Press release

THE BOUYGUES CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGE REWARDS 
A PROJECT FOR A CONNECTED, HUMAN ECO-NEIGHBOURHOOD 

04-12-2014

Team 9, made up of students from the Polytech Clermont-Ferrand engineering school and HEC business school, won the Bouygues Construction Challenge 2014 with its project for a sustainable, connected and human neighbourhood, called “Eco’herence”. The latest edition of the Bouygues Construction business game put the spotlight on the students’ creativity and their ability to take accounts of the expectations of the users of the buildings. 

​Jean-Manuel Soussan, HR Director of Bouygues Construction, said: “Eighteen years after it was created, the Challenge continues to allow students from a wide variety of educational backgrounds (business schools, engineering schools, universities, etc.) to get to know the diversity of professions at Bouygues Construction, which is active from upstream to downstream of the construction cycle.”
The teams, consisting of final-year students, were asked to innovate. In previous years, the competition consisted in replying to a call for tenders inspired by such flagship projects as the Nîmes-Montpellier rail bypass and the Beaugrenelle shopping centre. This year, though, the candidates had to devise a global offer for a neighbourhood, ensuring that innovation and ICT (information and communications technologies) were central to their thinking. The students imagined eco-connected, community-minded neighbourhoods that will meet the needs of a local authority wanting to make itself more attractive to citizens, businesses and traders.
Philippe Van de Maele, Director of Innovation and Sustainable Construction at Bouygues Construction, said: “The students taking part fully understood the importance of developing sustainable and human neighbourhoods, given that 80% of the world’s population will be living in cities 30 years from now. The stakes are high for society as a whole, and for a company like Bouygues Construction.”
 
71 of the 440 original participants were selected following a demanding process to compete in the 48-hour Challenge itself. After several further stages of elimination, four teams of finalists were judged by an audience of industry professionals, who voted by smartphone.
 
Once again, the teams were multicultural, with five countries represented (France, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Czech Republic and India). A team half of whose members were students from Bangladesh won the Jury Prize. In addition, this year the Challenge was open to in-house teams for the first time, and competitors included eleven students currently on work/study programmes and internships at Bouygues Construction.
 
Created in 1997 to bring students into closer contact with the professional world, the Bouygues Construction Challenge helps students to find out more about the diversity of professions in the construction sector and related service industries. It also serves as a recruitment tool: when the competition is over, the most outstanding participants can be offered internships, places on the French International Volunteer Programme and permanent contracts. Since it was created, 850 students have taken part, more than 40% of whom have joined Bouygues Construction for an internship, an international volunteering experience or a job, whether in support roles or at the heart of production.