Success Stories
The Committee and the Mentors selected 3 fellows who, according to our Foundation’s
standards, are achieving an outstanding carreer.
- Blandine Antoine (Ecole Polytechnique 2001)
Blandine Antoine co-founded Prométhée, a non-profit dedicated to impartially communicating
on energy science and technologies. To effectively reach out to primary schools and
the general public, Prométhée's Blandine Antoine and Elodie Renaud set out on a 7
month trip around the world to meet with more than 200 innovative energy thinkers
in 17 countries. These inventers' experience and projects are now presented on Prométhée's
website, photo exhibits, radio broadcasts, conferences, and book (Le Tour du monde
des Energies, éd. JC-Lattès, 2008, which was nominated to the Prix Roberval for francophone
communication on science and technology). A member of the French public service,
Blandine did missions for the French Agency of Development, the French Nuclear Safety
Authority as well as GE Nuclear Energy. She holds a BS from Ecole Polytechnique,
MS in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley, Master in Public Administration from
Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and is currently registered as a PhD student
with MIT's Engineering Systems Division.
- Stéphane Kasriel (Ecole Polytechnique 1994)
Stephane graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 1997 and obtained an MS in Computer
Science from Stanford University in 1999. He then founded Fireclick with co-founder
Xavier Casanova (also a Carnot fellow). Fireclick raised $25M from first tier VC
firms (Atlas, Menlo, Cisco, Thomas Weisel), launched multiple web acceleration and
web analytics products and was sold to Digital River in 2004. Stephane leaves Fireclick
to complete an MBA at INSEAD (France) before joining PayPal where he launches the
French site in August 2004. Today, PayPal France has 40 employees, 1 in 2 internet
shoppers and 1 in 2 French e-commerce are using PayPal.
I left for Carlifornia (PayPal Inc’s Headquarter) in January 2008 as Sr. Director,
Consumer Products, to take over 1 of the 3 business units of PayPal. I am responsible
worldwide for all the products for consummers and e-commerce, such as debit cards,
mutual funds, invoicing tools and money transfers from abroad.
- Romain Quidant (Université de Bourgogne 2002)
2007
• Elected member of the scientific committee of the European Network of Excellence
«Plasmon Nano-Devices» (PND) which gathers the best european groups in the field
of plasmon optics.
• Nominated for the «2007 Visionary Young Innovators Award» attributed by the "MIT
Technology Review" to the best innovators of the year of less than 35 years old.
2006
• Appointed Junior professor and group leader of the group of «plasmon nano-optics»
at ICFO, the Institut of Photonic Sciences of Barcelona.
