For the last few years, I have been invited to speak with graduating classes of university engineering students. I call my lecture “Engineer to Entrepreneur.” From my background in teaching management and entrepreneurial mentorship, I focus on the unique challenges engineers face in entering the business world, particularly those who may consider starting their own new business. I discuss a full range of issues, but my personal emphasis from my experience is the “character” issue. Some excellent engineers have successfully made the transition to entrepreneurship and executive management, but for others, the Odyssey is a bridge too far. Engineers must learn to think differently than when they are solving an engineering problem. Consequently, I place significant emphasis on honest self-analysis and appreciation of one’s strengths and weaknesses. Listening is a priceless skill. If you have experienced Google’s Larry Page in public, he is an excellent example of an engineer who has very successfully transitioned into a senior management role. Sergei Brin, on the other hand, opted for a CTO-like role, which I think was the right choice for him. That is the point of my lecture. I hope that many who view my YouTube Channel will find it helpful. You can find the complete lecture on my website.
Remember that my website, mayo615.com has over 400 posts on a wide range of management and technology topics.
The concept of a Total Product or Complete Product is essential to product success, particularly in an emerging new company. This concept was pioneered by Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt and later updated and adapted to the high technology industry by a group of us at Intel.
The concept of a Total Product or Complete Product is essential to product success, particularly in an emerging new company. This concept was pioneered by Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt and later updated and adapted to the high technology industry by a group of us at Intel. Engineers commonly believe that when their product development is finished, the product is ready for market. Nothing could be further from the truth. The engineering “deliverable” is not a product. It must be surrounded by a number of other intangible value items before it is a Complete Product. In Levitt’s model, these items are the augmented product, the expected product, and the potential product. The Intel variant, shown here, is more detailed but essentially very similar.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to make France a ‘start-up nation’ amid the uncertainty over Brexit is raising the question of whether Paris could supplant London as the capital of European tech. Since his election, Macron has wooed tech entrepreneurs with a string of initiatives in the form of lavish tax breaks, subsidies, and credits for research. In March 2018, he promised to invest €1.5 billion into artificial intelligence research through 2022. Some of these initiatives, in addition to Macron’s dynamism, have lured British tech companies who are looking to gain a foothold in Europe.
Could Macron and Brexit make France Europe’s tech capital? 🇫🇷
Date created : Latest update :
Ludovic Marin/AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron speaks as he visits the start-up campus Station F on October 9, 2018.
This article’s original headline and content focused only on a very large, high profile startup incubator in Paris, but frankly, there is a lot more going on in other parts of France as well.
Shortly after his election in May 2017, President Macron said he wanted France itself “to think and move like a start-up” – a vision of the country’s digital future that is gaining traction as Britain wrestles with Brexit.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to make France a ‘start-up nation’ amid the uncertainty over Brexitis raising the question of whether Paris could supplant London as the capital of European tech.
Since his election, Macron has wooed tech entrepreneurs with a string of initiatives in the form of lavish tax breaks, subsidies, and credits for research. In March 2018, he promised to invest €1.5 billion into artificial intelligence research through 2022.
Some of these initiatives, in addition to Macron’s dynamism, have lured British tech companies who are looking to gain a foothold in Europe.
“It made sense to have a European base,” said Cedric Jones*, a Briton who recently launched a start-up at Station F, the cavernous old train station that is now home to the world’s largest start-up campus. “If I’m going to make waves in continental Europe… I wanted to get here before Brexit happened.”
Jones is among dozens of foreign entrepreneurs who have recently launched their start-up at Station F, whose 3,000 desk hub has seen spiraling applications from English-speaking nationals in the last two years.
Some cite political woes back home, the burgeoning French tech sector, or are inspired by Macron’s bid to make Paris the innovation heart of Europe.
“There’s an air of optimism and a can-do spirit in France that I feel we’ve lost somewhat in the US,” said Mark Heath, a New Yorker, who stayed on in France to launch a start-up after studying at INSEAD in 2017.
The Macron effect
Much of the investment in French tech predates Macron’s reforms. The state investment bank Bpifrance, launched by former French president François Hollande in 2013, has been widely credited with developing the sector. Hollande also set up new foreign visas for start-up entrepreneurs.
