The award ceremony of the Obratori Awards By L’Occitane Group, which was held in Marseille, France, on September 26, was the occasion for the French company to reward initiatives matching the group’s core values. Innovation, entrepreneurship and also humanity, well-being and respect for the environment were highlighted through three main categories.

Reinold Geiger, CEO of L’Occitane and of Obratori opened the ceremony and awarded the 1st prize to Dr. Bertrand Piccard (Solar Impulse) - Photo: Courtesy of L’Occitane Group

Reinold Geiger, CEO of L’Occitane and of Obratori - the group’s start-up studio - opened the ceremony and awarded the 1st prize to Dr. Bertrand Piccard (Solar Impulse), for “his work for the environment’s preservation and the beauty of the world.

The 2nd prize distinguishes works undertaken in fundamental and applicative dermatological research. Obratori initiated a call for projects a year ago from all international research centres and selected the members of an international scientific committee to identify research and development projects, with positive impact for the scientific world. The scientific jury, represented in Marseille by Professor Selim Aractingi (Head of Dermatology Department, Cochin Hospital, Faculty of Medicine Paris 5 Descartes, Paris) and Professor Jo Lambert (dermatologist and Head of the Department of Dermatology at UZ Gent), awarded Ana Santos for her research based on the study of long-lived Escherichia coli strains. The laureate also benefits from the support for the creation of an entrepreneurial project within Obratori.

Innovation, entrepreneurship and also humanity, well-being and respect for the environment were highlighted through three main categories.

The 3rd prize rewards the success of a project for the good of humanity and people. It was awarded to Alain Gachet for his Watex project, a process to detect groundwater aquifers at unprecedented depths, thanks to the combination of all the techniques that are used to search for petrol and radar data from different space agencies.