In the begin­ning, the Bis­s­ap project, a drink made from hibis­cus flow­ers, was an ini­tia­tive for the ben­e­fit of the stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty and one of its asso­ci­a­tions, the “Pic’as­so”. A great idea launched thanks to the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get, an enve­lope financed by funds from the con­tri­bu­tion for stu­dent and cam­pus life (CVEC) and vot­ed by the stu­dents elect­ed to the Coun­cil for Stud­ies and Uni­ver­si­ty Life. This fund makes it pos­si­ble to real­ize stu­dent projects aimed at improv­ing the dai­ly life of UTC stu­dents on their cam­pus. On the strength of this, with the sup­port of the entre­pre­neur­ship divi­sion of the depart­ment of socio-eco­nom­ic part­ner­ships and entre­pre­neur­ship (DPSEE) at UTC, Bis­s­ap, renamed “Sir Roselle ”, won a prize last Feb­ru­ary in the Pépite Sor­bonne Université’s call for projects, which enables stu­dents to test, boost and finance a entre­pre­neur­ial project. An adven­ture, with a suc­cess sto­ry as a back­drop, which must now move on to the man­u­fac­tur­ing and mar­ket­ing stage.

Rud­dy Mous­sa­hou, a UTC under­grad­u­ate stu­dent (sec­ond year mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing) IM02, can savour the suc­cess of his madeleine de Proust: bis­s­ap, a juice made from hibis­cus flow­ers that evokes his youth and his Con­golese ori­gins. “I often drank it in Africa and I want­ed to intro­duce oth­ers to my moth­er’s recipe,” the stu­dent empha­sizes. Because the Bis­s­ap project, now called Sir Roselle, an ambi­tion ini­tial­ly sup­port­ed by the Stu­dent Life Office (BVE), acclaimed by stu­dents dur­ing the 2022–2023 par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get and now sup­port­ed by the entre­pre­neur­ship divi­sion of the Direc­torate of Socio-Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ships and Entre­pre­neur­ship (DPSEE), is tak­ing advan­tage of the moti­va­tion of an entire team to out­source the mar­ket­ing of this drink beyond the walls of UTC. Espe­cial­ly since “the idea of start­ing a busi­ness has been on my mind since I arrived in France in 2020,” says the young stu­dent-entre­pre­neur and logis­tics and pro­duc­tion man­ag­er of the project. With Samuel Mon­ji and Inès Abbache, both com­put­er engi­neer­ing stu­dents and respec­tive­ly finance and part­ner­ship man­ag­er and com­mu­ni­ca­tion and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, he devotes his ener­gy to “offer­ing a drink with mul­ti­ple ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits: antiox­i­dant, reduc­tion of high blood pres­sure, reg­u­la­tion of blood sug­ar, etc.”.

Prototyping stage

The win­ners in Feb­ru­ary of the call for projects from Pépite Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty and the Île-de-France region received €3 000 in fund­ing to test, boost and finance their project via the UTC entre­pre­neur­ship cen­tre. “To final­ize a pro­to­type of the still arti­sanal prod­uct by April,” says Samuel Mon­ji. We have to work on the bot­tle, the logo, the label and for­mal­ize the recipe in order to rein­force its iden­ti­ty. The pur­chase of equip­ment, the plac­ing of orders and the search for addi­tion­al fund­ing are under­way, par­tic­u­lar­ly with a view to indus­tri­al­iza­tion. Dis­cus­sions with the Car­refour chain in Venette could make it pos­si­ble to dis­trib­ute the prod­uct and make it known.

