Avencod

Avencod: including people from neurodiverse backgrounds

Laurence Vanbergue and Laurent Delannoy are battling against barriers to employment in the digital sector, through their actively committed Côte d’Azur start-up, specifically for people with Asperger’s syndrome.

“We set up this business together. Laurence had worked for years for social landlords, and I had been an IT consultant for large companies, knowing that I have an older brother and sister with disabilities,” explains Laurent Delannoy, co-founder and president of Adapted Enterprise Avencod. Together, this couple from the North of France decided to launch their company on the Côte d’Azur. Their motivation? To make a real impact on society through their professional activities by reflecting on the place of disability in the digital professions. “I asked information system directors what the profile of the most frequently recruited candidates was, and it was generally people with five years of higher education, under 35 years old, with two or three years of experience as an engineer,” says Laurent Delannoy. Laurent went looking for companies that had adopted a more inclusive approach to hiring and came across a study conducted by SAP. The company designs software and management systems worldwide. “This study showed that people with Asperger’s syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without intellectual disabilities, require rigour, have great analytical skills and an eye for detail, precisely the qualities expected of a good IT tester or developer.”

Disability and professional quality

Avencod’s principle, with the support of the Autism Resource Centre at Lenval Hospital, is to hire people with two years of higher education, even without a diploma, and help them improve their IT and interpersonal skills by working directly on company projects. “Amadeus was developing its developers on big data in 2016 and asked us if we were interested. That’s how the Sophia-Antipolis company became our first launch partner,” says the director. As a result, this start-up now has 25 employees between its agency in Nice and the one created in Marseille in 2019, the majority from neurodiverse backgrounds. Over time, its services have also expanded: front-end, back-end and mobile development, online service accessibility audits, artificial intelligence to qualify raw data, as well as cybersecurity and big data. With Laurent Delannoy leading the technical side and Laurence Vanbergue in charge of management and human resources, the company is also positioning itself against the tide of current managerial policies: “Our objective is to get our employees and consultants to develop expertise so that they can then become autonomous, fully integrated into the world of neurotypical companies.” Note that while today any employer with more than 20 employees is under a legal obligation to have disabled persons account for up to 6% of its total workforce, this rate would only be
3.5% by 2021.

L’avis du jury

« Fondée sur un business model innovant et inclusif, Avencod a mis la Responsabilité Sociale des Entreprises au cœur de sa démarche, en œuvrant à l’insertion professionnelle de personnes présentant un syndrome d’Asperger. Des valeurs inspirantes pour les TPE/PME de notre territoire. »

TriMed’s
Localisation : Nice
Création : 2020
Activité : vente à distance sur catalogue spécialisé
Collaborateurs : 4 associés et 2 alternants
Capital social : 10 500 €