Among the twelve 2020 win­ners cho­sen by the Fon­da­tion “La France s’en­gage”, among the social entre­pre­neurs who inno­vate to build a fair­er and more social­ly respon­si­ble soci­ety, we find the Com­piègne-based Bip Pop Coop­er­a­tive designed with­in the UTC Costech lab­o­ra­to­ry. It has been not­ed at the nation­al lev­el for its appli­ca­tion of mutu­al aid among cit­i­zens, asso­ci­a­tions and com­mu­ni­ties aimed at alle­vi­at­ing isolation. 

The health cri­sis we are going through has unfor­tu­nate­ly accen­tu­at­ed inequal­i­ties in our soci­ety. The mis­sion of Bip Pop takes on an even stronger mean­ing in this peri­od. The co-oper­a­tive offers a plat­form of local self-help ser­vices for com­mu­ni­ties that wish to broad­en their social offer in order to fight against peo­ple’s iso­la­tion. Bip Pop is a social and sol­i­dar­i­ty econ­o­my enter­prise (société coopéra­tive d’in­térêt col­lec­tif). Its part­ner­ships with local author­i­ties, MDS, RPA, EHPAD, CAS, CCAS, CSR aim to pro­vide a ser­vice to as many iso­lat­ed peo­ple as pos­si­ble. “The sit­u­a­tion in France is wor­ry­ing. Two mil­lion senior cit­i­zens are in a sit­u­a­tion of iso­la­tion and this fig­ure is con­stant­ly increas­ing. By putting peo­ple in need of a ser­vice in touch with oth­er peo­ple or enti­ties offer­ing their ser­vices, Bip Pop is mak­ing it eas­i­er for them to stay at home by pro­vid­ing access to the last mile and local ser­vices,” explains Math­ieu Ribeil, Bip Pop’s devel­op­ment director. 

A recognised social innovation

Con­vivi­al­i­ty vis­its, read­ing aloud, com­put­er assis­tance, help with admin­is­tra­tive for­mal­i­ties, accom­pa­ni­ment on walks, races, events and even senior-junior advice, I need help, I “beep” Bi, and Pop answers me, refer­ring to the imme­di­a­cy of Inter­net and mobile uses. But here it is trans­posed to pure social con­tact. The idea is to pop­u­larise these local self-help ser­vices. Here again the pop pop­u­laris­es. Anne Gué­nand, lec­tur­er-research sci­en­tist at UTC designed this social and sol­i­dar­i­ty inno­va­tion at the UTC-Costech lab­o­ra­to­ry. “Bip Pop is indeed the fruit of sev­er­al years of devel­op­ment and research work in part­ner­ship with UTC and the Godin Insti­tute. Win­ner 2016 of the Impact Ashoka pro­gramme, win­ner 2016 of the Inclu­sive Mobil­i­ty Lab­o­ra­to­ry, win­ner 2017 and 2018 of the Oise Financeers’ Con­fer­ence, as well as of the Hauts-deFrance region, the Bip Pop plat­form was deployed in 2020 in the Hauts-de-France and beyond. “ 

The citizen commitment is affirmed at this particular time

This tool for coor­di­nat­ing local sol­i­dar­i­ty makes it pos­si­ble to respond eas­i­ly to the spe­cif­ic and some­times very sim­ple needs of iso­lat­ed peo­ple through a vol­un­tary and local response. The net­work thus formed pro­motes home care for the elder­ly and brings more life into their homes. As for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic, François Hol­lande, Chair­man of the Foun­da­tion La France s’en­gage, points out: “Bip Pop is a real bul­wark against exclu­sion and will aim to break the iso­la­tion of more than 30,000 elder­ly peo­ple liv­ing in rur­al areas with­in three years. Our project is to con­tribute to build­ing a fair­er and more sup­port­ive soci­ety, based on the ful­fil­ment of each indi­vid­ual. “The Fon­da­tion La France s’en­gage is part of the exten­sion of the pro­gramme of sup­port for social and sol­i­dar­i­ty inno­va­tion ini­ti­at­ed by the State in 2014. Each year, it iden­ti­fies and rewards the most inno­v­a­tive projects. Once approved, the projects are accel­er­at­ed by the Foun­da­tion, which pro­vides them with sup­port for three years in addi­tion to fund­ing. The aim is to help them spread through­out the country.