Earlier this month, leading European business school HEC Paris launched its new e-Lab, a unique space designed to support entrepreneurship, creativity, teamwork and communication through by making high-tech technology available to its students.
“The ‘e’ in e-Lab signifies both ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘electronic,’ emphasizing the close link between the two,” read a release on the HEC Paris website announcing the May 20th inauguration of the new space. Designed for use by HEC Paris students interested in entrepreneurship, the e-Lab features video-conferencing capabilities, walls completely covered in “white board” paint, and portable equipment that can be moved easily to facilitate collaboration.
Major donations by Jean-Luc Allavena, Pascal de Jenlis and Pascal Cagni helped make creation of the new lab possible. HEC Paris professors will be joined by international experts, entrepreneurs, lawyers and investors – all of whom will share their own experiences and insights with students via teaching focused on “action learning.”
HEC Paris also hopes the new e-Lab will help support exchange between the school’s students and those at partner schools at the University of Paris-Saclay, including through innovative collaborative projects.
HEC Paris Dean Bernard Ramanantsoa noted that entrepreneurship is a major component of the school’s global strategy. In keeping with this strategy, the school in recent years has created an entrepreneurship major, launched an entrepreneurial competition called Challenge+ and established an HEC Incubator. The eLab is the latest evidence of HEC Paris’s commitment to furthering entrepreneurial studies, Ramanantsoa continued. “This new space is the ideal place to promote collaboration between students and project leaders who want to work and learn together,” he said in a statement.
