Development Teaching Technology

Hi!ckathon 2023 – Awards

On January 16, 2023, the results of the third edition of the Hi!ckathon were announced during an Award and Closing Ceremony at ENSTA Paris.

The Hi!ckathon is a competitive AI and Data Science challenge organized by Hi! PARIS, a Center dedicated to data analytics and AI. The center was created by HEC Paris and Institut Polytechnique de Paris in September 2020 with INRIA joining in 2021.

The event was supported by the seven Hi! PARIS corporate donors: L’Oréal, Capgemini, TotalEnergies, KERING, Rexel, VINCI and Schneider Electric, which have rewarded seven winning teams with thematic prizes.

Participation

In its third edition, the Hi!ckathon has set a participation record, bringing together 340 students from more than 10 business schools and universities. A total of 26 interdisciplinary teams made it to the finishing line. All the teams benefited from  five weeks of preparation and skills building workshops and made it through an intense two-day final sprint experience.

During the final 48 hour weekend, participants were accompanied by 20 experienced data scientists and four business consultants from corporate donors. These coaching sessions, along with many other onsite activities punctuated the weekend, with the aim of helping to drive innovation, as students worked to create holistic AI solutions.

Subject: Support Energy Transition of buildings in Europe

All participants strived to make the most out of the competition. Their goal – in a nutshell – was to submit the best and most frugal AI model in view of solving an issue revolving around “AI & Sustainability”, whilst projecting the project in a business context. More specifically, the topic that brought together all Hi!ckathoners this year focused on modelling the energy consumption of buildings to support energy transition.The students explored the possibilities of predicting the energy consumption of European buildings in order to estimate energy and cost savings, and automate energy assessments and propose a creative and relevant scientific approach to reduce greenhouse gases emissions.

This challenge takes its roots in the current situation of France. France real estate represents 44% of total energy consumption and 25% of Greenhouse gases emissions. A target of 500,000 renovation a year was set for France in 2021 but we are lagging behind. Therefore, we needed students to help with their solutions reach the goal thanks to their key insights driven from their model. At their disposal, they had a dataset of 1.5 million European buildings, with their technical features and yearly energy consumption.

All participants strived to make the most out of the competition. As part of their efforts to conceive a viable MVP, the teams that crossed the finishing line had successfully submitted 3 mandatory deliverables: a data science model, a scientific procedure document as well as a business video pitch.

Evaluation by a jury of experts

These submissions were carefully evaluated during a jury session on the morning of January 16 by a panel composed of prominent academics, corporate representatives and established data science experts who devoted great care and attention to the business and societal impact of each project.

The members of the jury were very much impressed by the quality of the projects presented to them. Seven of which were awarded by the Hi! PARIS Center’s corporate donors. During the closing ceremony, the corporate donors representatives revealed the awards’ nominees and awarded each prize.

Our corporate donors were represented by Stéphane Lannuzel, Operations Chief Digital Officer at L’Oréal, Maud Picq, Director Data Scientist at Capgemini, Victor Martin, Head of numeric platform for power and sustainability R&D at TotalEnergies, Imen El Karoui, Chief Data Officer at KERING, Laurent Nizard, Data Solution Manager at Rexel, Bruno Daunay, Head of AI at VINCI and Claude Le Pape-Gardeux Intelligence, Optimization & Analytics Fellow – Artificial Intelligence Hub at Schneider Electric.

The prizes

Happy winners are invited to spend a condensed learning day in R&D laboratories and innovation centers of the corporate donors to discover the key initiatives and sustainability strategies of these market-leading companies. Such an opportunity also allows award winning teams to exchange further with experts from our corporate donors.

Learn more about the awards and the laureates
  • Business Pitch Award by L’Oréal

The Business Pitch Award rewards the team that best projected itself in the market context through an impactful video speech.

Team 2 – HOME A LOAN conviced the jury with a very concrete and visual presentation of how their solution can help building owners better predict and control their energy consumption. The jury was impressed by the team’s ability to clearly explain their solution and its potential to reduce energy consumption and costs. The team also presented a solid business model and the potential to extend the solution to other markets.

Team 2 – HOME A LOAN was composed of Benjamin Amsellem (HEC Paris – ENSAE Paris), François Bertholom (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Joséphine Gardette (HEC Paris), Baptiste Pasquier (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Coni Soret (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Nadia Zargouni (HEC Paris).

  • Scientific Approach Award by Capgemini

The Scientific Approach Award by Capgemini rewards the team that best demonstrates the ability to justify its scientific approach and confront the state-of-the-art in Data Science.

