EIT ICT Labs summer school in France

44 lucky students gathered at the Urban Life & Mobility summer school in Sophia Antipolis on the French Riviera, from 29 June to 12 July 2014, . This  two week course was organised at Eurecom as part of the EIT ICT Labs Master School to develop students' skills in both ICT and entrepreneurship across Europe.

This year, 8 summer schools are organized by EIT ICT Labs to cover the 8 innovation areas the KIC focuses on. These courses take place in July and August in seven European cities : Stockholm, Helsinki, Trento, Eindhoven, Oulu, Karlsruhe and Sophia Antipolis. The first week is dedicated to thematic presentations, technology, business modeling courses and companies visits whilst the second week is devoted to projects' business plan developments. These are then pitched by the students to an academic and professional jury on the last day of the summer school. This course is mandatory for EIT ICT Labs Master School students and grants them four credits. It is also open to students from countries not covered by EIT ICT Labs' activities or universities that are not partners of the KIC yet.

The Urban Life & Mobility summer school took place at Eurecom in Sophia Antipolis, France. The event gathered 44 students out of whom 28 were part of the EIT ICT Labs Master Programme. The remaining 16 came from other countries such as Romania, Poland, Portugal or from other universities such as University of Nottingham. 27 nationalities (e.g. Indian, French, Chinese, Swedish, Belgian, Italian etc.) from 18 universities (e.g. KTH, UPMC, Aalto University etc.) worked together for two weeks mixing different competences, cultures and backgrounds to innovate! 25 prestigious lecturers were invited such as Nicolas Le Douarec – entrepreneur, co-founder of CitizenCar, a peer-to-peer car rental acquired by Buzzcar – or Georges Amar – futurologist specialized in mobility, ex Innovation Director at RATP, the company that runs the Parisian underground. "Here, we had the opportunity to talk with guys from the business. Not at school" said a student.

At the end of the summer school,  eight teams of students pitched their projects in a 7-minutes on stage. All students worked very hard and their presentations were really good. "It was one of my best work group experience ever" said a student. The winning project was UbiTaxi, a revolutionary taxi-booking platform aimed at competing with vehicle hire with driver in France. As a reward, the team was invited to present the project in front of 200 professionals during the Urban Life & Mobility event taking place in Pairs in November. For those who would like to attend the Urban Life & Mobility summer school next year, please stay tuned and be prepared to cross the Channel!