WORKSHOPS, CONFERENCES, HACKATHON: CRYPTO WEEK FEVER HAS TAKEN HOLD OF EPITA!
Held November 18 to 26, 2022, the very first edition of EPITA’s Crypto Week lived up to its expectations! Specially intended for future engineers as well as experts, employees of the school and high school students, this thematic week included many events. Workshops, conferences, hackathon… let’s takealook at seven days of frenzied deciphering!
Crypto Week: an unforgettable hackathon…
The GottaGoHack association, which brings together all students from EPITA and Epitech Technology, passionate about innovation, was in charge of kicking off this first Crypto Week by organizing a 48-hour hackathon specially created for the occasion on the Kremlin-Bicêtre campus. More than 70 participants from a dozen schools came together November 18 to 20, forming teams to take up one of the two following challenges: “A.R.T: Art Reinvented by Technology” which required the use of the Blockchain technology of partner company Massa Labs and cryptocurrency, and “Big Data and Health: Medicine 3.0″ which, in partnership with Société Générale, encouraged students to work on the technology of their choice. At the same time, the teams were also able to attend thematic conferences chaired by partner companies and could relax, thanks to the numerous activities offered by the members of GottaGoHack. At the end of the week, the two winning projects were unveiled.
… and EPITA students in tiptop shape!
As for “Big Data and Health”, the project led by Martin Lacaille (EPITA class of 2025), who took part in the hackathon with his brothers Louis and Clément, as well as Tristan Gadeaux (EPITA class of 2025) managed to make it to the top of the podium: “We came up with a software solution that allows pharmacists to automatically validate prescriptions, via artificial intelligence, to prevent incompatible medications from being used. In addition to the challenge, we also felt that this hackathon was a great way to spend time together… and show our parents that they could be proud of their children! Above all, we discovered a great deal about Big Data and met some very interesting people!”
For the “A.R.T” theme, the team composed of Noé Susset (EPITA class of 2026), Yassine Damiri (class of 2024), Cedric Ghanem (class of 2024) and Mickael Bobovitch (class of 2026) took first place. “We worked on a “next gen” music streaming platform, based on fair trade and decentralized, via the use of Blockchain,” explains Cedric. It allows artists to bring their communities together and the public to participate in fundraising operations in return for royalties or, for example, access to exclusive content. Thanks to Blockchain, all transactions between the public and artists are truly transparent. And for the record, two of the team members had already participated in a previous GottaGoHack hackathon, nearly finishing on the podium: this was an opportunity to take their revenge and show that we could learn about Blockchain in only two days!”
Crypto Week: a conference exploring all possibilities
On November 22, journalist Nicolas Arpagian and Philippe Dewost, Managing Director of EPITA joined forces with five experts and players in the field of new technologies to participate in an exceptional conference. Nicolas Bacca, co-founder of Ledger, Yosra Jarraya, CEO of Astrachain, Nadia Filali, director of Blockchain programs at the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Carlos Diaz, founder and president of Uncut.fm and host of the Silicon Carne podcast, and Sébastien Gouspillou, co-founder of Bigblock Group, discussed all the issues and possibilities offered by cryptocurrencies, the emergence of web3 and the use of Blockchain, without overlooking the associated legislative, environmental and economic challenges.
Crypto Week: finance at the heart of the debate
On November 24, the LaCity association took the stage with an event dedicated to Soulbound Tokens, the next revolution in internet ownership, thanks to NFTs. This included a round table discussion moderated by Pierre Armanet and Hugo Heer, two EPITA alumni (class of 2022) working at BearingPoint, and a workshop. The ideal combo to allow future engineers to become increasingly familiar with the use of Blockchain in finance.
Crypto Week: don’t wait for graduation to learn about new technologies!
Finally, on Saturday November 26, Crypto Week ended with an immersion day for high school students. For one afternoon, a dozen or so high school students were able to take part in hands-on workshops led by the LaCity student association and the teams at Metalab, the school’s innovation laboratory! This was a way of showing future high school graduates that they don’t need to wait until they start college to begin learning how Blockchain and cryptocurrencies, which are constantly in the news, work. I wanted to participate because I am extremely interested in computer science, especially cybersecurity and cryptocurrencies, but also because EPITA is one of my top choices,” says Arthur, a senior in high school. It was really nice to be able to learn in an active hands-on way!”