Team 16 – ENERGYSAVER cleverly combined some of the variables in the dataset to use Fourrier equations to approximate the average heat loss. The use of this variable, which is strongly correlated to the energy consumption of the building, significantly increased the result. In data science, knowledge of the target domain is often very useful to improve predictions.

Team 16 – ENERGYSAVER was composed of Ibrahim Barry (HEC Paris), Lodovico Benvenuti (HEC Paris), Corentin Domergue (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Mehmet Emre Durmus (École polytechnique – IP Paris), Guillaume d’Hérouville (École polytechnique – IP Paris), Alper Tezcan (École polytechnique – IP Paris).

  • Technical Excellence Award by TotalEnergies

The Technical Excellence Award rewards the team whose data science model is the most technically successful, which achieved the highest score, calculated based on a synthetic measure of the model’s accuracy and environmental performance. 

Team 7 – AUDITEO was the most successful in terms of performance of the model. The data cleaning was particularly well done, the extreme data carefully removed, and their model, XGBoost, properly trained.

Team 7 – AUDITEO was composed of Rémi Bouteiller (ESSEC),  Jacques de Chevron Vilette (ENS Paris Saclay), Timothée Dunglas (Centrale Supélec).

  • Interdisciplinarity Award by KERING

The Interdisciplinarity Award by KERING is given to the team that was most able to leverage several disciplines in the production of a scientific approach and a convincing business opportunity pitch.

Collaboration was boon for Team 11 – RENOV’AI to use their respective main strengths and reap their full benefits. Using many digital tools, the winning team shared ideas quickly and had all its members actively involved in multi-disciplinary work.

Team 11 – RENOV’AI was composed of Augustin Combes (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Gabriel Koutchinsky (HEC Paris & ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Christophe Moreau (HEC Paris & ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Thibault Valour (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Théo Vaneufville (HEC Paris – ENSAE Paris).

  • Innovation Award by REXEL

The Innovation Award by REXEL rewards the team that produced an original, unexpected yet relevant solution to the challenge presented during the hackathon.

The winning solution was the HOUSERENEW model, developed by Team 17 “with a vision to help humanity take the next big step in sustainability”, according to their scientific procedure document. Both ambitious and creative, the HOUSERENEW solution impressed all the jury members, and made it in several other podiums. It presented original ideas and an out-of-the-box approach to answer to the topic of the hackathon.

Team 17 – HOUSERENEW – was composed of Lorentz Dutrievoz (École polytechnique – IP PARIS) , Luc Gensbittel (IP PARIS), Marisol Jiménez (UPPA Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (UPPA)), Marwan Mashra (Université Paris Saclay).

  • Creativity Award by VINCI

The Creativity award by VINCI rewards the team who used its creativity to produce an outstanding business perspective.

The winning solution was WATERCHESS, developed by Team 20 “with a vision to help humanity take the next big step in sustainability”, according to their scientific procedure document. Both ambitious and creative, the Daisy solution impressed all the jury members, and made it in several other podiums. It presented original ideas and an out-of-the-box approach to answer to the topic of the Hi!ckathon.

Team 20 – WATERCHESS – was composed of Stefano Bavaro (Université Paris Saclay), Matteo Facta (HEC Paris), Thanh Gia Hieu Khuong (Université Paris Saclay), Benedetta Magni (HEC Paris), Mahdi Ranjbar (Université Paris Saclay), Diego Torres (Université Paris Saclay), Dana Zhumabekova (IP Paris).

  • Jury’s Crush Award by Schneider Electric 
 

The Jury’s crush Award by Schneider Electric rewards the team who produced the best story line for its end-to-end project.

Team 14 – WATT’S DOWN‘s algorithm, scientific production and captivating video enchanted the jury panel, composed of prominent academics, corporate representatives and established data science experts who devoted great care and attention to the business and societal impact of each project in its details.

Team 14 – WATT’S DOWN was composed of Yassine Hargane (HEC Paris & IP Paris), Huu Tan Mai (Télécom Paris – IP Paris), Agathe Minaro (ENSAE Paris – IP Paris), Guillaume Philippe (IP Paris), Max Cameron Wu (IP Paris),

See you next year !

While the Hi!ckathon’s third edition is over, students from a Data Science or a Business background who are interested in joining next year’s hackathon should follow the Hi! PARIS official website where further information regarding the competition could be obtained.

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France 2030

This work has benefited from a government grant managed by the ANR under France 2030 with the reference “ANR-22-CMAS-0002”.