Our school is just turning 5, and it is proudly witnessing the rise of its very first cohort of Master's graduates. With sunshine in their hearts and stars in their eyes, our graduates are living through a summer 2016 filled with pure bliss!
Between 4 and 20 July, under a sky full of promise, no fewer than 86 Digital Campus candidates from across France (Bordeaux, Lyon, Rennes and Toulouse) bravely presented their DC Start project during the oral examination for the Level I Title of Expert in Digital Strategy, before a panel of digital industry professionals.
Of those 86 candidates, 80 received their diploma, including 21 Distinction grades and 2 High Distinction grades. All jury members praised the quality of the work submitted, the oral presentations delivered by our students, and their genuine skills and expertise in the digital sector. From Toulouse to Lyon, via Rennes and Bordeaux, our young graduates are very likely to be hotly pursued by recruiters.
Emmanuel Petit, Founder of Liberty Rider and member of the Toulouse jury, shared: "I really want to find a profile from your school to bring work of this quality to Liberty Rider." "I'm hiring them" was the response of Frédéric Sitterlé, Director of 1Kubator Bordeaux and creator of Myscreen.com and Sport 24, President of the Bordeaux Jury, for 99% of the candidates he saw. Beyond this recognition of our students' professional abilities, the excellence of certain projects earned around ten of them an offer of: a place in an incubator, funding, or support in developing their start-up. The starter of La Mêlée Numérique asked to meet Loic Dominot, the creator of the project "La belle Basket", to welcome him into his incubator. The company Morning also connected with this talented young project creator. Frédéric Sitterlé selected no fewer than 4 projects to incubate at 1kubator Bordeaux. The young start-up "So Connected", built by Christophe Serres during his second year of the Digital Campus Toulouse Master's programme along with 4 other students including a classmate, is set to become part of the IOT Valley, mentored by Sondenada.

A look back at the DCStart:

By joining the DC START, Digital Campus's pre-incubator, all Master's students spent two years developing a digital project under highly favourable conditions. Structured around a series of regular milestones spread over two years, DC START is a true melting pot, a vast playground for entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship:

 

  • DC CAMP: learning and understanding in a playful, hackathon spirit.
  • DC MEET: building every step of your project with the help of experts and a dedicated coordinator. 
  • DIGIDEJ and DIGITIME: learning from the experiences of professionals and exchanging ideas over a coffee. 
  • DC GUIDE: stepping outside the school and going to meet companies. 

 To nurture imagination and turn it into creation and innovation — from idea to project in the first year, through to the submission of a full Business Plan and prototype at the end of the second year — students put into practice the skills expected at Master's level:

 

  • Setting up proactive monitoring to offer clients the most innovative solutions.
  • Analysing and defining objectives, conducting market studies, audits and benchmarks of the digital environment.
  • Defining and implementing a digital strategy.
  • Mastering functional design and project planning.
  • Managing internal or external human resources.
  • Developing or adapting and implementing an SEO strategy.
  • Setting up partnerships and media buying, establishing a social media presence.
  • Building a Business Plan.
  • Developing a prototype…

The projects presented this year covered a wide range of topics: e-tourism, a marketplace for innovative objects, online trendy trainer sales, a community app around sound, a digital events management solution, a restaurant and caterer geolocation solution, peer-to-peer ski equipment rental online, online beauty product sales, a service connecting customers with a network of home mechanics, and more.

 

Find out more:

A huge thank you to the members of the professional panels in all 4 cities:

Alexandre Fourtoy, Director of 1kubator - Virginie Boissimon, Head of the EM Lyon Incubator – Carole Granade, President of BoostInLyon, the Lyon start-up accelerator - Pierre Alexandre Messner, Founder of Web Sparkler - Marie Trouhet, General Delegate of the Incubateur Rhône Alpes Pionnières - Bertrand Moine, Secretary General at Digital-Village.fr - Axel Jhonston, Human Factors Engineer, UX Designer / Co-founder of Anxiani - Frédéric Sitterlé, Director of 1Kubator Bordeaux - Shirley Jagle, Entrepreneur – Digital, Social Media, Wine, Video Games - Jérôme Morizot, Marketing Manager at Weenove – Laurent de Bar, Marketing Director at AT Internet – Ivan Travais, CEO of the WSI network - Alban Frachet, CEO of La Com des Com – Jérôme Duval, HR Director at Groupama Loire Bretagne – Emmanuelle Aureat, Head of Village By CA Ille et Vilaine - Mickaël Viaud, Independent Developer - Jérôme Tre Hardy, CEO of MaPlatine.com - François Essomba, CMO of PodSpot - Margaut Duteuil, CMO of Gwenneg - Loik Le Terrien, Head of Development at RégionsJob - Florent Letourneur, CEO of Happy to Meet You - Olivier Durand, CEO of Digitellement - Maxime Tachon, Project Director at Niji - Pierre Leonardi, Managing Partner at Shopopopp - Pierre Cabrol, Director of Midi Concept – Claire Wibaille, Digital Strategy and Communications Consultant - Elvire Prochilo, Coordinator of the Les Entrepreneuriales programme - Anne-Laure Charbonnier, Director of the MIPY Incubator - Mathias Estano, STARTER Project Manager

 And an enormous thank you to Pierre-Edouard Schmitt, Director of IESA multimédia, who toured France for a month to attend all the presentations. His expert eye helped harmonise the feedback and assessments across all 4 cities. 20 years of experience in web training, digital events and evenings — that's not something you can improvise.