Ladies and Gentlemen
Dear friends from the Indian & French Tech ecosystem,
It’s a great pleasure to welcome you all tonight, at the French residence, for the opening soirée of our “French tech Tour”.
I would like to extend a warm welcome to the 9 French companies who have joined us this week, as well as to our many Indian friends who have come tonight to interact with them.
With over 5,000 and 6,000 Tech startups respectively, many mature Technology players, India and France both belong to the leading digital economies and to the Top 5 Tech startup ecosystems in the World,
Indeed, with 100,000 Engineers trained yearly, over 6,000 Tech startups, over 200 Tech startup incubators / acceleration programs, France stands among the leading Tech-related Entrepreneurship and Innovation ecosystems worldwide.
The “India Tech” ecosystem is also very strong. It accounts for probably over 5,000 Tech startups, with the objective of reaching the 10,000 mark by 2020, notably through ambitious initiatives such as “Digital India”. India is also, noteworthy, the 2nd largest market in the world in mobile phone, internet and social network users.
Ambitious cooperation is already taking place between India and France, obviously in the field of IT and Electronics, but not only. Digital Administration and Cybersecurity are, for example, areas of key interest within our strategic Partnership.
A first French private incubation / acceleration Hub has been launched in 2015 in Bangalore by NUMA. Several French large corporates also run acceleration programs in India, such as Airbus, DECATHLON, Publicis or Société Générale to mention a few.
Yet, further initiatives need to be developed to foster and exploit the huge potential cooperation and co-creation between our 2 Tech Nations, at the level of SMEs and startups.
It’s to help intensifying this cooperation that we have initiated, last year, the “French Tech Ticket” program, consisting of a 1-year comprehensive program to encourage foreign early stage startups to set up and develop activities in France.
We currently have 2 Indian startups accelerated in France through the first season of this program; I thank Mr. Mani DORAISAMY, Co-Founder of Guesswork.co and one the Indian laureates of the Season 1 of this “French Tech Ticket” for being present with us tonight.
We are currently extensively, and actually very successfully, promoting Season 2 of this program, all over India.
To come back to this week’s events, this French Tech Tour to India will offer its participants a one-week program across Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. It will be an immersive program for 9, carefully selected, innovative “French Tech” startups and SMEs who are looking at expanding in the Indian market.
I would like to congratulate, encourage and thank these 9 “French Tech” enterprises, which are clearly showing the way to many others.
May I wish that the multiple interactions, which will take place over the course of this week, pave the way for further collaborations, agreements and partnerships between French and Indian Tech stakeholders!
Last but not least, I would like to congratulate warmly Delair-Tech, Famoco and Criteo for their awards.
I wish you all a fruitful week
Thank you!