Campus and student business training (CFEE) created
With the support of La Web School Factory, a leading school of digital management, Université PSL and the Innovation Factory join forces to create Campus et Formation Etudiants-Entreprises (CFEE), both a campus and a student-business training program. This ambitious project is entirely dedicated to digital transformation in companies. The partnership is a bold achievement, combining academic excellence and connection to the corporate sector and innovation ecosystems.
CFEE is winner of the "Disrupt’ Campus" call for proposals launched by Bpifrance, funded by the Investment for the Future program (PIA) and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. In response to the challenges of digital transformation in companies, CFEE is providing an innovative educational response: an intrapreneurship curriculum for employees and students with startup-based training programs and focus on autonomy, collaboration and expertise, with a degree validating 60 ECTS credits.
CFEE is emblematic of the educational innovation implemented by PSL. It will help support the digital transformation of partner companies, by building on the strengths of PSL training, the start-up spirit of our PSL-Pépite cluster and through collaboration with La Web School.
The 10-month course, which promotes intergenerational engagement and interdisciplinarity, is based on a project-based pedagogy with a standard course of study teaching innovation, intrapreneurship and digital development, delivered by lecturers from PSL, the Innovation Factory and La Web School Factory. The program includes two five-month projects and mixed teams composed of students (gap students or M2 graduates from a PSL School & Institute, Master’s students from La Web School) and collaborators of partner companies or professionals in continuing education, all groups working together on real challenges, from the angle of the three flagship digital disciplines: design, marketing and digital technologies.
The training program includes compulsory courses (essential tools for project management - 100h), elective courses (opening courses - 20h) and tutoring to support the project teams (100h). Each new project is launched during a week called PSL-Hack, so that students better understand the objectives of the company and its environment. PSL student entrepreneurs as well as business experts from partner companies are present to support them. La Web School Factory then monitors and mentors projects through a methodology that has already been tested within the school on more than 500 projects to date.
At the end of this period of integration, teaching modules alternate with compulsory courses, elective courses and teamwork on projects. An immersion of one week in a company is also planned once a month.
PSL and the Innovation Factory created CFEE to achieve several aims:
- offer students a training based on the needs of each company and facilitate stronger links between start-ups. The monthly immersion week is a perfect example.
- enable companies to submit their projects to a team of students and collaborators who bring innovative proposals, easy to deploy,
- improve employees’ efficiency by their training in methods of agile collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurship techniques, the project entrusted being strongly linked with the company’s activities.
With CFEE, PSL and the Innovation Factory also offer a campus and an innovative place dedicated to collaboration. Within the new coworking space, the interior design and facilities encourage creativity, teamwork, and meetings between students and corporate employees.
For Edouard Husson, Vice President of PSL, CFEE "is emblematic of the educational innovation implemented by PSL. It will help support the digital transformation of partner companies, by building on the strengths of PSL training, the start-up spirit of our PSL-Pépite cluster and through collaboration with La Web School”. Anne Lalou, President of the Innovation Factory, adds: "When I created La Web School and the Innovation Factory, I was convinced that in a changing environment, it is essential to create a dialogue between learning and doing, while enriching curricula of new disciplines, so that innovation and transformation move forward with new technologies. Through the experience acquired during the last 6 years, we will improve the framework of this co-creation with PSL and CFEE and support companies in their intrapreneurial ambitions".
The Innovation Factory
The Innovation Factory is the first cluster of digital innovation in Paris. The non-profit organization opened this coworking space to bring students together around different stakeholders of digital innovation in our country, including think tanks, investors, research laboratories, large companies and start-ups. All of them will exchange, develop, accelerate and co-build digital innovation projects, and also promote the emergence of breakthrough innovations through collaborative model.
The Innovation Factory has already received the support of many partners, such as Engie, Korian, Bpifrance, AccorHotels, La Française des Jeux, Société Générale, Nexity, Partech, Kea & Partners and Asmodée.
La Web School Factory
La Web School Factory is a digital management school that provides students with a creative and technical vision for business. During the five-year training, the school delivers not only standard courses (law, communication, economics, English ...) but also offers a mastery of the digital technologies, through its three fundamental disciplines: Design, Marketing and Digital Technologies. From the first year and throughout the course, students are connected to partner companies (AccorHotels, French Games, Korian, Sodexo, Partech, Voyages SNCF in particular) while immersed in concrete projects, in order to confront real challenges for businesses.
Crédits photos: © La Web School Factory 2017