Open Innovation: Connecting students and companies

• The Pioneers program, dedicated to open innovation, connects students and businesses in the region.
• Over 8 weeks, 9 multidisciplinary teams, composed of students and businesses, tackle a concrete business challenge.
• The goal? To promote an entrepreneurial spirit and a taste for exploration among young people.
   

TotalEnergies is convinced that students are both the future of our regions and the key to their vitality. The Company is committed to innovative initiatives to enhance their employability. It is therefore natural that the Company has positioned itself as a partner of the Pioneers program at the Biarritz Connector for the past two years, through the Innovation Accelerator.

The Innovation Accelerator of TotalEnergies is a structured entity between Pau and Paris, created in February 2024 and dedicated to the coordination and implementation of TotalEnergies’ industrial innovation projects. For this 2025 edition, two pilots from the Innovation Accelerator supervised a team of five students. The challenge? Working on the project: "Visual Management of the Performance of our Innovation Projects."

"The Pioneers program collaborates with six schools in the region, one engineering school (ESTIA), three business schools (EKLORE, PIGIER, TALIS), and two design schools (MJM Bordeaux and EDSL)," explains Benjamin Capilla, head of the innovation department at Le Connecteur. "We visit the schools at the beginning of the academic year to present the program and the unique entrepreneurial experience we offer through the lens of innovation," continues Vanessa Pretotto, project manager at the Connector in Biarritz.

For two months, within a multidisciplinary team representing a local business, students (bachelor's level 3, master's level 1 and 2) work on a dedicated issue. Nine participants took part in the 2025 edition: Atlanthal, Crédit Agricole Pyrénées Gascogne, Crédit Agricole S.A, EDF, Goicoechea, Roues Libres, SIS Sécurité, TotalEnergies, and Wonder Cleaner.
 

A unique entrepreneurial experience

The Pioneers program aims to promote innovation, enhance students’ skills in this field, and offers them the opportunity to collaborate with local businesses. "The approach also has an integration and equal opportunity mission. Students are housed on-site, so social criteria are not a barrier." The rhythm is intense, with masterclasses, expert interventions on topics such as creativity, observation, prototyping, and weekly support from Company mentors who share internal culture and provide a professional perspective...
 

The Innovation Accelerator supports a team

Two co-mentors, Antonin Baume, Innovation Portfolio Leader,  and Pierre-Emmanuel Lardin, Innovation Coaching Leader at the Innovation Accelerator, supported a team of five students: Matthis Duvert, Fabrice Yane, Maud Sixou, Luc Pol, and Lola Delbut. "Within the Innovation Accelerator, created in 2024 and responsible for over 180 industrial projects for all TotalEnergies branches, we wanted to have a Visual Management of Performance tool to be more agile and responsive to our need for rapid and large-scale execution of all our projects," explain the co-mentors. "We entrusted this issue to a group of five multidisciplinary students formed by the Connector."
 

A program serving the region

Beyond the deliverable, the students had weekly meetings, in person or via video conference, with the co-mentors to understand the Company, its organization, its constraints, and its innovation management... On March 28, 2025, they presented their work and proposed a solution on the stage of the Atrium at the Connector, in front of an audience of over 200 people. "The Pioneers program was a unique experience, both challenging and enriching," said one of the students. "The issue proposed by TotalEnergies was complex; we had to step out of our comfort zone to fully understand the request, identify key words, and integrate all the stakes to develop a relevant solution. We also learned to work in a project team, each coming from a different school, and to make this diversity an asset."

The Pioneers program is on a roll, and the experiential format is appealing!