UTC Alum­ni cel­e­brat­ed their alma mater’s 50th Anniver­sary on Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 18 in Com­pieg­ne, the event cul­mi­nat­ing in a gala din­ner. The pro­gram for this event was very rich and in keep­ing with UTC’s 50th Anniver­sary celebrations.

The UTC Alum­ni asso­ci­a­tion, in part­ner­ship with UTC and the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion, orga­nized a fes­tive day to cel­e­brate the engi­neer­ing school’s 50th anniver­sary. The event ben­e­fit­ed from the invalu­able sup­port of the city of Com­pieg­ne and the Aggloméra­tion de la ville de Com­piègne [Greater Com­pieg­ne]. «The pro­gram had been planned from the start of the year 2023 and cul­mi­nat­ed in a wide range of activ­i­ties on Novem­ber 18. The fes­tiv­i­ties began at 9 a.m. with break­fast and last­ed far into the night. Many of the grad­u­ates of the very first class were present. The Denielou class was look­ing for­ward to this event,» points out Céline Keldenich, Gen­er­al Del­e­gate of the UTC Alum­ni asso­ci­a­tion, found­ed in 1978 and boast­ing some 28 000 alumni. 

After wel­com­ing speech­es by Pro­fes­sor Claire Rossi, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of UTC and Amine Smahi, Pres­i­dent of UTC Alum­ni, at the Daniel Thomas Inno­va­tion Cen­tre, a round table dis­cus­sion took place on the theme of «Rethink­ing the role of the engi­neer in the face of the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis», mod­er­at­ed by Hugo Ler­oux (GP 2010), an inde­pen­dent sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal­ist, under the watch­ful eye of Clé­mence Blot (GM 2014), an illus­tra­tor spe­cial­iz­ing in com­ic strip com­mu­ni­ca­tion, who, accom­pa­nied by her felt-tip pens, was able to cap­ture the var­i­ous exchanges graph­i­cal­ly. «The round table speak­ers were Eric Bertin (GM 1995), eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion train­er and founder of Jardins & Com­pag­nie, Sacha Bour­guet, UTC design stu­dent com­mit­ted to soci­etal tran­si­tion, Isabelle Cail­leau, Direc­tor of eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion and soci­etal com­mit­ment at UTC, Lau­rence Mon­noy­er-Smith, Direc­tor of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment at CNES and Fab­rice Girard (GM 1981, founder and chair­man of the Sofren Group.»

A ‘chic meal’ and a grand opening fanfare

After the inau­gu­ra­tion of the «On monte une expo­si­tion tem­po­raire» project in the pres­ence of Arielle François (DEA UTC 1981), deputy may­or of Com­pieg­ne and Emmanuel Pas­cual, Com­pieg­ne town coun­cil­lor, guests had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cov­er var­i­ous UTC plat­forms, includ­ing the «Halle Numérique» of the Costech lab­o­ra­to­ry, the GEC (Enzy­mat­ic and Cel­lu­lar Engi­neer­ing) laboratory’s «Food Sci­ence» plat­form, the BMBI (Bio­Me­chan­ics and Bio­Engi­neer­ing) laboratory’s «Tech­nolo­gies Sports San­té» plat­form, the TIMR (Trans­for­ma­tions Inté­grées de la Matière renou­ve­lable) and Rober­val (Mechan­ics, Ener­gy and Elec­tric­i­ty) lab­o­ra­to­ries, and the UTC FabLab. Then it was time to get ready for the chic gala din­ner held at the Domaine de Mer­cières, with a fan­fare pro­vid­ed by UTC’s Caphar­naüm asso­ci­a­tion, and the launch­ing of the UTC Foun­da­tion for inno­va­tion fund-rais­ing cam­paign by Patrick Dupin, Pres­i­dent of the UTC Foun­da­tion for inno­va­tion CEO of the Saint-Gob­ain Group. 

Enter­tain­ment and sur­pris­es punc­tu­at­ed the evening, accom­pa­nied by gyp­sy music from the Boris Pelosof Trio. «The grand finale was the arrival of the dessert offered by one of the day’s part­ners, Choco­la­terie Bel­langer, name­ly a 1.50-high choco­late sculp­ture equipped with a pyrotech­nic sys­tem on the theme of UTC and its 50th Anniver­sary. We’d also like to thank our oth­er UTC part­ners, mem­bers of the UTC Alum­ni Busi­ness Club: Elia Med­ical, OJC Con­seil, J2S Con­seil, Men­tal­Works and Sofren Group”. Over 300 guests attend­ed the event, which was expert­ly orga­nized by the association’s vol­un­teers and oper­a­tional team.