ENGIE, the largest private sector energy company in Brazil and operating in the generation, commercialization and transmission of electric power and energy solutions, announces the launch of challenges for startups: the objective is to identify innovative firms which can help the Company in the development of projects in the areas of market and marketing intelligence and operations. “ENGIE wants to connect with startups which have solutions or potential for developing solutions that contribute to our business, bringing with them efficiency, introducing new technologies or improving the Company’s processes”, says Chief New Businesses, Strategy and Innovation Officer at ENGIE, Guilherme Ferrari.

The launch of the initiative will take place during the Open Day sponsored by LinkLab and an open innovation program of the Catarinense Association of Technology (ACATE) which has as its objective to connect large companies and startups. The event is to be held this Tuesday (July 14) in a totally online version due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A partner of ACATE, ENGIE enjoys the benefit of a room at LinkLab, which operates as a hub for connections and opportunities with a focus on innovation.

The open innovation projects with startups are viewed by ENGIE as great opportunities for testing new solutions quickly, flexibly and at low cost. “We begin by testing on a pilot project basis and if the solution is successful, there is then the possibility of scaling up implementation at ENGIE. For the startup, this generates business with a major client and for the company, the connections with startups generates real value”, believes Ferrari. This was the case with the HidrOS project, a system developed by the company in partnership with the Kartado startup and which works in the area of automation of processes for the management of hydroelectric reservoir teams and services.

Market and marketing intelligence and operations

Through partnerships with startups, ENGIE intends to seek innovation for four elements of the company (three in market and marketing intelligence and the other in operations): virtual reality/virtual environment, natural language processing for Customer Experience (CX), automatic text recognition and semantic interpretation and the fourth, Artificial Intelligence in the Operation of Electrical Power Systems.

In the case of the virtual reality/virtual environment, the aim is to use this type of technology for inspections in substations and power metering equipment for the Company’s clients, replacing onsite inspections. In the area of natural language processing for Customer Experience, the objective is to gauge client satisfaction from text interactions.

In the automatic text recognition and semantic interpretation initiative, the aim is to facilitate the recognition of texts based on image files and to structure data from documents (with tables) which do not maintain the standard positioning of texts and tables. For the Artificial Intelligence in the Operation of Electrical Power Systems project, the company is looking for solutions relating to the operation of electrical power systems (power generation and transmission) which involve artificial intelligence (machine learning).

Enrollment

Enrollments for the Open Day sponsored by LinkLab are free and open to startups nationwide through the https://openday.linklabacate.com.br/ website.

Following enrollment, the information on startups is sent to corporate entities which jointly with the LinkLab team, pre-select and classify the initiatives according their areas of interest. The selected startups will then have the opportunity to present their business to the companies. As soon as there is a match, a meeting is held to align the scope of the project and from then on the startup becomes part of the open innovation network of the corporate entity, receiving LinkLab Team’s support and monitoring to ensure that the flow of the project.

“One of the major challenges for the startups is to have the opportunity to present their services to major companies. And this initiative is an excellent way for these companies to obtain access to a range of connections which can contribute to developing their business”, Ferrari points out.