alain LeFevre, Sustainability Strategy Director at Schneider Electric, and Jonthan Williet, Investor at Saint-Gobain. Javier González, Business Development and Innovation Manager at EIT Manufacturing, steered the conversation from energy efficiency strategies and circular economy practices to automation and digital technologies for sustainability.
An engaged audience followed the panel discussion on “How to make sustainable manufacturing a reality”.
Another compelling panel on “Circular Economy Strategies: Best practices and main challenges” was led by Alexandre Aubry-Lecomte, Innovation Corporates & Startups Relationships Manager at Bpifrance. Tanguy Lyvinec, Key Technology Manager at Kuka, and Nathalie Rey, Head of Innovation Hub at The Future is Neutral, highlighted the importance of adopting circular economy principles to minimise waste and optimise resource use.
Nathalie Rey conversed with Alexandre Aubry-Lecomte and Tanguy Lyvinec about Circular Economy Strategies.
See what happened at Access2Tech Europe Green Manufacturing:
