What a sad anniversary, but in a few days it will be one year since our lives were turned upside down by a health crisis unprecedented in the 21st century.
We all have in mind March 17, 2020, the date of the entry into force of the first quarantine in France, but the first impacts of Covid were already felt at CentraleSupélec at the end of February 2020.
Very quickly students found themselves in difficulty, isolated from their loved ones and facing significant financial difficulties following the loss of a student job, no longer receiving help from their parents, who had also lost their jobs, etc.
As soon as the first containment occurred, the Foundation created a “Covid-19” emergency fund. Thanks to your generosity, we have been able to help students facing difficulties related to Covid, continue to provide financial support for the constant evolution of pedagogical innovation at CentraleSupélec, and support remarkable initiatives by our teachers and researchers to help the medical sector and contribute to the general fight against Covid.
- More than 80 students received financial aid for a total amount of 100,000 euros.
- 4 remarkable initiatives from the CentraleSupélec sphere supported (3D4Care: Protections for caregivers, CovidData, STOIC program, call for Data/IA projects)
- Continuity of financial support in the ongoing evolution of pedagogical innovation.
- Financial and organizational contribution to specific actions for isolated students, such as the “Christmas is coming” project (distribution of lunch baskets, organized outings, students invited to stay with families for the end-of-year celebrations).
Thanks to the mobilization of the Alumni, the Foundation has collected more than 170,000 euros through the Covid-19 fund and to date nearly 90% of it has been used. Thank you for your support, once again the CentraleSupélec community has responded to help its members.
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Spotlight on :
3D4Care
Born in a context of emergency and a distressing observation, the protection of health care workers, 3D4Care is a collaborative project that has made it possible to manufacture and distribute 17,500 protective visors during the health crisis of COVID19 from March to May 2020.
The first examples have arrived at the Pompidou Hospital, where the caregivers have validated the design. Manufacturing was then launched with the help of numerous fab-labs (including CentraleSupélec’s Fabrique), academic institutions, “makers” and individuals, in the Ile de France region, to feed an assembly line located in Paris.
This project received rapid financial support from the CentraleSupélec Foundayion (which released 30,000 euros) and the Paris-Saclay Universiy Foundation, which made it possible to quickly launch the necessary purchases for the production of visors. More than 300 hospital departments and care centers have been equipped, such as the Foch Hospital, the Pitié-Salpétrière Hospital, the Tours/ Chinon Maternity Hospital, etc. Subsequently, companies of all sizes joined the consortium to help with the mass production of these visors and other systems, such as Vinci, SNCF, Armor Group, etc.
More information is available on the 3D4Care website: https://www.3d4care.com/
STOIC Program
Anticipating acute complications of Covid-19: When an AI can predict severity.
Since the launch of this program to develop predictive tools for Covid-19-related diseases, the CentraleSupélec Foundation has made a financial commitment of 25,000 euros. This is an exceptional program led at the AP-HP by Professor Marie-Pierre Revel, an internationally renowned specialist in cardiothoracic imaging, in partnership with the French Society of Radiology and the team of Nikos Paragios, professor at CentraleSupélec and founder of TheraPanacea. They are accompanied by doctors and researchers from the Gustave Roussy Institute, the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, CentraleSupélec, the University of Paris, the Université Paris-Saclay, Inserm, Inria and TheraPanacea. A study shows that artificial intelligence can extract clinical and biological information from CT images to determine disease severity and prognosis of Covid-19 patients.
They established a digital signature of biomarkers predictive of Covid-19 progression. By identifying patients at risk of developing severe forms and requiring ventilation assistance, this AI could help hospitals prioritize patient management based on their life-threatening urgency.
More information available:
Press release of October 27, 2020: https://www.gustaveroussy.fr/sites/default/files/cp-medical-image-analysis-27-10-2020.pdf
Report made by France 3 : https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6732681352094851072/
Call for DATA/IA projects
The objective of this call for projects was to consolidate and accelerate start-ups or scale-ups that have created a solution or transformed their business to address a problem that emerged during the COVID19 crisis, using artificial intelligence or data science.
620unique visitors on the website created for the PAA: http://aap-centralesupelec.mystrikingly.com/
140 applications initiated on the application platform, 37 applications finalized.
List of winners and information about the teams here.
Pedagogical innovation
When the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, CentraleSupélec, unlike many other schools, was able to implement all its distance learning courses immediately.
This is not by chance; CentraleSupélec has always been an innovative school, and often ahead of its time. Long before the health crisis that will have marked 2020, the School had been deploying numerous digital tools for several years to reinvent teaching in the era of the digital revolution. Many courses combine distance learning and face-to-face practice.
Containment measures have accelerated these innovations by highlighting the need for a sustainable online teaching and learning experience.
With the help of the CentraleSupélec Foundation, thanks to you, the School has been able to deploy its videoconferencing platform on a large scale, equip 27 classrooms with video recording systems, create the MySchool portal dedicated to supporting teachers, and in March 2020, set up a permanent online exam system.
