Nelson, Amphitrite and Clarity, the three winning start-ups of the X-Impact Tech 2022 Awards

Organized by graduates of the École Polytechnique Executive Master's program with the support of the École Polytechnique's Foundation and the École Polytechnique's X-UP incubator, the X-Impact Tech 2022 Prizes were awarded to three projects: Nelson (1st prize), Amphitrite (2nd prize) and Clarity (3rd prize).

The X-Impact Tech Awards aim to contribute to the emergence of technological projects with a strong social, societal or environmental impact. They also aim to encourage women entrepreneurship.

The Awards are open to alumni and students who have graduated within the last 10 years (Polytechnic Engineering Cycle, X Bachelor's and Master's programs, Doctoral School) and to students currently enrolled in these same training cycles. Applicants from the other Schools that make up the Institut Polytechnique de Paris (ENSTA Paris, ENSAE Paris, Télécom Paris and Télécom SudParis) may also participate, under the same conditions inherent to their graduation.

In order to encourage and promote women entrepreneurship, the project teams must include at least one woman.

The prize is endowed with a total amount of €20,000 divided between three winners (First prize: €10,000, Second prize: €6,000, Third prize: €4,000).

With fifty applications submitted in 2022, the X-Impact Tech prize has established itself as a support for the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem of the École Polytechnique and the Institut Polytechnique de Paris.

Claudie Haigneré, the first French and European woman in space, president of Universience, the public body bringing together the Palais de la découverte and the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris, from 2010 to 2015 and advisor to the director general of the European Space Agency until 2020, was the sponsor of the 2022 edition.

The eight finalists each pitched their project during 3 minutes to a jury, which then put them to the question for another 3 minutes. The jury then had 15 minutes to deliberate and select the winners based on several criteria: the innovative and ambitious nature of the project, the ability of the project leaders to innovate and to carry it forward, the perceived quality of the technologies required for its development, its potential impact from an economic, social and environmental point of view, its feasibility and its execution plan.

In addition to Claudie Haigneré, the jury included Cécile Chamaret (D 2012), Director of the Executive Master's program at École Polytechnique, Jean-Paul Cottet (X 1974), General Delegate of the École Polytechnique Foundation, Lionel Uzzan (E 2020), President of LE GSM, and Bruno Cattan (X 1993), Director of Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Innovation at École Polytechnique.

First prize winner Nelson, co-founded by Alfred Richard (X 2018), Inès Multrier (X 2018), Octave Locqueville (X 2018) and Julien Bou Abboud (ISAE-SUPAERO), all four graduates of the X-HEC Entrepreneurs Master's program, is developing a solution that uses data science to facilitate the electrification of vehicle fleets, starting with service vehicles, and thus contributes to reducing the carbon footprint of companies. In the long term, its ambition is to redesign corporate mobility to make it more sustainable, affordable and optimized.

Created by Briac Le Vu, oceanographer and research engineer, Evangelos Moschos (D 2022), specialist in artificial intelligence, and Alexandre Stegner, CNRS researcher and professor at École Polytechnique, Amphitrite was awarded the 2nd prize. The start-up aims to decarbonize the routes of merchant ships. The start-up, which emanates from the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory (CNRS, École Polytechnique - IP Paris, ENS, Sorbonne University), develops patented methods for analyzing and merging ocean data. These methods provide ship owners and operators with highly reliable and accurate data to optimize the day-to-day routing of their ships in order to reduce their travel time, energy consumption, and therefore their CO2 emissions. Amphitrite was one of the winners of the Gerondeau - Safran 2022 Prize awarded on November 9th.

Founded by Raphaël Certain (M 2022 - Master X-HEC Entrepreneurs), a graduate in neuroscience, Clarity is developing the first digital clinic dedicated to patients suffering from neurological diseases, particularly Alzheimer's. The platform developed by the start-up combines digital therapies to slow down the disease, virtual reality and personalized medicine methods to make health solutions in neurology accessible to everyone and from anywhere. Clarity is preparing an initial clinical study to be conducted in collaboration with U.S. universities.

Launched in 2016, the Executive Master's program at École Polytechnique aims to train managers capable of designing, deploying and steering business models with a strong technological dimension from an international perspective. To do this, it draws on research conducted in X laboratories. This program is designed for working executives and managers from a wide variety of public and private organizations with a wide range of profiles.