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Studyka: co-innovate with students

Studyka is a French start-up offering a solution "crowdsourcing " dedicated to students of higher education. Sort of platform of "enterprise 2.0 student," it is in contact undertaken with young people wishing to contribute to concrete issues before them.

The operation is typical for this type of solution: a company submits a "challenge " on the site of the startup, selecting, if they wish, schools and participating universities, students are then teams in (multidisciplinarity and diversity between courses is preferred) to propose their solutions. The best ideas are rewarded financially or by offering appropriate training or employment.

For students, the approach of Studyka offers multiple opportunities , interact with students from different branches, to confront real business cases and completing training and sometimes too theoretical or even begin to weave a network of professional relationships .

For companies, the platform will be a pool of contributors of ideas (low cost) which certainly will not have the maturity and experience of specialists, but in return will offer an opening spirit which is not common in traditional organizations.

Bouygues Construction is the first company to have tested the system with a challenge uses around "diverted" from its campus. Currently under deliberation in deciding the winners, it would have attracted 13 teams of 3 members, actually customizable profiles (engineers, architects, planners ...). This experience has enabled the startup to validate the model and new challenges are now in preparation.

Studyka is hosted (as Qeiru, we've already talked ) to the "Camping ", the new structure of assistance launching startups in Silicon Sentier (supported, among others by BNP Paribas, Google and SNCF).

Studyka model is not entirely new (eg Brainrack exists in the U.S. since 2009) but it was previously lacking in France, to my knowledge. While some similar initiatives were launched in the past by companies (include the "Citizen Act " Annual General Company), the principle of web platform open should facilitate the use of students to open the field of innovation in all companies. Do not hesitate to test the system, Nothing to lose!

Article updated February 14, 2011, incorporating the comments of a co-founder of Studyka on the challenge of Bouygues.

Updated February 16, 2011, after the injunction CNJE ... Hence the term "student company" used in the introduction ...