Karl Gedda, Director of the ESA Business School's Smart ESA incubator, at the final of the ESA-HEC Entrepreneur Prize in 2024. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/ L'Orient-Le Jour)
Organized by the Lebanese incubator Smart ESA and L'Orient-Le Jour, in partnership with the French Embassy in Lebanon, HEC Paris Alumni Lebanon, Air France and TotalEnergies, the sixth edition Prix Entrepreneur ESA-HEC — an initiative aimed at fostering the country's entrepreneurial potential and encouraging innovation — has been running since mid-April.
Applications remain open until May 11, and selected candidates will be invited to present their company or project to a panel of judges on July 11. Registration is available exclusively online, and interested candidates can register here.👈
Eligible projects must include at least one Lebanese founder and develop a valid minimum viable product (MVP). Start-ups in educational and cultural technologies, medical and digital health technologies, and ecological and sustainability sectors are strongly encouraged to apply. However, the competition is open to other sectors as well, said Karl Gedda, director of the Smart ESA incubator at ESA Business School.
The competition includes a two-stage selection process, beginning with an online pre-selection of the most promising projects. Shortlisted candidates will be announced on May 16 and offered coaching between May 23 and July 11—the date of the Prix Entrepreneur ESA-HEC final, when a winner will be named.
The winning project will receive a six-month, all-expenses-paid incubation at the HEC Paris Incubator at Station F, the world’s largest start-up campus, offering visibility and networking opportunities. Projects will also benefit from broad media coverage by L’Orient-Le Jour.
Udaress, winner of the 2024 edition
"One of the aims of the Prix Entrepreneur ESA-HEC is to help promising startups professionalize and prepare to raise funds in Europe, while remaining based and active in Lebanon," said Gedda.
In 2024, start-up Udaress, founded by Wael Saade, won the fifth edition. Udaress is a platform that uses artificial intelligence to help teachers create a personalized tutor for each student, addressing individual learning gaps.
Second place went to Cogny, which specializes in the analysis of children's cognitive systems. Third place was awarded to Eflow, a company focused on educational technology. Both were awarded a soft landing — a set of services offered to foreign companies looking to test their business plans in a new region — at Accelerateur M in Marseille for a period of three months.
For the sixth edition, organizers have opted to hold a competition—expected toward the end of the year—after which the winners will receive soft landings in either Paris or Marseille, Gedda said.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
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