Partners of Zephir Project: ALTEN Group becomes official partner

Posted 5 May 2024

In News, News Exploration, News UltraPerformance, Zephir

ALTEN becomes official partners of the ZEPHIR PROJECT. Our goal: to unlock the secrets of absolute glide and contribute to tomorrow’s eco-responsible world!

By joining our ecosystem of partners in ZEPHIR PROJECT, ALTEN brings their impressive know-how in engineering and digital simulations. It’s a perfect complement to BPCE Solutions Informatiques, experts in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. They will boost our exploration and innovations to enter a new dimension.

Here follows the ALTEN Group’s official communication & press release, which we are pleased to share with you:

“As a world leader in Engineering and IT Services, ALTEN is pleased to announce its official partnership with the ZEPHIR PROJECT, founded by Marc Amerigo and Antoine Albeau.

In this quest to combine disruptive innovation and eco-responsible high performance, ALTEN will bring all its expertise and know-how in highly specialised engineering to support the ZEPHIR PROJECT teams. World records of a new kind are expected in the coming months.

L’équipe ZEPHIR PROJECT avec de gauche à droite Marc Amerigo, Antoine Albeau, Pierre Schmitz et Olivier Ponrouch – Kickoff partenariat chez ALTEN Toulouse – Partenaires / Partners de ZEPHIR PROJECT

Led by Marc Amerigo, co-founder of the ZEPHIR PROJECT with Antoine Albeau, our most successful French sportsman (26 times world champion in windsurfing), this project combines performance and eco-responsibility. To achieve this, the team draws on the wealth of nature through biomimicry and the most advanced technologies.

Bringing together more than 120 international experts and 70 engineering companies, from competitive sailing to motor sport, from aeronautics to space, the ZEPHIR PROJECT seeks to discover the secrets of “absolute glide”.

“By taking inspiration from the efficiency of birds and marine animals, and fusing the best of human know-how, we aim to push the limits of gliding and reach unprecedented speeds, while influencing the future of ecomobility.”

Marc Amerigo, co-founder of the ZEPHIR PROJECT.

What role for ALTEN?

ALTEN will play a key role in the project thanks to its unique engineering expertise. Its teams will contribute to the analysis and calculation of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic structures, as well as the physics of materials. The design of the boards, foils and sails will be inspired by biomimicry. And it will benefit from an eco-responsible approach at a very early stage.

The ALTEN Labs, the Group’s research and innovation laboratories, will also guide the choice of prototyping techniques. Through dynamic simulation, digitisation by 3D scanning and comparative analysis, ALTEN will be able to assess the benefits of this intelligent deformability of structures, to get a little closer to nature’s achievements. Furthermore, thanks to the characterisation of new physical phenomena using intelligent sensors and multi-physics optimisation research via modelling/simulation, our ambition is to unlock the secrets of ‘absolute glide’ and break these world records.

Gualtiero Bazzana – Executive Director of ALTEN

“We are proud to be part of this forward-thinking project, which brings together the best talents and technologies to push back the boundaries of sustainable mobility. Together, we hope to contribute to a greener future by creating high-performance solutions and products that are accessible to all and environmentally responsible.“

Gualtiero Bazzana, Executive Director of ALTEN.

This partnership, based on shared values, aims to contribute to the dynamism of the ZEPHIR PROJECT ecosystem by finding new targeted industrial partners and sponsors. It will enable us to call on other scientific experts to join this great sporting, technological, human and eco-responsible adventure!

“The innovation we are developing can be transposed to anything that glides on water or in the air, or draws energy from it. This applies to wind energy, marine energy and ecomobility, for example. This new form of absolute energy efficiency will open up a wide range of applications. With the utmost respect for our planet.“

Antoine Albeau, co-founder of the ZEPHIR PROJECT.

About ALTEN

Created in 1988, ALTEN supports its customers’ development strategies in the areas of innovation, R&D and
technological information systems.ALTEN works with key actors in the Aeronautics, Space, Defence, Security &
Naval, Automotive, Rail & Mobility, Energy & Environment, Life Sciences & Health. Industrial Equipment & Electronics, Telecoms, Banking, Finance & Insurance, Retail, Services & Media, Public Services & Government sectors.
The Group has a workforce of more than 57,000 employees operating in 30+ countries, 88% of whom are engineers.
Its 2023 turnover was €4,07 billion.
For more information, visit www.alten.com

About ZEPHIR PROJECT

Launched in 2020, ZEPHIR PROJECT is a truly avant-garde demonstrator. This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary ecosystem is based on the discipline of windsurfing and sailing in general. It allows us to demonstrate the ability to reconcile breakthrough innovation, high performance and eco-responsibility. The project is based on a not-for-profit association under the French law of 1901. It gives impetus to this collective, bringing together a wide range of expertise and organisations partners of ZEPHIR PROJECT.

Its co-founders are Antoine Albeau, the most successful French sportsman with 26 world windsurfing titles and numerous world records. And Marc Amerigo, Project Leader, a well-known engineer and holder of several speed records.

For more information: www.zephirproject.com

End of the official press release by ALTEN becoming partners of ZEPHIR PROJECT (read it here on ALTEN’s website).

brainshift, commitment, decideurs, decision-makers, dépassement, engagement, epanouissement humain, exploration, fluidité, human empowerment, humilite, innovation, leadership, management, marc-amerigo, performance, transmission, ultraperformance

Marc Amerigo

Marc Amerigo Atypical Engineer-Entrepreneur, International Speaker, Bold Project Leader, Man of Action with Multiple Records. Often referred to as such by his peers, Marc quickly left his career with major corporations such as Airbus and Renault to follow his own path. For the past 30 years, he has been taking on the greatest industrial and sporting challenges of his choice to reconcile High Performance & Ecoresponsibility.