Discovering Tech ecosystem of France and exploring the opportunities of mutual cooperation

Communication Lead, TechUkraine

On the 29th of November director of TechUkraine Nataly Veremeeva arrived for a working visit to France to explore the opportunities of closer cooperation of our two countries and build bridges with ecosystem players, organized by Guillaume-Olivier Doré and Laura Bokobza from KeyOp Média, supported by Marie-Virginie Klein and Aurélie Aknin from Iconic.

On her visit to Bordeaux she met the President of the region Alain Rousset, visited the technopark Unitec with Thierry Ulmet, given interviews to local newspapers Aqui! and Finance Mag, and participated in a meeting of the Tech community of Women in Bordeaux.

On the agenda

Within the visit, the team has discovered great opportunities and interest in growing the cooperation in the area of R&D centers and collaboration with local Universities, development of Cybersecurity and AgroTech, since Bordeaux is the area of wine production with a big focus on this type of agriculture, and shared the huge potential we have in the area of talents, innovations and startups with the right focus and experience.

Taking into account the highly likely possibility of investment in Ukraine from the EU side, we need to get ready and shape specific projects that respond to the needs both of Ukraine and its counterpartners.

During the visit to Paris she was joined by Iryna Volnytska from SET University and together they have conducted meetings with minister delegate for the digital economy Jean-Noël Barrot and his team, where they have discussed both the needs of UA tech and areas of collaboration.

In the schedule, kindly created by Keyop Media and Iconic, there were other important meetings:

with the Director of La French Tech Clara Chappaz, during which we discussed the challenges of our startups and ways to work together to help them solve them. Also we have mentioned, that TechUkraine was inspired by La French Tech and expressed hope for future closer cooperation between our two organizations.
with the Director of France Digitale Maya Noël and Agata C. Hidalgo with whom we have discussed what is stopping French investors from investing in Ukrainian startups, government incentives in France for stimulating local investment and agreed to start our cooperation with information exchange and brainstorm further project opportunities.
With the team of Groupe SOS the biggest tech NGO in France with a very inspiring story of creation and uniting various ecosystem players in one meta-organization, with activities in a number of areas. We have discussed the cooperation on a wide range of activities and truly hope this exciting connection will turn into a trustful and solid mutually beneficial cooperation, thanks to Jean-Marc Borello with Sarah Ianicostas and Tony Bernard from The Impact Tank . We also met with Caroline Neyron, from Mouvement Impact France.
with the Dean and the academic team of Sciences Po, where we have discussed the current challenges, that the information industry is facing, the Web3 questions and possibility of using crypto for returning the ownership over digital heritage back to the producers of the imprint. We have also touched on the importance of finding a balance between digital sovereignty and protecting boundaries and digital freedom, with the internet being a shared information space. This balance is of a bigger importance due to the challenges the russia’s fortunately ineffective provocation and disinformation campaigns, which are being posed on the governments of western countries. Thanks to Fred Sitterlé from Hectic School!
with the cofounder of We are Eric Newton, who kindly provided his space for the meeting with the ecosystem players and allowed to enjoy the unique atmosphere of this wonderful new space for tech entrepreneurs.
With the tech incubator for women Willa where we discussed challenges of tech entrepreneurship for women and shared the situation in Ukraine with Flore Egnell and Sarah Tahlaiti.
With Nicolas Teisseyre and Anne Corteggiano, the Parisian team of Roland Berger, the consulting company, preparing insights on Ukraine.
With a visit to Station F, where Grégoire Martinez did an insightful overview on the principles of organization and success of this most impressive technopark.
With a number of journalists, including such well-known as the journalist of LCI (TV) Paul Larrouturou, who conducted an interview with Nataly Veremeeva, the replay you can watch here.

The visit was a true discovery of the French Tech ecosystem, the way it is organized and functioning and what the key people of the industry are currently working on. We are delighted to see that France is now open for collaboration more, then ever before, that the opportunities are enormous, interest in Ukraine is big and that there are lot of ways how we can now work together, fighting against the evil from the east, represented by russia and preparing for a successful and prosperous future, enforcing each other in one shared European space.