The Solar Impulse Foundation – guest of honour at ENGIE's Innovation Festival
ENGIE's Innovation Festival runs from 22 to 25 September 2020 – an event all about innovation featuring talks, roundtable discussions, masterclasses and a marketplace for innovative solutions based on four topics: carbon neutrality, renewable energies, cities and territories and smart buildings.
This year, the Solar Impulse Foundation is very much working hand-in-hand with the 2020 Innovation Awards in order to encourage ENGIE innovators.
In June, around ten or so webinars were held as way of encouraging the Innovation Awards' finalist teams to submit their approval applications. 25 people participated in these e-coaching sessions and ultimately three additional solutions, in addition to the nine that had already been certified, were selected. Other solutions are still being considered for future approval. This prestigious label with which ENGIE has joined forces, both as a partner looking for innovative solutions (green gas, hydrogen, renewables, green mobility, etc.) and also by providing its own experts / assessors, is in line with ENGIE's aim of developing positive-impact solutions to benefit both people and the planet.
Furthermore, the Grand Jury put together for ENGIE’s Innovation Awards includes a selection of high-level judges made up of both ENGIE managers and well-known people from outside the company. This year, it included Silvestro Russo, a representative of the Solar Impulse Foundation who took part in the four video-conference sessions held in May and June for the 19 Innovation Award prizes. Silvestro Russo demonstrated his interest and curiosity during the discussions held as part of the question-and-answer sessions at the end of each project presentation. He set himself the task of identifying those projects which appear most promising in terms of future approval.
Because of the unprecedented health crisis, a digital marketplace was also introduced featuring a page presenting all the initiatives developed by ENGIE x Solar Impulse Foundation.
Among the prizes presented this year, a special “ENGIE x Solar Impulse Foundation” prize, created especially for the occasion, was given to an innovative ENGIE solution by Bertrand Piccard, Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, who actually attended the event in person. Bertrand Piccard delivered a very committed speech that was streamed live, before presenting the prize to the winning team.
Discover the 19 winners of the 2020 ENGIE Innovation Trophies