But Zahir Bouchaary, a Briton who works out of Station F, credits Macron with injecting dynamism into the sector.
“Macron has installed a [start-up] mentality within the French ecosystem itself,” said Bouchaary, adding that it has become much easier to do business in France in the last few years.
“French customers are a lot more willing to work with start-ups than they were before,” said Bouchaary. “France was a very conservative country and our clients were used to working with big old-fashioned companies that have been around for a while. For the past few years, they’ve opened up a lot more to working with younger companies and seem to take more risks than they did before.”
Jones agreed that Macron was “the single variable”. “When he [Macron] goes, the dynamism will go too. I absolutely would not expect that to remain the case if he’s not the president.”
However, although Macron has moved to ease labour laws, Jones said that navigating the country’s labyrinthine bureaucracy in French remained “very burdensome”, and that it was far easier to build a business in the UK. “Whether it’s from a tax perspective or from a legal perspective it’s just so much more complicated.”
UK tech ‘resilient’
The tech scene in London appears to be just as vibrant as ever, explained Albin Serviant, president of Frenchtech in London, who said many UK-based tech entrepreneurs are adopting a “wait and see” approach to Brexit.
“The UK ecosystem is quite resilient,” said Serviant.
“In the first quarter of 2019, there were about €2 billion invested in tech in London. That’s compared to 1.5 billion last year, which is plus 30 percent. And that’s twice as much as France – which invested 1 billion. France is catching up very fast but the investment money is still flowing in the UK,” he added.
Serviant cited London’s business-friendly ecosystem and international talent pool as reasons for why London remains the capital of the European tech sector. Barcelona and Berlin are also contenders for the UK’s tech start-up crown.
Nonetheless, Serviant cautioned against the effects that a hard Brexit would have on the tech sector in the UK.
“‘If Brexit happens in a bad way and if people like me and other entrepreneurs have to leave, obviously that’s very bad for the UK because what makes it very different is the international DNA of London.”
Hard Brexit would not just damage the UK tech sector but would also pose challenges for British developers, who post-Brexit may need a carte de séjour to work in the country, looking to find work in France.
Sarah Pedroza, co-managing director of Hello Tomorrow technologies, a Paris-based startup NGO, said that if she had to choose between hiring a British national and an EU citizen with the same skillset, she would opt for an EU citizen because there would be less paperwork involved.
Brexit aside, others suggest that France is snapping at the UK’s technological heels.
“I do think France has the potential under Macron to close the gap with the UK,” said Jones.
“The single biggest factor in what’s going on for France is that France is developing a sense of confidence in itself, in its start-up scene, as a tech hub, that’s being helped by France and that’s also being helped by Brexit.”
I want to talk a bit about networking with new acquaintances or renewing old contacts. Networking is often dreaded because it sounds like being disingenuous or insincere. Good networking is genuine and sincere. I made the point in Week 1 that communication skills are crucial, and they can be learned. Warren Buffett has said that “public speaking” is the most important skill he ever learned. So let’s discuss a few ideas on how to make networking less stressful and more successful. In this video, I will list three key things to remember when networking and expand on why they are so important. My UBC Management students will remember this from my Management Communication course.
Welcome to a bonus Week 2 Update of Mayo615’s Odyssey to France.
I want to talk a bit about networking with new acquaintances or renewing old contacts. Networking is often dreaded because it sounds like being disingenuous or insincere. Good networking is genuine and sincere. I made the point in Week 1 that communication skills are crucial, and they can be learned. Warren Buffett has said that “public speaking” is the most important skill he ever learned. So let’s discuss a few ideas on how to make networking less stressful and more successful. In this video, I will list three key things to remember when networking and expand on why they are so important. My UBC Management students will remember this from my Management Communication course.
On this YouTube Channel, we will share our Big Idea: our personal goal and invite you to participate with us, share your comments and questions and perhaps motivate you to achieve your own Big Idea. We will post an update on our project every Tuesday. We invite your comments and questions about your own Big Idea while you follow ours. We will both reply to all comments and will feature the best questions in our YouTube update videos each week. So click SUBSCRIBE and let’s get started!
