CRE is the French Energy Regulatory Commission. It ensures that the electricity and gas markets in France function smoothly, for the benefit of end consumers and in line with energy policy objectives. ARAFER is the French rail and road regulatory body. Its mission is to contribute to the efficient operation of the public service and competitive activities for the benefit of rail and road transport customers.
Both these organizations face significant regulatory changes related to technology and data availability. To tackle these changes, they decided to cooperate with us through a fast-paced Datathon in order to stimulate innovation within their ecosystem, develop their next digital services and boost their visibility.
48 hours to develop innovative solutions by crossing mass open data and leveraging new technologies
A long list of potential subjects was screened based on data availability (including open-data from the Mobility & Energy sectors), attractiveness for participants and complexity, resulting in 3 challenges to work on:
- Promote the development of electric mobility
- Develop solutions to better monitor consumption, support energy transition and better regulate
- Improve mobility through a better monitoring of rail and public transportation service quality
70 highly skilled participants were invited after a selective recruitment campaign, making sure all required field of expertise would be combined (Data Scientists, Developers, UX Designers, Business developers, Growth-hackers, …) and with sufficient skills to tackle the challenges brought forward by ARAFER & CRE.
Invent, unleash and change tomorrow’s consumer usage through a radical innovation design experience
The Datathon took place at the Blue Shaker, our iconic venue designed to living new work experiences. Here participants can forget there day to day routine and be submersed by a young buzzing crowd.
During two days (and one night!) of intensive work, punctuated with yoga sessions and DJ boosters, 14 multidisciplinary teams were competing to maximize data valorization and disruption potential. For this they have experienced our Radical Innovation Design for Business methodology* in order to find unsolved problems, painful consumer usage or situations, to investigate and to prototype a solution that creates effective value.
The open access to regulated data (related to markets demand and offer, service quality, infrastructure maintenance, operators’ CAPEX and OPEX, …) and the disrupting technologies emerging to develop new algorythms opens up promissing opportunities to be investigated.
* derived from a collaboration with CentraleSupélec on their RID framework
3 winners for promising projects that will change the future
A jury composed of Cédric Villani (Fields medal-holder & Deputy), Axelle Lemaire (Deputy & former Secretary of State in charge of Digital & Innovation), Catherine Edwige (commissioner for the CRE) and Anne Yvrande-Billon (vice president of ARAFER) awarded the following top 3 projects among many innovative proposals:
- 1st prize: the BALIZE SMARTPHONE APP enables electric car owners to optimize their long–distance journeys
Based on charging stations’ availability and driver preferences, stop-off points are proposed along the road (landmarks, restaurants, etc.).
- 2nd prize: the METEORAIL TOOL empowers railway users to anticipate potential disturbances
The history of disturbances is analyzed with AI to provide the user with a reliability index, helping him or her to choose between several railway lines.
- 3rd prize: the PATATAZ PLATFORM rewards consumers who perform energy savings or adapt their energy consumption time slot at the request of their energy provider
The communitarian tool prompts users to perform approved actions in order to improve their ranking and get rewards through partnerships.