Our award-winning entrepreneurs

École Polytechnique graduate Sébastien Boyer (Year of Entry: 2011) is the co-founder of Farmwise, a start-up that develops an autonomous robot to boost agricultural productivity. He is named in the 2019 edition of Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30, a list of thirty young talents who are driving the economy of tomorrow. Since 2013, four l’X graduates have been recognized by the MIT Technology Review among the 10 best French innovators of the past 35 years: David Fattal (Year of Entry: 1998), for his work on quantum teleportation; Rémi Dangla (Year of Entry: 2005), founder of Stilla Technologies; David Vissière (Year of Entry: 1999), founding president of Sysnav; and Matthieu Claybrough (Year of Entry: 2009), founder of Donecle. Three start-ups—Exotrail, Altaroad and Accenta—were the winners of the 2018 edition of the i-Lab competition, which promotes the creation of new and innovative companies. Exotrail, created by David Henri (Year of Entry: 2013), develops a propulsion system for nanosatellites; Altaroad generates massive amounts of data on traffic roads to make them smarter and more durable; and Accenta develops a solution for intelligent storage of thermal energy in buildings. A number of l’X graduates were winners of the final phase of the 2017 Worldwide Innovation Challenge, organized by the Innovation 2030 Commission, which supports future leaders of the French economy. They were Hugo Mercier and Quentin Soulet de Brugière, two alumni of the l’X Entrepreneurship Master’s Program who set up the company Rythm; and Nicolas Simon, Alexandre Boulanger and Matthieu Masselin, three l’X graduates who entered l’X in 2008 and who created the company Wandercraft. Rythm has created a connected device that actively improves sleep quality, while Wandercraft develops an exoskeleton to help wheelchair users walk naturally again.