Créé en collaboration avec la Fondation Sophia Antipolis, le club Sophia UK a été lancé officiellement mardi 24 avril à Newcastle Upon Tyne. Implanté dans le nord est de la Grande Bretagne, il bénéficie d'une forte mobilisation de ressources et d'énergie pour le développement des secteurs fondés sur le savoir. Ce nouveau club est très lié à la technopole azuréenne. Ses responsables ont déjà participé à plusieurs reprises aux rendez-vous de l'association Sophia Start-up.

The appreciation of companies of the new economy : that is the theme of the IX Financial Meets which will take place on Friday April 27th at the Nice Arénas.

Completel is finishing the development of its optical fiber network in the Alpes-Maritimes. The local loop operator can also start its commercial offensive. They will run a first information meeting on Friday May 4th from 9.00 AM to 10.30 AM at the Novotel of Nice Arenas in order to present its new services offers. Among these, telephone services (portability of numbers and multi-site tariff offer), Internet access (wideband gateway from 100 Kbits/s to 80 Mbits/s) and data services (specialised inter-sites and inter-cities connections).

Jean-Raymond Vinciguerra, the councillor of the department and André Aschiéri's substitute MP, should be nominated as the head of the "gauche plurielle" list for the municipal elections of Grasse in 2001. This pole position in the left list was already run for by another PS councillor of department, Thierry Lautard…

A surprise in the designation of first RPR candidates in the Alpes-Maritimes : the choice of Bernard Brochand as head of the list for Cannes. Of course, Bernard Brochand was known as old friend of President of the Republic Jacques Chirac (the publicist had elaborated the communication campaigns for the presidential elections. But until now, he stayed out of the party. He subscribes to the Rassemblement pour la République only recently.

"Le soleil de Sophia Antipolis ne suffit pas à attirer les jeunes talents" : c'est le titre d'un article du journal Le Monde, version papier, sur la difficulté de recruter dans la première technopole européenne. Bruno Aubry, le correspondant régional du quotidien, a fait le point auprès d'Amadeus, de l'association de la Telecom Valley, de la Fondation Sophia Antipolis, de Sophianet.com, d'AG Consulting.

The international advertisement Festival of Cannes looks after its advertisement on the Internet. It has just launched a new version of its Internet website at the address canneslions.com. The fawn shades of the previous version which were completed with jungle noises were replaced by a more serene atmosphere, all in light powder blue.

The buy out of the Franco-British company Sema Group by the Franco-American company Schlumberger produced a considerable effect on the research park where Sema has three hundred collaborators gathered since February 2001 in its new building, Le Millenium, route des Dolines. Thus on Monday April 23rd, representatives of Schlumberger have run an information seminar to explain to employees of Sophia how the integration would be operated.

The Kyrn laboratory from Nice (skin care product) has raised 12.5 million francs with Turenne Capital, an innovation mutual-fund for the launching of its main product Keotyl. The company from Nice, which was helped by the ANVAR, had already succeed a first investment last year for the launching of this product (2.5 million francs with Sofipaca). The keotyl, which cures first and second degree burnings, is today on the market. The money invested will be used for the marketing of Keotyl in Europe.

Alcatel Spaces, which continues its American breakthrough has a new contract: the company and hold at 51% by Alcatel and at 49% by Thales, announced on Monday April 23rd an additional order of three communication satellites on behalf of GE Americom, which is part of the General Electric group. This order particularly concerns Alcatel's establishment in Cannes, which is the first manufacturer of European satellites. Then Cannes already participates to the construction of four European satellites on behalf of GE Americom. Then seven satellites have to be made by the American operator.

The reopening of the SNCF line between Cannes and Grasse, scheduled for 2005, risks to come up against a big financing problem. The scheduled planning, which has been estimated at 200 million francs (the amount has been registered in the State-Region contract) have recently been figured at 535 million francs. Almost three times more.

La valorisation des entreprises de la nouvelle économie : c'est le thème retenu par les IXème Rencontres financières qui auront lieu à Nice Arénas le vendredi 27 avril.

Big works are accelerating around the traffic circle of Cannes-Mougins interchange. The building of a bridge which allows motorists form Grasse to access directly to Marseilles or Nice, without having to get into the circle, is in its ultimate phase. A first phase of pushing the bridge deck took place in the night form March 21st to 22nd. The second phase is scheduled for the night from Wednesday to Thursday May 3rd to 4th.

Le rachat de la société franco-britannique Sema Group par la société franco-américaine Schlumberger a été déjà suivi d'effet sur la technopole où Sema compte trois cents collaborateurs regroupés depuis février 2001 dans son nouvel immeuble Le Millenium, route des Dolines. Ainsi, lundi 23 avril, les représentants de Schlumberger ont-ils animé un séminaire d'information pour expliquer aux salariés sophipolitains comment se ferait l'intégration.

Among the misadventures of the Web, Libération has told what happened to France 2 and France 3. The two public channels are represented on the Net but with ".fr" (france2.fr and france3.fr). However, they don't own the overall of their domain names, and particularly the ones with ".com". France2.com and France3.com were registered by a Russian and until now all attempts to get the two names back have been unsuccessful.

Completel termine le déploiement de son réseau de fibre optique dans les Alpes-Maritimes. L'opérateur de boucle locale peut aussi commencer son offensive commerciale. Il tiendra une première réunion d'information le vendredi 4 mai de 9 heures à 10h30 au Novotel de Nice Arénas pour présenter ses nouvelles offres de services. Parmi elles des services de téléphonie (portabilité des numéros et offre tarifaire multi-sites), de l'accès Internet (passerelles haut débit de 100 Kbits/s à 80 Mbits/s) et des services data (liaisons spécialisées inter-sites et inter-villes).

L'EAI Tech (Euro-American Institute of Technology), programme post-baccalauréat du CERAM Sophia Antipolis, organise une après-midi portes ouvertes le samedi 28 avril 2001 de 13 à 18 heures.Au programme :- 13h00 : présentation de l'EAI Tech par la direction- 14h00 : Questions-réponses- 15h00 : Test d'admission sur convocation- 16h00 : Visite des locaux et du Campus du CERAM Sophia Antipolis- 17h00 : Rencontres avec les étudiants, les diplômés et les professeursContactEdwige Barrault; Tél : 04 93 95 45 43 - Fax : 04 93 65 45 24 - Mél : edwige.barrault@cote-azur.cci.fr

A sign of times : an American owner of a department store chain takes the crown off the computer king. Still, the new economy keeps some great positions.

Le Festival international publicitaire de Cannes soigne sa pub sur Internet. Il vient de lancer une nouvelle version de son site Internet à l'adresse canneslions.com. Les tons fauves de la version précédente qui étaient renforcés par des bruits de jungle, ont été remplacés par une atmosphère plus sereine, toute en bleus clairs pastels.

Sous l'égide de Sun Microsystems, le premier Code Camp européen aura lieu à l'ESSI du 9 au 11 mai et sera consacré à la technologie Java 2 Enterprise Edition. La clé de l'informatique ouverte.