NEOMA organised a hackathon for the students in its Master in Management Programme, held over three days where they developed their entrepreneurial spirit.

 In January, the students in the Master in Management Programme at NEOMA Business School participated in the MiM Hackathon organised in Reims and Rouen. They had three days to solve a problem of their choice: social inclusion for La Poste; more environmentally friendly mobility for Volkswagen Group France; or providing young people with healthy food for Bonduelle. To do this, they had to create a positive-impact business with the help of coaches. The culminating moment of the experience was presenting their pitches in front of a jury of professionals.

This challenge really helped them “learn to think together”, as Delphine Manceau, dean of our business school, explained in her introduction. “It also helps them develop the ability to create change”.

Malo Riché and Cyril Delannoy  

“We made up a video game and a series to encourage students to eat healthy. When they move up in the game’s levels, they unblock recipes with Bonduelle products and earn coupons for corn or green beans for example.

“We learned to develop every aspect of a project, make a website and do coding. We also learned to divide up the workload among the team based on each person’s skills. We realised that we worked more effectively by trusting each other.

“The hackathon is a change from typical courses. We’re much more active and can talk with the teacher. It’s really enriching. We had a lot of fun”.

Annabelle Immesoete  

“We chose to work on the Bonduelle problem: healthy food for young people. Students spend too much time cooking. They don’t always want to do it, so we wanted to develop a product that would motivate them. We created a bag where the vegetables are vacuum packed. The bag is biodegradable and is thus environmentally friendly. Students can easily prepare meals.

“It’s very beneficial. You put into practise what once was theoretical. It’s a project that we might want to continue working on later.

“Even if we are working with friends, I realised the importance of communication and being attentive in a team effort. I also learned that you have to persevere to successfully complete a project. At the beginning, we started off on a project and quickly saw that it wasn’t doable. So, we changed projects. Sometimes it’s difficult to start again from zero.”

Clémence Girard and Alix Morantin

“We developed “the HacKartons” project for La Poste. Our idea was to use train passengers to transport packages in a more environmentally friendly way. It was a lot of work, but we managed to create really great team cohesion. It was very rewarding.

“We were able to combine our different skills and plan the objectives to meet each day. That really pushed us. We learned to develop a business idea in three days and that was really intellectually stimulating. Also, we won the La Poste award!”

An outstanding sponsor

The sponsor for this year’s Hackathon was Jean-Louis Louvel, founder and managing director of PGS, a European leader in new and refurbished pallets whose activities include logging, pallet production and repair and logistics. Mr. Louvel is an entrepreneur, iconic director from the Normandy region as well as the winner of the “2024 Entrepreneur of the Year” EY Award. At the event, he shared a lot of advice with students, delivering a strong message: “I hate the expression, ‘You go faster alone, while together you go farther’. Together you go farther and faster. I’ve never worked alone. Never work alone”.

The partners of the 2024 Hackathon

Bonduelle, Bpifrance, La Poste Groupe and Volkswagen Group France, with the support of Adobe and our NEOMA BS incubators.