The École Enaco is a business school and FEDE-network institution. In many ways it can be compared to a French grande école – an elite higher educational institution. Except that at Enaco everyone studies remotely! Hélène Lejeune, Founder (2006) and President/Director-General of Enaco, introduces herself and tells us more about her e-learning and innovation hub.
What did you study?
I have a master’s in philosophy (Lille-3 University, 1997), a master’s in educational engineering (Lille-3 University, 2002) and an executive MBA. In recent years I’ve also been taking management courses at the University of Stanford.
What is the aim of Enaco?
Enaco is France’s first distance-learning business school. It offers courses in sales, marketing and management at affordable prices. Studying remotely allows students to achieve a balance between their personal lives and professional ambitions. At Enaco you can study where you like and when you like. I believe that everyone has the right to learn at any stage in their lives and to do so at an institution offering high-quality professional courses. In a sense, founding my institution was a twofold act of rebellion: first, I was creating an online business school – something that did not yet exist; second, I wanted the school to be available to as many people as possible so as to fight against the elitism of traditional business schools.
What sets your institution apart?
We have become a leading institution thanks to serious investments in creating and optimising our teaching tools. We do everything we can to offer our students the best possible e-learning educational tools and materials. Thanks to our innovative strategy in this area, all our courses can be taken on a computer, tablet or mobile phone. We are the first institution in the French-speaking world to offer such a degree of learning freedom and flexibility. Moreover, our institution sets itself apart by providing all our students with an Acer PC/tablet with a detachable keyboard.
Would you say innovation is key to your educational strategy?
Yes. We are constantly working on our innovation, student service and student monitoring strategies to help all of our students succeed. To this end we recently launched the first ever vocal educational coach, which uses artificial intelligence technology and Google Home. I believe that this kind of technology is going to revolutionise distance learning. What we have so far is just an initial version, but it’s already very promising.
