Sophia Antipolis is a
technology park northwest of
Antibes and southwest of
Nice,
France. Much of the park falls within the commune of
Valbonne. Created in 1970-1984, it houses primarily companies in the fields of
computing,
electronics,
pharmacology and
biotechnology. Several institutions of higher learning are also located here, along with the European headquarters of
W3C and the
European Telecommunications Standards Institute. In the early years, one of the main challenges of Sophia Antipolis was to relate people and to create a sense of community. The "Human Factor" is what was to distinguish the Science and Technology Park in the world as a landmark of science, invention, innovation and research. It was to focus on building an international environment, creating an international community. This means taking into account and improving tenant interaction, networking and cross fertilization of ideas. The concept was that bringing together people from different intellectual horizons and "making" them meet, would bring added value and generate innovation. Many professional clubs were thus launched: The Sophia business angels club, the Sophia Nordic link, Art Sophia,
Telecom Valley are just a few.
