The Afnic Foundation rewards 95 new winners

The Afnic Foundation’s annual event brought together over 70 people at a friendly gathering held in December. Including a brand-new innovation this year: practical workshops run by the prize winners for the prize winners and other guests as the opening act.

Raphaël Yung (LE BAL – exhibition space – 2022 CEI winner) raised awareness on disinformation with the workshop “Seeing is believing: are images proof?”, while Nina Lamparski (Association Entre les lignes – 2022 CEI winner) ran a workshop on “Sorting fact from fiction on the Internet” to demonstrate written disinformation.

Artificial Intelligence was the other big topic of the day. The round table entitled “Artificial intelligence: vital tool or technological gadget?” looked at the ethical issues surrounding the use of AI in society and within associations, with expert input from three prize winners: Nina Lamparski: AFP Journalist (Entre les lignes), Patrick Tréguer (Head of the Espace Mendes France de Poitiers), François Byrski (Head of IS and digital projects at UNAPEI). The round table was led by Nastasia Hadjadji (journalist).

The 2024 winning vintage

Philippe Distler, President of the Foundation and Isabel Toutaud, Managing Director, then announced the 95 winners selected from the calls for projects

The main themes supported in 2024 were education/training, the environment/habitat and insertion/employment.

The winners include:

The Nantes University Hospital Endowment Fund and its project Hospi-Connect: The project proposes to open 12 connected geriatric rooms to create a customised digital environment for elderly patients. These rooms use technology to monitor patients’ health, prevent complications and limit extended stays. The support will be used for the project startup phase to jointly establish needs and produce room prototypes with the stakeholders.

Paris ‘Samu social’ emergency services with the NATA project: The goal is to improve the existing NATA application for pregnant women living in unstable conditions by proposing attractive content and a user journey encouraging the app’s use during pregnancy.

Food Sweet Food presented the CRM for OF Refugee Food: The project consisted of creating a CRM for the Formation Refugee Food organisation, a tool to manage and monitor beneficiaries of the socio-professional insertion and training programmes.

Pompiers sans Frontières presented the Classe virtuelle Classe réelle project: The project aimed to design and coordinate a virtual reality role-playing game entitled “Saving Safely” at 2 schools in Aix-en-Provence. This trial phase is accompanied by the development of an app to take the game nationally.

The Culture pour l’Enfance Endowment Fund supported “Digital creation & inclusion”: The project aims to introduce an immersive cultural journey for primary school classes (mainstream and special inclusion units). The work is divided between the Endowment Fund, the Culturespaces network premises, cultural partners, artists working with digital arts, regional education authorities and the teachers of the classes selected.

Not to mention the 53 digital workshop projects across the nation (including in the French overseas territories) covering 3 key areas: risks on the Internet, digital technology’s impact on the environment, and the existence of free software.

Check out all the 2024 winners and projects

The SolNum Tour 2025 and upcoming calls for projects in 2025

Just as it did in 2024, the Foundation will be travelling across France’s regions over the first quarter of the year to talk directly with local structures and project leaders.

This nation-wide tour is also the perfect opportunity to present the two calls for projects (from 26 February to 3 October and from 3 March to 13 May) and the support arrangements, to discuss your initiatives, explore opportunities for innovation together and the boost digital solidarity within France’s regions.

After the enthusiastic welcome received in Angoulême and Strasbourg, the next stops on the SolNum Tour 2025 will be Grenoble on 13 March and Lille on 21 March.

We look forward to discovering and supporting all your digital solidarity initiatives very soon!