Presentation event for the winning projects of the Christophe Pralong and Olivier Cadot Prizes

Founded some fifteen years ago, the Christophe Pralong Prize supports students keen to help reduce development problems around the world. The prize honors the memory of Christophe Pralong, HEC Lausanne Alumni and former President of the Students' Committee (from 1978 to 1980) and is awarded by the Association Christophe Pralong chaired by Mrs. Sandra Pralong, Christophe's wife.

More recently, it was the University of Lausanne (through the HEC Faculty and the International Relations Service) that introduced the Olivier Cadot Prize in honor of the Professor of the same name who passed away in March 2019 and was passionate about development economics.

The two prizes, each endowed with 10,000 Swiss francs, are intended to support humanitarian, entrepreneurial or academic projects carried by students with the aim of contributing to development efforts in emerging countries.

More information about the Prize

Three winning projects in 2023 

In 2023, three projects were selected from over thirty entries. The winning students had the opportunity to present their achievements at an evening event held on November 7th 2023 on the HEC Lausanne campus, to coincide with the opening of applications for the 2024 prizes.

The three winning projects covered subjects as varied as complex post-traumatic stress disorder in urban Egypt, motor hoe rental in Togo and the construction of a borehole in Cameroon.

Firstly, the Prix Christophe Pralong supported two projects. The first was awarded to Fabien Dierckx, Master's degree student in Tourism Studies at the UNIL Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, for his project "Setting up a motor hoe rental service, including transport for small-plot farmers". The second went to Idrissou Mounpe Chare, a PhD student in Social Sciences at UNIL Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, for his project "Construction of a borehole equipped with a human-powered pump for a community without access to drinking water in the Mfekout district of Njimom".

The Olivier Cadot Prize was awarded to Nadine Hosny, a PhD student in psychology at UNIL Faculty of Social and Political Science, for her research project "Complex-Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Urban Egypt: Cultural Adaptation and Pilot Testing of an Evidence-Based Treatment Manual"

Links to 2023 projects 

From small project to wider impact - Seedstar

The evening of project presentations was crowned by a talk from Alisée de Tonnac, 2008 HEC Alumni and Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ Seedstars, who shared her entrepreneurial journey with Seedstar, whose “raison d'être” is: "Making a positive impact in people's lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship."

Learn more about Seedstars

 

Applications welcome

The evening concluded with the call for projects for the 2024 Prizes. Applications can be submitted until January 15th 2024, for a selection and award during the spring of 2024. 

Participate

To make this article easier to read, the masculine gender has been used. It goes without saying that the feminine gender applies everywhere and at all times.