good evening I have a stomach ache
stress the stress of the student who
waiting in the hallway in front of the door
from the examination room
we are the friday april 18th, 2008 i
am in nairobi in kenya in the
doctor facilities without
borders where I finish a mission
of a week on the ground and I
works for the xm times my
presentation which is entitled my vision of
cetic at 50
a month earlier
returned home after work I
get a phone call from my
director of the time
at that moment I was leading a team
about ten people in cetic on
center of excellence in technology
information and communication
a research center based in charleroi
who work for others the
IT companies in the region
he asks me if we can see each other after
the work will be concluded very quickly
from one place to namur one finds oneself in
a brewery arrived on the spot there
do not go by four ways and
announces that he has just resigned from
his position as director and that the council
of directors offered to confide
the direction of the center
the news falls on me I’m going
to be 30 years old is a famous challenge I
go home and by chance I get
a skype call from a teacher friend to
the higher technology school of
montréal and I take this opportunity for him
explain what is proposed to me it is
very direct he tells me simon a
opportunity like that at your age you do not
will not have two I do not think
much longer I sleep on it
I accept a month later I become
director of cetic who occupies at the time
40 people
I think this event is the
first risk taking of my career
five years later
it’s been ten years more or less that I
am at cetic at this time and I
works daily with the
companies with a lack that
nevertheless want to go further
to go beyond research and
development to go into creating
of products in product launches
and it’s just before the break
of Christmas
we are in 2012 I get a shot of
phone
a headhunter who is mandated by
a Liège entrepreneur looking for
a director for an incubator and funds
investment he wants to launch on
cork
my dream this entrepreneur it’s about
stone west the founder of a
well-known company based in cork that
has become a world leader in
slowed down tv that occupies more than 400
people around the world through 15
office and which is at 90% market share
and the project in question is called and
called the factory in a nod to
the artist he appreciates
especially ndi warhol
the workshop in new york had been also
baptized with the same name the ambition is to
create it’s an incubator and funds
investments and so in two months
an incubator is a place where we go
welcome project leaders to
coaching them help them to launch their
business
the project is fantastic it’s a
real challenge
a blank sheet a project to
build this time not need
skype calls I go to go to cork
if I stop for a moment and I look
back to watch
the central element the common denominator
of all that I think it’s the
curiosity
indeed at the exit of my humanities
I hesitate between two ways
on the one hand the story that fascinates me
since my early childhood and
computing I fell into the
world of pc’s husband of the internet and the
two interests me I chose to start
through history by listening to the advice
from my parents who explain to me the
university course is enough
difficult and that passion should
soften it what was actually the
case
and here I am at the University of Namur
to start but candidacy then what
which is interesting in the story
is it’s a very 360 discipline
degrees because she’s going to appeal
she herself has plenty of other disciplines to
philosophy psychology
assistance sociology sciences
economic
the statistic the brief right as much of
ways of apprehending the world and its
reality that still help me today
I continue with a license by my
license to leuven the new and here I have the
chance to work on a subject that me
still passionate today the first
world war and especially
the invasion doubt 14 my completed license
i’m coming back to namur to start a
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and two years
after me here with my two degrees in
hand and this time it must choose and
to get into the professional world and
I leave in the computer the side
pragmatic tangi of technologies
attracts me and I start at cetic on
research center I was talking about
which had just been created
we are then a team of five
researchers at the time also in
sort of a little in start up mode
with certainly a little less risk and
I will start as a researcher in
software quality then I’m going to have
different opportunities are working on
regional projects European countries
in other technologies the grid the
cloud computing so technologies
that we all know today
since they are on our phones
laptops and us our computers and
projects that will not meet
a lot of people
in europe so in this course i’m going
also be confronted with failure since
I will start with a colleague a
start-up project which, however,
ambitious very noble idea it was
design and market a companion
digital to make it easier to maintain
home of the elderly
unfortunately the product will be launched
too early in a market that will not be
mature a lot of bitterness on the moment
but a lot of lessons learned that
still serve me today
and precisely the risk
uncertainty these are elements that
are my daily at the factory so the
factory so we are incubator
accelerator and investment funds
for technology start-ups we are looking for
projects that builds on
disruptive technologies that will power
to be developed at scale
international the fundamental element that
guide our process
these are the founders the founders of
projects of the founders of start-ups
passionate about people who are legitimate
in their technologies for whom this
business project is really
the central element of their lives there who have
the spiteful who have the will to do it
lead
so I’m talking about founders or plural
because indeed this adventure of
start up is a course that is going to be
fraught with difficulties of
risks of uncertainty and
questioning and having
duos facilitates this work because the
founders can trade can
share your tents they are facing
difficulties then our work at the
factory is on the one hand to invest so
to bring capital necessary element
but not enough to launch a
business
most of our work is
especially to supervise advising
project leaders in the points
fundamentals like strategy
commercial strategy
development produces the constitution
of a team
because what is essential in a
start up it’s the execution quality
it’s fast and fast
execution
because we are in a world that
today is connected a world that
is globalized and therefore the competition is going
very quickly and their number one enemy
it is time therefore our
attention is focused on really the
elements that allows them to go fast
to reach the first tier then
there is a project that I want you
talk tonight because I live he’s me
particularly dear to the heart
it’s about peas it’s a start-up
that we have supported that comes from
the leuven university of a laboratory
in micro electronics specialized in the
very low consumption management
electronic components and their
ambition is to replace
batteries are the connected objects
you know that in the field of
the internet of things to give you
a number
we announce by 2020 more than 30
billions of connected objects
if we continue to feed them with
batteries as we do today
we will be faced with a huge
waste management problem the model
is not sustainable whereas around
we have the sun on the heat we have
the movement we have the radio waves that
can be used to feed them
and that’s all the genius of this
company their technology then the
two founders who came from this
laboratory had very quickly issued their
want to create a start up for
exploit this technology but he
had been facing the difficulty is
on the return of certain authorities
they say it is very good
idea but start a business that’s
something serious it takes
experienced managers of managers
white hair to resume
the expression they had heard and
geoffroy one of the two co-founders a
little disappointed but still well motivated
eating spring evening 2014 with a
of my friends to whom they confide
explains how difficult it is to find
capital and an environment in which
he’ll be able to be accompanied for
to launch his project the putting in relation
is very quickly done with the factory
a few months later they tell us
join and we’re going to incubate them
for a little over 18 months
help them started the business
structure the team to achieve
last year a first tier
essential marketing of their
first product
and then last July a very
beautiful fundraising more than 3
million with partners from
first place internationally
hippies and now to a new
step and can continue his
development
so there are some elements that
retrospectively giant that I want
to share with you in relation to my
course
the first that concerns precisely this
concept of entrepreneurs I am convinced
that it’s not a role or a state that
is reserved for some one to an elite
we all have genes in us
entrepreneurs who only ask
express yourself with different intensities
according to the projects the key element is the
curiosity is empathy versus
to the world around us the capacity
to observe to identify
opportunities
that’s what makes today
my job I’m lucky to be in
somehow a discoverer of talents
or a facilitator of intuition and what
I remember it’s really doing you
trust
follow your passions be curious for
find opportunities the
opportunities to be able to jump into a
new project and then mostly dark I
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
”
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