G rard Giraudon INRIA ” Rallying in support of entrepreneurship in France In the beginning, the only way to convince the government to support the development of an entrepreneurial environment was to prove to them that this environment would benefit them directly. Also, since the population in the Sophia Antipolis region wasn't convinced of hosting high tech, let alone having high-tech entrepreneurship in the region, it took some time until the first financial investments were directed away from the traditional engineering schools and into Sophia. The money eventually came, since it was apparent that without students on the site, the business park would not be able to succeed. Therefore, the arrival of academic research institutions such as INRIA was vital for the future success of Sophia Antipolis. Finally in 1983, INRIA was established, at a time when Sophia was still nascent, in line with Senator Laffitte's vision for innovation and advanced research through synergy between education, research, and industry. However, before this synergy could begin to take place, the barriers of convention had to be broken. In 1980, Jacques-Louis Lions, a famous mathematician who was the director of INRIA at the time, decided to structure INRIA into different focus areas with project teams in order to enable the eventual commercialization of certain technologies. To gather support for his entrepreneurial innovation initiative, he considered that applied mathematics was a strategic issue for France and thus built a consultancy tool for the French industrial companies. For this purpose, an independent company named Simulog was created as a subsidiary of INRIA with the explicit aim of serving the state through this new technology. From this time on, INRIA was seen as an institute willing to work for the state, for the common good of the country. This proved to be a small revolution within research institutions at the time; the spirit of creating companies didn't exist and was, in fact, frowned upon by other academics . Therefore, the idea of an institute maintaining a high level of research and at the same time an industrial aim, was something that was practically unheard of. I believe that the only reason this industrial aim fell barely within acceptable limits was that the company was created purely to benefit the French nation. Lions' Simulog initiative did not follow any type of business development model. It was purely directed toward serving the state as a tool to warrant the independence of the French nation against the implicit threat of U.S. domination. Lions had no personal interest in creating this company, other than the interest of seeing his research implemented. Obviously, this model for entrepreneurship was in stark contrast to the traditional U.S. model, where new businesses are created as individual businesses aiming for shareholder value, personal achievement, and wealth, which reflects a much more individualist culture. The spirit of serving the nation is still present in INRIA today. Within this context, the role model effect that developed when Lions decided it was all right to start a company is considered to have been of critical importance. In addition, since INRIA's employees were employees of the state, I cultivated the "elastic effect," under which anyone who tried to start a business but failed could return to his or her original job with the institute at any time. Especially in a transitional period in which individuals might be unsure about the risks of starting a company, this factor was an important contributor to the center's spin-off creation success. The opportunity was thus made interesting in terms of both human experience and financial gain, while the leap of leaving the secure environment of the public institution even with the awareness of the risk of failure could be supported. Today in France, even in the private sector, the case of someone having attempted to create a business by taking a risk is generally seen as a positive thing. People learn by making mistakes. This outlook is a new development in the French culture. I believe more in company creation by "seniors" aged 40 to 45 with serious scientific backgrounds. When trying to assemble teams for a company launch, you need to address younger people and older people using a different language, since their motivations are usually different. Young people often have their own network. They have just finished school and have friends from different fields. Older scientists usually have a different type of network. Therefore, integrating different age groups in a start-up company creates a dynamic and interesting environment. |