The launch of the Mayo615 YouTube Channel Trailer
On this YouTube Channel, we will share our Big Idea: our personal goal and invite you to participate with us, share your comments and questions and perhaps motivate you to achieve your own Big Idea. We will post an update on our project every Tuesday. We invite your comments and questions about your own Big Idea while you follow ours. We will both reply to all comments and will feature the best questions in our YouTube update videos each week.
Years ago now Google quietly announced its “Loon Balloon Project” in New Zealand. The objective was to launch high altitude balloons that could potentially float over areas of the globe that did not yet have Internet access. The tech press predicted that the idea was “loony” indeed, though some called it “crazy cool.” Google has since also dabbled with the idea of low earth orbit satellites to achieve the same goal. With the rise of SpaceX, this seems an even more interesting technological approach, though other firms in the 1990s lost large amounts of money and failed. A modest aerospace company and a subsidiary of Airbus in Toulouse France is manufacturing low-orbit internet access satellites, hoping to launch as many as 650 such satellites. The idea that is captivating me is the potential for space-based Internet access to potentially provide an alternative to growing political and corporate control and Balkanization of the Internet.
Net Neutrality May Yet Be Achievable…Maybe
Years ago now Google quietly announced its “Loon Balloon Project” in New Zealand. The objective was to launch high altitude balloons that could potentially float over areas of the globe that did not yet have Internet access. The tech press predicted that the idea was “loony” indeed, though some called it “crazy cool.” Google has since also dabbled with the idea of low earth orbit satellites to achieve the same goal. With the rise of SpaceX, this seems an even more interesting technological approach, though other firms in the 1990s lost large amounts of money and failed. A modest aerospace company and a subsidiary of Airbus in Toulouse France is manufacturing low-orbit internet access satellites, hoping to launch as many as 650 such satellites in a “global constellation”. The idea that is captivating me is the potential for space-based Internet access to potentially provide an alternative to growing political and corporate control and Balkanization of the Internet.
OneWeb Launches First Six Internet Access Satellites
Ariane Soyuz rocket launch with six OneWeb satellites on board. February 27, 2019
Political Internet Censorship And Access In Developing World Potentially Solvable
But business challenges and technical problems remain
Aclear plastic box the size of a sofa sits in an underground factory in the suburbs of Toulouse in southern France. Inside it, a nozzle fixed to a robot arm carefully drips translucent gloop onto bits of circuitry. This is to help get rid of excess heat when the electronics start to operate. The slab that is created is then loaded onto a trolley and taken away as the next piece of electronics arrives for the same treatment.
This is what the mass production of satellites looks like. Making them in quantity is a necessity for OneWeb. The company was founded in 2012, and it has yet to launch a single satellite. Yet it plans to have 900 in orbit by 2027. That seems a tall order. Intelsat, the firm which currently operates more communications satellites than any other, has been around for 54 years and has launched just 94.
OneWeb, which is part-owned by Airbus, a European aerospace giant, and SoftBank, a Japanese tech investor, needs such a large quantity of satellites because it wants to provide cheap and easy internet connectivity everywhere in the world. Bringing access to the internet to places where it is scarce or non-existent could be a huge business. Around 470m households and 3.5bn people lack such access, reckons Northern Sky Research, a consultancy. OneWeb is one of a handful of firms that want to do so. They think the best way to widen connectivity is to break with the model of using big satellites in distant orbits and instead deploy lots of small ones that sit closer to the ground.
The rate at which an object orbits depends on how far away it is. At a distance of 380,000km, the Moon takes a month to travel around the Earth. The International Space Station, around 400km up, buzzes round in an hour and a half. In between, at an altitude of about 36,000km, there is a sweet spot where satellites make an orbit once a day. A satellite in this orbit is thus “geostationary”—it seems to sit still over a specific spot. Almost all today’s satellite communications traffic, both data and broadcasts, goes through such satellites.
