A quarter to start a business, learn, and experiment
Every year, around 20 students choose to take part in the Entrepreneurship Trimester (TE). Designed by Philippe Mustar, professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Mines Paris – PSL, this intensive ten-week program offers second-year civil engineering students a unique opportunity to devote themselves fully to a start-up project.
With classes, workshops, mentoring, meetings with experts, and professional trips to Paris and London, the TE does more than just impart knowledge. It fosters a true entrepreneurial mindset that can be applied in any professional environment, whether in a fledgling start-up, an innovative SME, or a large company.
The Entrepreneurship Term (ET) is an intensive ten-week program consisting of classes, masterclasses, meetings with experts, and work on a business creation project. Its aim is to give students with such a project the opportunity to move forward with its implementation. It enables them to gain entrepreneurial experience and a general understanding of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline and socio-economic activity, to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, skills and knowledge, and to build an initial professional network with players in the ecosystem.
Philippe Mustar, lecturer and researcher at the Center for Industrial Economics (CERNA), professor of innovation and entrepreneurship
Visit to the Design Museum in London
Innovative and tailor-made teaching
Far from traditional lectures, the TE is based on active teaching methods. Students work in small teams on a business creation project that they develop throughout the term. Supported by mentors from the entrepreneurial ecosystem, they progress through trial and error, pivots, and regular feedback.
Students talk about the TE:
“It’s a valuable opportunity to develop skills that are useful in any field, whether you intend to become an entrepreneur or not.”
This TE “is a real personal and professional adventure…”, it “teaches you to structure your thinking, evaluate your ideas, and above all, face the real world…”
The TE “will push you out of your comfort zone, learn on your own, and develop skills that will serve you throughout your career.”
This intensive format allows students to gain hands-on experience in all stages of setting up an entrepreneurial project: starting with a problem and understanding it in detail before coming up with a solution, integrating multiple dimensions (use, prototyping, testing, business model, financing, skills, organization, strategy, distribution, marketing, etc.) until the final presentation to a jury of experts.
Presentation by alumnus and former option holder Benjamin Grise, partner at Argon & Co.
A school that trains the leaders of tomorrow
The TE is part of a broader environment at Mines Paris – PSL, where entrepreneurship is an integral part of the curriculum. From the first year of the civil engineering program, Entrepreneurship Week brings the entire class together around concrete projects that address major societal challenges. This collective experience introduces students to complex problem solving, teamwork, real-world challenges, and the logic of value creation.
This dynamic continues in the second year with the Entrepreneurship Trimester and in the third year with the Innovation and Entrepreneurship option, which allows students to deepen their knowledge of the tools for creating innovative businesses and prepare for the entrepreneurial adventure.
The results speak for themselves: Mines Paris – PSL ranks among the top three French engineering schools training the most promising start-up leaders. This is evidenced by the careers of its alumni, who are now at the helm of unicorns, impact start-ups, and disruptive technologies.
From left to right: Philippe Mustar, head of this program, with the jury composed of Franck le Ouay, co-founder and CEO of Lifen, as well as Eléonore Crespo and Romain Niccoli, co-founders of Pigment.
Entrepreneurship as a lever for impact
Training engineers who are capable of creating, daring and transforming: this is the ambition that guides Mines Paris – PSL through its many support programs. The Entrepreneurship Trimester is one of its most vibrant pillars, promoting the emergence of projects rooted in societal, industrial and environmental issues.
This strategic choice also makes the school a key player in innovation hubs such as Paris, Sophia-Antipolis and the future Versailles-Satory Innovation Campus.
Four unicorns created or co-created by the school’s engineering graduates are listed in the French Tech Next 40: Pigment, Verkor, Exotec, and DNA Script.
- Verkor has raised €2 billion and Pigment €400 million.
- Three companies co-founded by graduates of the school among the 40 most promising startups with the greatest impact in French Tech: Verkor, Ouihelp, and Lifen.
- New factories created in France by our industrial startups such as Expliseat, Fairmat, Verkor, and Exotec.
From training to action: startups made in Mines Paris – PSL
Among the forty or so start-ups co-founded by students or alumni of the TE and Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, several have already made a mark with their boldness and impact.
- Pigment, a financial planning platform co-founded by Éléonore Crespo (P10), the first female CEO to join French Tech 40.
- Kleep, an AI solution to reduce clothing returns by ensuring the right size, co-founded by Théophile Bousquet (P18) and Federico Fortis (P18).
- Cartage, a collaborative car rental insurance platform launched by Raphaël Toledano (P18) and Oscar Bourgeois (P18).
- Bigblue, by Mathias Griffe (P14) and William Meunier (P14), an independent and responsible logistics platform.
- Yespark, by Thibaut Chary (P11), mobility and long-term parking space rental.
- DNA Script, by Xavier Godron (P11), a biotechnology company specializing in R&D and the marketing of equipment for DNA synthesis.
- Ecotable, by Camille Delamar (P08), a platform for measuring and reducing environmental impact dedicated to restaurant owners.
- Neural concept, by Théophile Allard (P14), an engineering process using 3D deep learning, capable of generating shapes for industrial engineering.
- Payflow, Benoit Menardo (P12), a platform providing real-time, centralized and automated access to all of a company’s financial data.
- Nest for all, Khadidiatou Nakoulima (P06), a network of medical facilities for family health in West Africa.
- Wander, Maxence Morillon (P20), an event data hub.
To go further
Mines Paris – PSL is characterized by its entrepreneurial culture, which is reflected in all of its programs and partnership-based research.
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