Orange opens its doors to secondary school students during Science Factor™ day

distributed by noodls on 03/19/2013 10:53

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For the second consecutive year, Orange is sponsoring the Science Factor™ competition, organized under the patronage of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the Ministry of National Education, and Universcience.
The purpose of Science Factor™ is to encourage interest in science and technology by young people, especially girls, through a competition and encounters with science and technology professionals at the national level.

The Science Factor™ competition awards take place this afternoon at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in the presence of Claudie Haigneré, the Chairman of Universcience, and Brigitte Dumont, Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility of France Telecom-Orange. Orange supports this event, which is taking place in eight French cities and also giving secondary school students in Rennes, Toulouse and Meylan the opportunity to go to several of its Orange Labs - Orange's research, technical design and rollout centres.

the Science Factor™ program

Launched in late 2011, Science Factor™ is a national competition for boys and girls in the secondary schools. The concept is a simple one: the students must form teams of 2 to 4 students lead by girls and propose a project for a technology invention or innovation with obvious positive benefits, whether economic, social or environmental. The project teams may choose a sponsor who is a professional in the science and/or technology sector, in order to support them, stimulate them and give them access to science and technology experience.

The participating teams deposited an application in December 31, 2012. An online vote by Net users was part of the application selection process. A Facebook page was set up for news about the event to give it a wider audience in the secondary schools.

Today, the panel of judges chaired by Claudie Haigneré handed the winning team its prize: a gift certificate of 500 euros for each member of the winning team and a Universcience pass for unlimited access to the Cité de Sciences and the Palais de la Découverte.

The winner was the Argonautes project submitted by a team of last-year students at the Geoffroy Saint Hilaire School in Etampes. For this project, an electronic sensor capable of detecting biomass in river water was developed.

Orange, Science Factor™ sponsor

Following the success of the first edition, Orange is once again a sponsor of Science Factor™. The competition's goals are a perfect match for the company's continuing commitment to building up the ranks of women in the digital professions.

Orange has been leading a number of upstream initiatives for several years in partnership with the education system in order to attract more girls to science and technology. It is a fact that girls tend not to follow these paths, even though they lead to many professional opportunities.

Talking about jobs in science and technology at an early date with secondary school students, especially girls, is crucial to ultimately raising the percentage of women in these fields, which are part of Orange's core businesses.

three Orange Labs open to students

The national Science Factor™ encounters are an opportunity for secondary school classes to visit the Orange Labs of Blagnac, Meylan and Rennes. The day is designed to give the students a chance to meet key women professionals in the fields of science and technology. Ergonomists, architects, software developers, project directors… all shared a commitment to talking about potential careers with students, drawing on their own careers and daily work as well as on presentations of Orange's products and services and of tomorrow's uses.

The Orange Labs at Blagnacis a genuine centre of expertise in the technical fields of architecture, design and development of Orange solutions for consumers and enterprises, such as the Orange Cinéday mobile application, and in testing services before they are launched on the market.
The Orange Labs at Meylan concentrates its research on the digital home, Machine to Machine (M2M) technologies, cloud computing, terminals and interfaces, health, and the customer experience.
The Orange Labs at Rennes has been contributing for 40 years to image and audio-visual research and related consumer services and to the design and deployment of terminals, applications and platforms for audio-visual content management, distribution and protection, both fixed and mobile. In addition, it is a centre of expertise in broadband radio access networks and in home network uses. Studies are also conveyed at Rennes to improve the customer relationship, tailor solutions to customer perceptions, and analyse uses so as to enrich new offers. Defining and developing future convergent services for communities and exploring new fields for growth round out the work conducted at this centre.

about Orange

France Telecom-Orange is one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with annual sales of 43.5 billion euros and has 170,000 employees worldwide at 31 December 2012, including 105,000 employees in France. Present in 32 countries, the Group has a total customer base close to 231 million customers at 31 December 2012, including 172 million mobile customers and 15 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, "conquests2015", Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group's ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development.

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on NYSE Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.
For more information (on the internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv or to follow us on Twitter: @presseorange.
Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Brand Services Limited, Orange France or France Telecom.