Dr. Mehdi Keshmiri, President of Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT) together with the Secretary of Sheikh Bahai Technopreneurship Festival (SHTF), Dr. Kourosh Khosravi and a number of the City Council Members of Isfahan took part in a technical tour of a section of France’s Science and Technology ecosystem. This tour included visits to Sophia Antipolis Technopole near Nice and Station F in Paris.

Sophia Antipolis is the first European Technopole established in 1969. Since then this park has become the world’s reference for innovation with 2,230 companies employing 36,300 people from 63 different nationalities, who work alongside 4,000 researchers and 5,000 students.

Station F is the world biggest start up campus and is the only one to have gathered a whole entrepreneurial ecosystem under one roof.

As part of the tour the delegation from ISTT met with representatives from Sophia Antipolis and explored possible ways for future cooperation with ISTT and its annual technopreneurship festival (SHTF). Also possible ways for supporting ISTT in the hosting of the 35^thIASP world conference was examined.

The visit to Station F and a tour of its premises was considered most enlightening by the delegation members as it showed where the business world is moving towards from an innovative and technological point of view.