Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.
This week I visited Sophia Antipolis to present on our experience of marketing internationally. The architecture was familiar – Sophia was founded 40 years ago like our own Trinity Science Park - and the High Tech conversations I overheard in the hotel lobby were certainly familiar. But it is a bit harder to walk around – it was carved out of hilly forests with car drivers in mind, and I couldn’t find any real centre.
Fortunately a Sophia Business Angel came to me to tell me more about their ecosystem. They have been actively involved with our local angels, particularly since a recent tax law change in France which allows wealthy individuals to shelter from tax by investing in startups anywhere in the world. I learned that Sophia really owes its existence to one man, Pierre Laffitte, who presided over the conference. While the 6th Fleet and then IBM and Texas Instruments showed that ex-pats loved the quality of life in the region, it was Senator Laffitte who established the infrastructure, brought in France Telecom (now Orange Labs) and Air France Reservations (now Amadeus) and attracted the next 1,300 companies and 30,000 employees who have joined them. He is still clearly a lynchpin.
Many other regional clusters are being funded across Europe by governments keen to have their own Sophia or Cambridge. We heard about Germany's progress in spending 600M euros on just 5 Spitzenclusters. I shared our own experience of the value that companies place on real live contacts maintained by recent attendance at relevant events and the people they hire through our jobs board and train through The Learning Collaboration. I was proud to cite a few of the past outcomes of our Corporate Gateway – Plastic Logic’s involvement in Dresden, Nokia and Philips involvement in Cambridge...
Clusters are only as real as the people who turn out, like the Members who met and delighted our Corporate Gateway visitors last week. You are the best marketing Cambridge can have.
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