Interview With Anais Boughanem, One of The Hackathon Organisers
Written by Lucie Du Briel
On September 27-28, TSE Junior Etudes organised the Ecosprint hackathon focusing on mobility in Toulouse. Today, we have the opportunity to delve a little deeper with this interview with Anais Boughanem, one of the main organisers of this event.
Why did you want to organize a hackathon with TSE Junior Etudes? What are the motivations behind this project?
Anaïs: As Junior-Entrepreneur, we have the chance to attend many events with other schools and meet numerous students from very diverse backgrounds on various topics. As students primarily from TSE, it was important for us to offer this opportunity to other students at the school. It was a chance to think about issues outside the academic framework and develop different skills.
The hackathon focused on a specific theme: Toulouse mobility. Why this choice?
This theme was chosen in collaboration with Toulouse Métropole, about a year in advance. This decision came after discussions with the Vice-President of Toulouse Métropole, who is an alumnus of TSE. Since he works on mobility issues in Toulouse and wanted to support this project, the theme naturally leaned towards these questions. We thought that mobility in Toulouse was a current topic that concerns us all: everyone takes the bus, and everyone experiences traffic jams!
How much groundwork was required to bring such an event to fruition?
The idea for the hackathon emerged around April 2023, but we realized it was feasible—meaning we secured the funding for the project—by January 2024. It’s a project we worked on for six solid months. Previously, we had a lengthy ideation phase, searching for partners, which took quite some time, with postponed dates...
Today, what is the assessment of the hackathon? Was it a success? What were the biggest challenges encountered?
This event was a success, both in terms of partners and TSE students, as well as outsiders, the feedback we received was very positive. Everyone was very happy to work as a team with different profiles and to push themselves for a day, feeling proud of themselves. TSE was also very pleased with this event.
I would say the biggest challenges we faced were the event planning, organization, administration, and unforeseen circumstances to consider. All of this is quite complicated: getting all parties to agree is complex, especially when we have different partnerships. We had to ensure that everyone agreed with our actions. In the end, it involved a lot of back-and-forth emails!
Will there be another edition next year?
A future edition, why not? I think the J.E. would love to do the hackathon again or even another event with the perspective of bringing together TSE students and those from outside.The partners are favourable to us repeating the event. But honestly, I don’t think it will be next year since it requires extensive preparation. To do it, we would need to start now!
Recently, I have joined AlixPartners, which is a consultancy that has been growing rapidly in the areas of competition and litigation in Europe. The firm was willing to expand in France and this was an exciting opportunity at this stage of my career. I was in particular attracted by the collaborative environment and the opportunities that the firm’s presence in other fields such as restructuring and performance improvement could offer.
Economic consulting is a challenging and fast-paced sector, which I enjoy a lot because it is intellectually rewarding, not least because we get to work on a range of cases in different sectors. It is also quickly evolving both because the legal environment is moving and because the tools we use are also changing (for instance, with the development of AI). Therefore, I find it to be an exciting sector, even though one must learn how to cope with the pressure and intensity that is inherent to consulting.
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