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Foreword

I did not hesitate in agreeing to write a few words in the foreword for a magnificent book on innovation and financial markets.

This is a major issue in Europe, and not only in France, in the 21st century, which has seen the brainpower revolution follow the industrialization revolution, which has been going on for two centuries, replacing the 2000-year-old agricultural revolution that led to the sedentarization of humans after the harvest period.

Innovation is developing massively with numerous advances in higher education and the rise of negative reactions against the excessive extraction of natural resources and raw materials, which deplete the planet’s resources and require ecology and economy to cooperate.

The issue of innovation and financial markets is all the more important as we are in old Europe, with good human resources, education, creativity and innovation, but lagging behind in the transition from ideas to products that ensure the creation of wealth and jobs.

The brainpower revolution that is developing is only achieved through a channel of complex operations that are not limited to ideas and projects, but encompass a whole series of operations that the book analyzes, with method and accuracy as the criteria being observed.

Before a “start-up” (Americanism) project led by a small team can allow entrepreneurs to enter financial markets, multiple steps must be taken.

The authors have analyzed the criteria and present them in their innovative book. The final bibliographical references of these pages demonstrate this.

A crucial remark: global competition means that a good idea and a good project must come to fruition quickly and be protected.

While the number of ideas and projects, thanks to the quality of training and research institutions, is generally excellent in Europe, it is not the same for the transition of entrepreneurs in later stages, when the project must result in a company that must have products that satisfy customers. There are many criteria that the authors have highlighted.

The steps explained are too numerous for me to describe. Their succession is partly logical, but it is good to specify them.

Contractors must, of course, be tenacious and meticulous, ensure that the needs of potential clients are met, and know what criteria apply.

What is certain is that start-ups are not likely to succeed, but each failure gives you a better understanding of the market. There is nothing unfortunate about that, and in the United States, the kingdom of successful start-ups, it is often said that it is better to finance a team that has had one or more failures!

I mention the United States, because it must be said that many European start-ups – and often the best ones – migrate there to find financing quickly, which leads to a very large number of the most talented entrepreneurs migrating to the United States for this purpose.

This is one of the reasons why this book is important, as it seems that 1 million European entrepreneurs have emigrated to the United States, leading to the strengthening of that country’s technical domination over Europe. Little research has clarified this figure. However, it seems that the British are the most numerous, ahead of the Germans and the French.

I also suggest that following this book, we try to create in Sophia Antipolis – because why not in Valbonne or Vallauris, France – a training structure for start-ups based on the appendices built up over the years before the initial book, to demonstrate its importance. And the foreword would have had the significance of a foreword: proposing a future!

And to make this future a reality, why not give an annual prize to one of the contributors who has a major ecological impact? Impact, for example, in the field of hydrogen fuel, or the transformation of an innovation that would halve the energy consumption of old buildings with the industrialization of silica hydride, a crystalline solid that weighs 1% of the weight of water because it is 99% air, and which enables ultra-light and ultra-insulating concrete to be sprayed on walls?

In France, we also benefit from an important legal innovation: the creation of “sociétés à mission” companies, whose articles of association make it possible to avoid hostile takeover bids thanks to board members (staff, suppliers, customers, representatives of environmental priorities), other than financial shareholders. In this way, sustainability would be privileged over the dangerous “short-termist” views of some traders.

Pierre LAFFITTE

Honorary Senator

General Engineer at the Corps des Mines Creator of Sophia Antipolis, the Club des Technopoles and the Club des Cités Côtières Creator of the Conférence des Grandes Écoles January 2021