The advantage of a geostationary orbit is that the antennae that send data to the satellite and those that receive data coming down from it do not need to move. The disadvantage is that sending a signal that far requires a hefty antenna and a lot of power. And even at the speed of light, the trip to geostationary orbit and back adds a half-second delay to signals. That does not matter for broadcasts, but it does a little for voice, where the delay can prove tiresome, and a lot for some sorts of data. Many online services work poorly or not at all over such a connection. And it always requires a dish that looks up at the sky.
Head in the clouds
Ships, planes and remote businesses rely for internet connections on signals sent from geostationary orbit, but this method is too pricey for widespread adoption. Beaming the internet via satellites orbiting closer to the planet has been tried before. The idea was popular at the height of the tech boom of the late 1990s. Three companies—Teledesic, Iridium and Globalstar—poured tens of billions of dollars into the low-Earth orbit (leo) satellite internet. It culminated in the collapse of Teledesic. Although the technology of the time worked, it was very costly and so the services on offer had to be hugely expensive, too. Iridium survived, but as a niche provider of satellite telephony, not a purveyor of cheap and fast internet access.
OneWeb is among several firms that are trying leo satellites again. SpaceX, a rocket company founded by Elon Musk, a tech entrepreneur, is guarded about its proposed system, Starlink, but on November 15th American regulators approved an application for 7,518 satellites at an altitude of 340km (bringing the total for which the firm has approval to nearly 12,000). Telesat, a Canadian firm, has plans for a 512-satellite constellation. LeoSat, a startup with Japanese and Latin American backers, aims to build a 108-satellite network aimed at providing super-fast connections to businesses. Iridium, still in the game, will launch the final ten satellites in its new constellation of 66 by the end of the year. Not to be outdone, a Chinese state-owned firm recently announced the construction of a 300-satellite constellation. In ten years’ time, if all goes to plan, these new firms will have put more satellites into orbit by themselves than the total launched to date (see chart).
These companies want to avoid the technical issues of geostationary satellites by putting theirs into a low orbit, where the data will take only a few milliseconds to travel to space and back. And because signals need not be sent so far the satellites can be smaller and cheaper. OneWeb claims they might weigh 150kg and cost a few hundred thousand dollars, compared with a tonne or more, and tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, for the geostationary sort.
Floating in a most peculiar way
At 1,200km up, where OneWeb intends its first satellites to operate, they do not sit still in the sky. A satellite overhead will sink below the horizon seven minutes later. That has two consequences. First, to ensure that a satellite is always available to any user, a great many are required. Second, to talk to such a satellite you need an antenna that can track it across the sky.
One way to understand this is as a cellular-phone network turned inside out. On Earth, cell-phone towers are fixed; a user’s phone talks to the closest or least busy one, which may change as the user moves or traffic alters. In OneWeb’s system each satellite is a moving cell tower, circling the Earth from pole to pole in one of 18 orbital planes that look like lines of longitude (see diagram). The 900 cells, each one covering an area of a bit more than 1m kilometres, skim across the Earth at 26,000km an hour. Clever software hands transmission from one satellite to the next as they move into and out of range.
There are three ways to connect to such a network. One is to place an antenna on a terrestrial cell tower, which can use the satellites to get data to and from a mobile-phone network, in place of the fibre optic, microwave or cable links that are normally used. The second is for homes and businesses to have their own ground terminals, smaller and cheaper antenna that can talk to the satellite. The third is for vehicles to have ground terminals. This might be important for driverless cars, which will need to transmit and receive large volumes of data over an area which may be broader than that covered by appropriate terrestrial cellular networks.
In all cases data will make their way to the wider internet through large ground-based dishes, called gateways. An email sent from a house connected to one of the new satellite network, for example, would travel up to a passing satellite, down to a gateway then onward to its destination.
The firms involved today hope to overcome the obstacles confronting the previous generation of leo satellite firms because building and launching hundreds of satellites is now much cheaper. The cost of launch in particular has tumbled in the past decade with the arrival of better rockets and more competition. OneWeb has a contract, reportedly valued at over €1bn ($1.1bn), for 21 launches with Arianespace, a European consortium. Russian-built Soyuz craft will also take 34 to 36 satellites up at a time from either French Guiana or Kazakhstan. OneWeb may later use Blue Origin, a rocket firm owned by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos; it also has a contract for launching single satellites to replace ones that break down with Virgin Orbit. Virgin Group, like Airbus and SoftBank, is an investor in the company. SpaceX intends to launch its satellites on its own rockets.
