Louis ICKX is one of the coaches on the Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation (PEIT) course. His mission is to support second-year engineering students who are working on business creation or technological innovation projects by raising their awareness of innovation and entrepreneurship issues. He talks to us about his role and responsibilities with Arts et Métiers students Arts et Métiers the key steps to a successful entrepreneurial project.
Highlighting the innovative side of students' ideas
The PEIT program gives engineering students free access to support services and coaching from experts. This is where Louis ICKX comes in, wearing two hats: Head of Detection and Innovative Project Engineering at Angers Technopole, and consultant in innovation and business strategy.
Currently, 13 students enrolled in the PEIT program are benefiting from his support through six workshops covering topics such as marketing, innovation financing, technical engineering, legal aspects, management, and organizational aspects of business. Through these workshops, Louis ICKX provides students with a range of tools and methodologies to help them formalize their ideas, develop their prototypes, test the market, and create their businesses. "I rely heavily on neuroscience to help them take the necessary step back and adopt the mindset of an innovator," explains Louis ICKX, who points out that he does not support projects, but rather business creators!
The PEIT program: a springboard to incubators
Louis ICKX's goal? To highlight the value creation potential of the ideas put forward by engineering students. The challenge for students is then to meet the eligibility criteria of incubators such as Angers Technopole, whose mission is to support innovative projects in the Maine-et-Loire region, and then to go further and set up their own businesses. "To do this, several criteria must be taken into account," explains Louis ICKX. "The project must be innovative and mature, and the project leader must have an entrepreneurial mindset and be sufficiently independent to then launch their business."
Currently, two projects by students from the Arts et Métiers campus Arts et Métiers , who have completed the PEIT program, are being incubated at Angers Technopole. One is a project for a self-sufficient, modular indoor garden, and the other is for an innovative guitar. "In general, the projects being incubated are led by young people who want to start their own business; they have it in their blood," explains Louis ICKX.
The PEIT program thus enables students to make an objective decision about whether or not to embark on the adventure of entrepreneurship.
We showed them the mountain they had to climb, helped them set foot on the right path, and then it was up to the students to decide whether or not to continue the adventure!
