page_title: Sophia Antipolis
hierarchical_section_title: Sophia Antipolis
caption_attribution_description: English: View from part of the Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (INRIA), Sophia Antipolis (Valbonne, France) February 2007
context_page_description: Sophia Antipolis is a technology park in France. Much of the park falls within the commune of Valbonne, which lies northwest of Antibes and southwest of Nice, France. Gérald Hanning was the consultant advisor to the DATAR for this industrial/scientific complex 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 ETSI. 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.
context_section_description: Sophia Antipolis is a technology park in France. Much of the park falls within the commune of Valbonne, which lies northwest of Antibes and southwest of Nice, France. Gérald Hanning was the consultant advisor to the DATAR for this industrial/scientific complex 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 ETSI. 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.
  Sophia Antipolis is named after Sophie Glikman-Toumarkine, the wife of French Senator Pierre Laffitte, founder of the park, and incidentally, Sophia, the Greek word for wisdom, and Antipolis, the ancient (Greek) name of a nearby seaside town Antibes. Many of the roads within the technology park have Greek names. There is a giant sculptured Greek urn as a centre-piece on one of the roundabouts.
caption: View from part of INRIA
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Framed view", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot G3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.1.3", "Image DateTime": "2007:02:05 17:51:02", "Image Artist": "", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.3.9", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1770", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3231", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1250", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:02:05 15:20:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:02:05 15:20:53", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "329/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "159/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "115/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}