The FIT (French Institutes of Technology) association organizes the IRT Forum, the national event which gathers 8 IRT to present their results and their major success in front of their partners, their supervision, the institutional and the collaborators of the IRT.
In 2018, the IRT Saint Exupéry hosted the 6th edition which gathered over 400 people on October 11 in Toulouse, in the presence of Guillaume Boudy, France’s Investment General Secretary, and of Frédérique Vidal, French Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.
To demonstrate the strength of a collective effort on strategic issues, the morning of Oct. 11 focused on IRT villages organized by theme: composite materials, Additive Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, 5G/IoT and Health. Many demonstrations, videos and samples were presented at the heart of IRT Saint Exupéry’s technological platforms recently inaugurated within the new B612 building within the Toulouse Aerospace Innovation Centre.
To give participants the taste of Toulouse and its aeronautics and space ecosystem, IRT Saint Exupéry presented major innovations in the Space village with its members and partners from the French space subsidiary. A tour of the assembly line at the foot of the impressive Airbus A380 was organised the day before in the 10-hectare assembly hall at the 50-hectare Jean-Luc Lagardère site. From a look-out built into the Saint-Martin plant, a group enjoyed a panoramic view over the Airbus A350XWB final assembly line with an expert Airbus guide. That evening, Luc Ferry, writer, philosopher and former government minister, gave a conference on the third industrial revolution with artificial intelligence.
The afternoon of Oct. 11 was dedicated to a plenary session in the presence of Guillaume Boudy, France’s Investment General Secretary, and Frédérique Vidal, French Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, who pointed out that, on June 21 at M2P in Metz, the French Prime Minister acknowledged the progress made by IRTs and proposed three measures among wich bringing together IRTs and ITEs (Institutes for Energy Transition). IRTs reinforce sector competitiveness : aeronautics was the perfect example with this Toulouse edition. IRTs showed with 4 examples that they accelerate innovation through transfers to the industry. Their objective to build international partnerships has been demonstrated through 4 examples. They contribute to scientific excellence and 4 PhD students presented their research work in 3 minutes.