Creating sustainable value - Danielle Desravines
I am a research scientist and hold a PhD in structural biology and nanobiology. The focus of my research was in deciphering the molecular pathway in hypercholesterolemia in order to develop new pharmaceutical drugs. I have now been working in research & development, innovation management and financing for several years. My role is to leverage the performance of high-tech companies, be it on a financial or organizational level. I want to thrive in highly innovative environments and that is why I decided to start my journey in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Major in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
This Major is the perfect program to understand how to navigate through the ocean of possibilities. In addition to exploring the concepts underlying innovation, it also provides all the necessary tools to create value sustainably. The 2 sessions are run in Paris and Boston and there is an excellent balance between lectures, visits and conferences with entrepreneurs and venture capital companies.
The different speakers provided us with great insights, which were complemented with case studies and practical workshops. These concepts are key assets for us in our current roles and for our upcoming challenges. We also had the chance to interact with successful entrepreneurs who openly shared every aspect of their business ventures when we visited Station F (one of the biggest start-up campuses in the world) and companies such as UBISOFT, Thales and Microsoft.
Experience of the program
The international dimension of the Major gave us the opportunity to apprehend innovation and entrepreneurship from different perspectives, which is crucial in this era of globalization. For instance, we were able to dissect, amongst others, some innovative projects from India and from the US. Another interesting feature of the program was the possibility to move outside of our comfort zone by addressing topics such as social and frugal innovation. The learning experience in Boston was also very insightful in terms of game changing, innovation culture, and strategies from an American perspective.
Another major asset of the program was the mix of different tracks. It offered the chance to interact and learn from all the participants as we all came from different backgrounds and different countries. I have not had the opportunity to visit Doha and its innovation ecosystem yet, but thanks to my classmates from Doha, I was able to get some enlightening insights. We dived into learning about innovation and leveraging from each other’s experience in order to open our minds and nurture our innovation and entrepreneurship mindsets.
I genuinely appreciated every aspect of the Major - the networking opportunities, the quality of the speakers, the diversity of participants, the themes, and the international dimension. I would therefore like to thank Sihem Jouini, the Academic Director, Joëlle Cervoni, the Program Manager and all the speakers for making the Major such a positive experience.
Looking to the future
Uncertainty is the key issue we have to tackle and will have to overcome in the future, all the more so as the pace of innovation has accelerated substantially in the past few years. How can we still create value sustainably in such a context? We are not, however, disarmed to embrace and take on our next challenges. The Major in Entrepreneurship and Innovation provides an optimistic but realistic landscape to overcome these challenges. This requires an open-minded and creative mindset. Nonetheless, as we learned or confirmed with this Major, our efforts need to be supported by useful and enriching frameworks such as design thinking, disciplined entrepreneurship, lean start-up and frugal innovation.
I wish to contribute to society by capitalizing on innovation as a means of creating value. This Major reminded me that I must remain agile and flexible, which will be crucial for me to take on new challenges. My next step will certainly be in a highly innovative and high-tech ecosystem, which will offer a wide range of opportunities.