”UTC, a solid foundation”

For Rud­dy Mous­sa­hou, the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get was “an oppor­tu­ni­ty to test the abil­i­ty to lead a project, a learn­ing expe­ri­ence for its man­age­ment and the man­age­ment of a team”. Present from the start, UTC is for the trio, “an essen­tial sup­port that pro­vides access to the exper­tise of lec­tur­ers and the many tech­ni­cal, biol­o­gy and design cen­tres… We were sup­port­ed by the BVE (edu­ca­tion­al and voca­tion­al guid­ance ser­vice) but also by Miri­an Kubo, head of the Food Inno­va­tion and Agri-Resources depart­ment, and then by the Depart­ment of socio-eco­nom­ic part­ner­ships and entre­pre­neur­ship (DPSEE). It is also thanks to UTC that we came into con­tact with Pépite Sor­bonne Uni­ver­sité. For the future, UTC is a sol­id base.”

Véloc, another success story

For its part, the Véloc asso­ci­a­tion facil­i­tates stu­dent mobil­i­ty by rent­ing them at a low cost “130 bicy­cles acquired, col­lect­ed and refur­bished and with the nec­es­sary safe­ty equip­ment such as hel­mets and locks. A car­go bike has also been pur­chased,” says François Pons, for­mer pres­i­dent of the asso­ci­a­tion in his third year of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, who has now hand­ed over the reins in order to ‘infuse new ener­gy and enable every­one to get involved in this project, which is part of the 2021–2022 par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get’. Véloc also pro­vides free self-repair for two-wheel­ers dur­ing the office hours pro­vid­ed by around twen­ty vol­un­teers at its premis­es, equipped with the nec­es­sary tools, parts and equip­ment, as well as two self-ser­vice ter­mi­nals acces­si­ble to all. “The first, installed near the Ben­jamin Franklin build­ing, quick­ly proved to be very pop­u­lar,” says François Pons, who devel­oped the idea of the sec­ond ter­mi­nal installed at the Pierre Guil­lau­mat cen­tre” to ben­e­fit a wider audi­ence because more and more peo­ple are using bicy­cles for every­day trav­el. We also have a demand from lec­tur­ers. It’s real­ly quick and con­ve­nient for the jour­ney between our two cam­pus­es. This infra­struc­ture, which pro­motes sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion, will be part of UTC’s Soft Mobil­i­ty pro­gramme, sup­port­ed by the Haut-de-France region and the Greater Com­piègne author­i­ties (ARC). Good news for enthu­si­asts who are wait­ing to get in the sad­dle: the asso­ci­a­tion’s project to acquire new equip­ment has once again been approved this year in the 2024- 2025 par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get in order to meet grow­ing demand. That is what we call success !

Boosting initiatives

Sup­port­ed since 2021 by stu­dents elect­ed to the Coun­cil for Stud­ies and Uni­ver­si­ty Life (CEVU) from the con­tri­bu­tion for stu­dent life and cam­pus (CVEC), the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get makes it pos­si­ble to devel­op par­tic­i­pa­to­ry democ­ra­cy by putting ideas into prac­tice. A bud­get of 15 000 euros is ded­i­cat­ed to this. Recep­tion, social and health sup­port, cul­ture, sport, pre­ven­tion and health edu­ca­tion are all areas in which stu­dents invest, either alone or in groups. After sub­mis­sion, eli­gi­bil­i­ty and fea­si­bil­i­ty study of the projects, the stu­dents’ vote is deci­sive. This year, five projects are sup­port­ed until com­ple­tion. Oth­er actions select­ed include the devel­op­ment of a tav­ern to improve the wel­come and com­fort of the Pic’as­so, the instal­la­tion of a safe zone for help and assis­tance to wit­ness­es and vic­tims, a reduc­tion in the price of first aid train­ing to make it acces­si­ble to as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble, and the pro­vi­sion of new fur­ni­ture at the foy­er — Mai­son des étu­di­ants. “They meet the needs of as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble,” says Laëti­tia Bou­et, project man­ag­er for stu­dent life. ”The ini­tia­tors then con­tact the ser­vice providers, in charge of man­ag­ing and mon­i­tor­ing the projects. It’s part of their train­ing. This one did­n’t actu­al­ly work out, but we reassessed the project to install green plants to bright­en up the corridors.”

IL