IoT Week by CITC : Review of a successful 5th edition

23 avril 2021

The 5th edition of the IoT Week by CITC took place from 15 to 19 March. This event organized by the Innovation Center for Contactless Technologies (CITC) gave rise to 4 hackathons, 35 conferences and saw 4 start-ups being rewarded. Throughout this intense week, 1,400 people connected to the event and 55 speakers were invited to share their vision and feedback on artificial intelligence but also on cybersecurity, research and the environment.

A guest of honor and award-winning start-ups

For each edition of IoT Week, a personality who is an expert in one or more of the fields covered during the event is the guest of honour for the week. For this fifth edition, Daniel Le Berre, engineer and winner of the 2018 CNRS Innovation Medal was present throughout the week as IoT Week’s guest of honor. Fanny Bouton, journalist, specialist in new technologies and head of the start-up program at OVH France & Benelux, was the patron of the event.

During this edition of the IoT Week, 4 start-ups were rewarded. They will enter the French Tech program in Lille in September. Some of them should be chosen in the coming weeks to also access the OVH program and be better supported. Here is the list of the 4 winning start-ups:

Customs Bridge (Euratechnologies, Lille) provides solutions to accelerate and secure the classification process of the billions of products that cross borders every day.
SpreadTheLive (Alacrité, Lille) is a turnkey video tool dedicated to public or private events, culture, sports, allowing the capture and broadcasting of live video.
Whispeak (Euratechnologies, Lille) offers a voice biometric solution that allows users to authenticate themselves easily and securely with their voice.
Ertosgener (Angers) offers the EGOS solution, which accelerates and secures the development of embedded intelligence, allowing users to focus on enhancing their know-how.

In parallel to the various days that were organized, four hackathons were set up around the theme of the environment: the first was in partnership with the Amos sports school around “sports in natural environments to map the environment and its biodiversity”. The second involved students from Junia and a high school who had to use the Biodimeter project led by Inria and Soreli to imagine new tools to measure, analyse and present biodiversity. The third and the fourth involved middle school students who either tried to find solutions to preserve our environment or thought about the theme of a “zero waste middle school thanks to connected objects.

IoT Week: theme days

During the whole week and within the framework of IoT Week, each day corresponds to a theme that is highlighted. Here’s a look back at how all the days of this fifth edition went:

The first day was the launch day. Start-up founders came to present their solutions in front of a jury of professionals composed of Sam Dahmani (La French Tech Lille), Samir Amellal (La Redoute), Fanny Bouton (Godmother of IoT Week 2021), Pierre Boulet (President of CITC), Daniel Le Berre (Guest of Honour) and Hafida Lahlali (iléo).
On the second day, the focus was onartificial intelligence. Several speakers spoke about their relationship with AI. We find Etienne de Saint Martin, Delivery Manager at La Redoute, Stéphane Tufféry, associate lecturer and data scientist, Akim Oural, deputy mayor of Lille and delegated metropolitan councillor in charge of digital development and innovation, François Jézéquel, director of business development at Orange Fab France, Gontran Pic, project manager at Bosch and several members of the stand up jury of the previous day. Daniel Le Berre started the plenary session with his masterclass on SAT, a discreet AI revolution.
The third day was dedicated to cybersecurity. It consisted of a plenary session in the morning and conferences in the afternoon. Michel Van Den Berghe, President of the Cyber Paris Campus, opened the day with his masterclass on the national cyber campus. Akim Oural presented the cyber roadmap of the European Metropolis of Lille (MEL). Jérôme Notin, Managing Director of Cybermalveillance and Lydéric Couché, Head of Information Systems Security at Leroy Merlin also spoke during the day.
The fourth day was dedicated to researchers, engineers and innovative platforms with the“Research” theme. 7 researchers and engineers took part in a plenary session: Valéria Loscri, research scientist Fun Team, Richard Béarée, director of the Physical and Digital Systems Engineering Laboratory at ENSAM, Nicolas Balland, head of Innovation and R&D at Transalley, Frédéric Colas, research engineer at EPMLab, Samuel Degrande, research engineer at PIRVI, Andy Cassez, research engineer at the PhLAM Laboratory & responsible for the Fibertech Lille platform, Rédha Kassi, research engineer & responsible for the SigmaCOM platform and Virginie Deniau, research officer in electromagnetic accounting at Cybcom.
The last day of the week was devoted to theenvironment. Mathias Posvse, regional delegate of the EDF group in the HDF region, spoke about building a CO2-neutral energy future that reconciles preservation of the planet, well-being and development thanks to electricity and innovative solutions and services. Telman Azarmahd, research engineer, EDF Research and Development explained how to simply and efficiently reduce energy consumption. Grégory Saunier, deputy general manager of iléo, Cindy Caremiaux and Florian Paulin, both from SIAVED, André-Paul Leclerc, regional councillor, president of the economic commission and delegate to the economic action of the Hauts-de-France Region and Josse Le Blan co-founder of PowerOfMoss also took the floor to close this day.

Translated from IoT Week by CITC : Bilan d’une 5ème édition réussie