Award distribution to the participants of the Mentoring Program
The MTE section, pioneer at EPFL for the setup of a Mentoring Program organized an event to gather the new mentors and the new students.
During the evening, Prof. Marc Gruber, director of the section of Management of Technology & Entrepreneurship, reminded the audiance of the innovative aspect of this program at EPFL. He presented the vision of the section and underlined the importance of linking students and the industry. The objective of the program is not only to put students in contact with professionals with high responsabilities but also to allow students to then contribute to the regional economy, namely through an internship in a company, now mandatory for new Master students at EPFL.
Several pairs of mentee-mentor talked about their successful experience. Having both the same background, Alexandre Wohnlich of the firm Stucky Ltd was able to integrate Li Wei in his professional network during the year. In 2010, Ms. Wei had just arrived in Switzerland directly from China and would never have imagined such an integration at the beginning of her Master.
To thank the mentors of the first promotion, Prof. Marc Gruber and Roxane Stanford handed them an award to recognize their support and implication during the year. So far, about thirty companies are part of the network, from seventeen different fields, such as: Swatch Group, Debiopharm, Novartis, Chopard, Medtronic, Swisscom, Sicpa, Dell, Nestlé, Siemens, etc.
The new Master students of 2011-2012 will also benefit from this new program and could meet the mentors during the evening. All were thus able to talk informally with the professionals and see if affinities would build. As Eugène De Groot, CEO of Biophos and mentor put it: “A mentor is not like a member of your family, you can choose! So don’t hesitate to change mentors if the chemistry isn’t right!”
For all information of the mentoring program, MTE section: [email protected]