Sponsoring the KIRO

Since 2018, students from École des Ponts have been organizing KIRO, an Operational Research Hackathon open to all students in the Paris region. Annually, it draws approximately 200 participants, with half coming from École des Ponts. In essence, it is quite similar to a Google Hashcode.

The students are seeking an industrial sponsor to:

  • Provide simplified instances of an industrial problem.
  • Fund prizes for the winning teams and pizzas for the on-site dinner during the Hackathon (approximately 6000 euros in total).
  • Be present at the award ceremony to promote their company.

Previous editions were sponsored by companies such as RTE, Pélico, Air Liquide, Air France, LocalSolver (now Hexaly), Renault, and SNCF. Industrial sponsors seem to appreciate the opportunity because:

  • Some recruit participants.
  • The effort required from the sponsor is not excessive (limited to providing problem instances. I handle writing the subject, and the students manage everything else).
  • The students organize the event very professionally.

Additionally, I incorporate the Hackathon’s topic into my Operational Research course project at École des Ponts. My students (about 90) work on it for two months. Some partners organized a jury at their premises with the three best teams after two months: they were reportedly very impressed with the quality of the results and recruited interns.

The next edition is scheduled to take place on a Thursday in November. The schedule for organizing the next KIRO is as follows

  • Summer: Identification of the sponsor and general topic
  • Beginning of September: Writing the topic
  • End of September: Building the instances
  • October: Iteration on the topic / debugging, etc.
  • November: Event
  • January: End of the course project

Please email me if you are interested in sponsoring the KIRO or want more information. I can also provide contacts from previous sponsors who oversaw the projects.