French Les Margaret Awards 2025 for Female STEM Innovators

Applications are now open for the 2025 French Les Margaret Awards. Click here to learn more about this opportunity and apply for it.

About French Les Margaret Awards

Opportunity Details

Date Published: November 20, 2024
Application Deadline: January 06, 2025
Category: Entrepreneurs Training Women
Eligible Locations: Canada Africa Europe

In 2020 JFD launched the 1st edition of les Margaret Junior Awards, which are aimed at young European, African and Canadian girls between the ages of 7 and 18, who innovate, and have the spirit of entrepreneurship… the future generation that will change the world.

Our ambition is to demystify tech studies and digital professions. Making innovation accessible to a greater number of people means bringing out a new generation of leaders.

Sponsor Organisation: Join Forces & Dare (JFD)

Benefits of French Les Margaret Awards

The Margaret by JFD, “Women rAIsing” 2025 promotion, will benefit from JFD’s €1 million growth acceleration programme for one year. Created with top tech and innovation players, JFD partners and members such as Amazon, Bpifrance, EuraTechnologies, Eurazeo, EY Fabernovel, La Poste Group, L’Oréal, Meetic, Sanofi and others. The programme offers mentoring, coaching, media visibility, funding assistance and business opportunities, enabling these future AI champions to expand their economic impact on a global scale.

French Les Margaret Awards Requirements

Participation in the competition is free and there is no obligation to purchase. All entries must be made via Internet, to the exclusion of any other means. In particular, entries by post are excluded.

The application must be submitted exclusively by a woman who is the founder or co-founder of an innovative company, for the ‘Entrepreneur’ category, an employee of a company who has developed a project in agreement with her employer, while remaining an employee, for the ‘Intrapreneur’ category, or a young girl aged between 14 and 22 for the ‘Junior’ category.

Only innovative projects in the field of artificial intelligence will be considered for the ‘Women rAIsing’ promotion of the Margaret Awards.

The participant must be Canadian or a citizen of a European or African country:

Canada: the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the territories of Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon.

Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (mainland and DOM TOM), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, South Africa, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

The contestant guarantees that she holds, directly or by licence, all the intellectual and industrial property rights necessary for the presentation, development and marketing of the product or solution defended before the jury of the Margaret Awards.

The contestant certifies that the content of her product and/or solution is original, innovative and in the field of artificial intelligence for a better world.

The same person may not submit several applications for the ‘Project’ presented. The contestant’s contact details (e-mail address and telephone number) are requested in order to facilitate communication at the various stages of the competition.

During the period referred to in article 2 above, the contestant must download the relevant information, complete and send her application via the joinjfd.com website.

Selection criteria

The Contestant declares that the Project does not infringe, in whole or in part, any copyright or the rights of any third party, or any other provision of applicable law, and therefore assumes full responsibility for the Project.

Only innovative Projects in the field of artificial intelligence will be considered for the ‘Women rAIsing’ promotion of the Margaret Awards

Entrepreneur category

The project is innovative, centred on artificial intelligence, and addresses major societal issues such as the environment (energy, climate change, urban planning, sustainable development), healthcare (access to care, diagnosis, treatment), and transport (mobility, vehicles, infrastructure), among others.

The project will be examined by JFD and the jury of the Margaret 2025, on the basis of :

The relevance of your team: you need to justify your desire to occupy a dominant position in your market by highlighting the experience and skills of your team. Highlight the complementary skills of your workforce and your ability to execute.
Economic feasibility: provide information on the coherence of your financing methods and the economic viability of your project in relation to your needs.
Market opportunity: provide information on the size of your market. If you are banking on a new market, explain its importance and how it will develop over the next few years. The aim is to convince the jury of the relevance of your strategic choice in terms of market and product coherence.
Commercial traction: if your business is generating positive returns in terms of sales, contracts and partnerships signed, don’t hesitate to justify this with figures and a presentation of your partners to date, for example.
The quality of your video pitch: you will be judged on your ability to present yourself and your project in one minute.

Applications without a one-minute video presentation of the Project by the Contestant will not be considered.

Intrapreneur category

The project is innovative, centred on artificial intelligence, and addresses major societal issues such as the environment (energy, climate change, urban planning, sustainable development), healthcare (access to care, diagnosis, treatment), and transport (mobility, vehicles, infrastructure), among others.

The project will be examined by JFD and the jury of the Margaret 2025, on the basis of :

The relevance of your motivation to become an intrapreneur within your organisation: you must justify the creation of the project within your group, as well as your experience and the team in place to support you in its development.
Tell us about the new opportunities for growth within your company based on agile and original methods thanks to your intrapreneurial project.
Prove that your project leads to the creation of a new company or to other innovative activities and directions for your company, such as the development of new products, services, technologies, administrative techniques, strategies and postures.
The support of your company: a recommendation is always welcome.
The quality of your video pitch: you will be judged on your ability to present yourself and your project in one minute.

Applications without a one-minute video presentation of the Project by the Contestant will not be considered.

Junior category

The ‘Junior’ category of the Margaret Awards is open to young women aged between 14 and 22.

The participation of minors under the age of 18 requires parental consent, and one of the participant’s parents or legal guardians is asked to complete a form designed for this purpose, which can be downloaded from joinjfd.com when the application is submitted.

Parental consent implies acceptance of the minor’s participation and her attendance at the award ceremony.

For participants aged 18 and over, a photocopy of their identity card is required.

JFD reserves the right to carry out any and all checks, in particular identity checks, prior to accepting any entry or awarding any prize.

The Project must address a major social issue (health, environment, energy, mobility, education, finance, etc.) exclusively through the application of artificial intelligence technology and highlight the Participant’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Applications without a one-minute video presentation of the Project by the Participant will not be considered.

3.3. The prohibitive conditions

Any request for participation or application will be considered null and void as a result of :

Any submission sent by any means other than the form provided.
Any entry sent after the deadline, i.e. 6 January 2025 at 11:59 pm GMT+2.
Any entry from an entity that is not eligible to participate under the eligibility conditions presented.
Any incomplete entry.
Any attitude that is contrary to applicable laws, JFD values, regulations and ethical rules.
Any act of counterfeiting or unfair competition associated with the file.

In the event of force majeure, JFD’s internal committee reserves the right to protect, shorten, modify or cancel this application.

Application Date and Process

Click on the link to the application website to apply.

Information to be submitted

For the ‘Entrepreneur’ and ‘Intrapreneur’ categories, the application must include the application form and a video of no more than one minute presenting the project.

For the ‘Junior’ category, the application must include the application form, a video of no more than one minute’s duration presenting the project and parental authorisation for those under 18 or a copy of an ID document for those over 18.

Important Information

Parental authorisation

General conditions & terms