Interview: Youla Morfouli, Grenoble Institute of Technology-Phelma

At the end of January, you ran a day-long workshop on sustainable electronics for the 40 students in the Nanotech Master’s program. What were you aiming to achieve?

Increasingly, our students want to know what the environmental impacts of their future careers are. Sometimes, the answer is hard for them to hear. We wanted to support them through this awakening with the help of our partners IRT Nanoelec, Leti, Grenoble Ecole de Management, and STMicroelectronics. A total of four executives and two engineers participated in the entire day-long workshop.

Was it really a workshop or just PR?

It was a hands-on workshop with a role-play activity. The students played the roles of employees of a fictitious company, Grenoble Green Phone. Their mission was to design a new generation of smartphones with minimal environmental impacts. They were able to seek guidance from experts from STMicroelectronics and Leti, who provided insights into their own practices and challenges.

A day doesn’t sound like much time to grapple with such a complex topic.

The students did learn that sustainable electronics is a rapidly-growing practice in industry, albeit for regulatory compliance or supply chain reasons in some cases. I think they came away feeling better about their career choices. That being said, we are going to do more. Other Phelma majors and some PhD students will do the workshop this summer; it will also be integrated into our continuing and executive ed programs.

Contact: panagiota.morfouli@grenoble-inp.fr

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