LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIP WITH SUPELEC

If there is an initiative that would have warmed the heart of Jean-Luc Lagardère, it is certainly this one. Because it was at Supélec, one of France’s most prestigious engineering schools, that he was educated and acquired his entrepreneurial bent. With 1 500 students and 170 doctoral candidates today, the more than 100-year old Supélec has retained its reputation as one of the top schools in the fields of information and energy science—both in France and abroad. To strengthen the tie that binds the Group and Supélec, the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation and the Supélec Foundation have found a stimulating common meeting ground that forms the basis of a long-term partnership. The semantic challenges in the digital age lie at the heart of this partnership. Interest earned on the 1 million euros principal amount that the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation
donated to the Supélec Foundation will be used to offer an annual fellowship to one graduate student, who wants to write a thesis in this research area. The Supélec Foundation consults with the school’s scientific committee before choosing the winning fellow. To launch this partnership, a particularly brilliant Supélec student by the name of Cédric Jacquiot was offered
a fellowship to complete his thesis (defended on December 18, 2006). His research topic is customizing and adapting the
web to the needs of the end user or, in technical parlance:” modeling adaptive hypermedia.” In other words, new generation Internet !

Cédric Jacquiot explains his thesis

"Behind the barbaric  terms of " adaptive hypermedias ", are systems already and daily used. Concerning the purchases on Internet, for example, the Web sites are able to propose articles "close" to those which interested the customer the last time he was connected More generally, the adaptive systems make possible to take into consideration the user, and to personalize the documents presented to him according to his knowledges, tastes, etc.The objective of my thesis is to provide an ideal model for these systems, in order to facilitate its creation and, in the long term, to allow a more widespread utilisation".

Link to the website of the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (Advanced Institute of Electricity): http://www.supelec.fr/