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Genius Tek Montpellier Case study 2022 → 2024 Epitech chapter

The Epitech tech club, actually active.

Genius Tek Montpellier was the Epitech Montpellier local chapter of the national Genius Global network. For two years, we ran the city's student tech community: meetups, entrepreneurship nights, hackathons, networking — same kind of activities as Genius Global, deployed locally.

Role Active member & organizer
Period 2022 → 2024
Location Epitech Montpellier
Network Genius Global
The mission

Keep a real tech community alive.

Genius Global is a national network of student tech chapters. Montpellier was one of them — in charge of energizing the local community around three pillars: events, community, learning by doing.
01

Events

Regular meetups, guest talks, entrepreneurship nights. A dense calendar built so no one leaves school without meeting a real operator.

02

Community

Onboarding new cohorts, recruiting active members, keeping the room warm between events. A community doesn't survive on posters — it survives on conversations.

03

Learn by doing

Hackathons, technical workshops, group projects. The goal: ship something concrete in 24h, not watch another slide.

Programs

What we ran.

A mix of short formats and bigger events. The details matter less than the consistency — that's what eventually settles a community in place.
01 / Flagship

Entrepreneurship nights

Themed nights with Montpellier founders, operators, investors. Pitch, open discussion, networking — a repeatable quarterly format.

Quarterly · Montpellier
02 / Hackathon

Hackathons

24h or 48h team formats. Short brief, concrete delivery, operator jury.

24h · 48h
03 / Meetup

Tech meetups

Short talks from students or guests — AI, web, security, DevOps. Followed by a shared drink.

Monthly
04 / Networking

Targeted networking

Curated meetings between students and operators of the Montpellier ecosystem — not just business cards traded.

By invitation
05 / Réseau

Genius Global chapter

Coordination with other Genius chapters to pool guests, formats and national resources.

National · Epitech
The numbers

Two years, numbers that speak.

Not vanity metrics: we tracked consistency and retention rather than one-off peaks. What matters is what lasts.

A local chapter, a national standard, measurable results.

10+ events 500+ cumulative attendees +60% active members 2 hackathons Quarterly nights
The journey

Two years of learning.

A great school to learn how to set up a club, how to hold a calendar, and how to keep a team motivated without a budget.
2022

Arriving at Epitech, joining the club

First year at Epitech Montpellier, joining Genius Tek. Discovering the Genius Global setup and existing formats.

2023

Event cadence

Co-organizing entrepreneurship nights and monthly meetups. First notable hackathon, growing competence on event production.

2024

Handing it over

Handover to the next cohorts. Personal shift to Paris and the launch of START Paris — same community spirit, European scale.

You're running a student tech community?

Case study · Thanaël Fontaine · 2026 geniusglobal.fr contact@horyond.org