Space to grow
The bigger challenge is making satellites quickly and cheaply enough to fill up these rockets. It typically takes existing satellite-makers two years to build one after contracts are signed. They are not up to the challenge, says Jonny Dyer, who worked on a Google project that first brought the OneWeb team together (but stayed with Google when the two parted ways). “The supply chain does not scale,” he says. “They’re not used to working at those volumes, and they’re not used to the unit cost.”
OneWeb and SpaceX thus not only have to make new satellites, they have to build a system for building satellites. OneWeb has been doing so in Toulouse for the past two years. Its first satellite was completed in April and ten more will be ready in time for the company’s first launch, some time before February 2019. To step up manufacture, OneWeb is building two copies of its production line in a new factory in Florida. It hopes to have the first satellite from this facility ready before March 2019 and to raise output to ten a week not long after.
The factory floor in Toulouse has separate workstations for propulsion systems, communications payload, solar panels and so on. Satellites in the making move on robot carts from one station to the next. Cameras track the components and look out for errors—misalignments and the like. The finished cube is about the size of a beach ball bedecked with antennae and solar panels. After testing, it is shipped out. The system has had teething problems. The first launch will be more than a year behind schedule. But Greg Wyler, OneWeb’s boss, says he still hopes to offer connectivity in places in higher northern latitudes, such as Alaska and Britain, by the end of 2019.
Putting satellites in place is only part of the problem. How useful they will prove to be depends on designing and building antennae to get data to homes or vehicles that are not close to terrestrial cell towers. “The elephant in the room…has always been the ground terminal,” says Nathan Kundtz, the former boss of Kymeta, which makes antennae. Mr Kundtz says that tracking satellites across the sky mechanically is untenable if the antennae are to be affordable and widely used. His firm does tracking electronically. No moving parts, he says. Teledesic failed in part because no such ground terminal existed in the late 1990s. Fortunately, the necessary electronics have shrunk in size and cost.
Aerial combat
Firms such as Kymeta, along with at least two other companies, Phasor and Isotropic Systems, are producing flat, electronically “steerable” antennae with no moving parts that can send and receive signals from leo satellites. Kymeta’s antenna is the least orthodox. It relies upon the same kind of lcddisplay found in laptops and flat-screen televisions. Instead of using the 30,000 pixels in its screen to display images, it uses them to filter and interpret the satellite signal by allowing it to pass through at some pixels and blocking it at others. Different patterns of pixels act like a lens, focusing the signal onto a receiver beneath them; the pattern shifts up to 240 times a second, changing the shape of the “lens” and thus keeping track of the satellites overhead. Phasor’s system works similarly, but uses an electronically controlled array of microchips to perform the same task. Isotropic Systems, which has said that it is developing an antenna that will be able to receive signal from OneWeb’s satellites, uses an optical system more like Kymeta’s.
Kymeta and Phasor have both said that they do not want to sell antennae directly to consumers, but will focus on businesses, cellular networks, maritime and aviation customers instead. Isotropic Systems has announced that it will use its technology to produce a “consumer broadband terminal” in time for OneWeb’s launch. Once available, consumers are most likely to get the new pizza-size antennae through their internet service providers. But if it is too expensive for people to receive signals on the ground—most of the world’s unconnected are poor—those ventures selling direct to consumers will struggle. Mr Wyler says his firm needs antennae that cost $200 at most for the consumer business to thrive.
Telesat, the next biggest firm in terms of constellation size, is taking a different approach. It does not plan to offer services to consumers directly, but instead is focusing on filling in gaps for cellular networks, as well as businesses, ships and planes. Specialised telecoms companies would buy bandwidth and resell it. In contrast to Messrs Wyler and Musk, and their aspirations for global coverage, Telesat has divided the surface of the planet into thousands of polygons, and modelled exactly in which ones it makes financial sense to offer strong connectivity. This means its constellation needs fewer expensive gateways.
Mr Wyler, in contrast, is known as something of a connectivity evangelist. His first satellite internet firm, o3b (Other 3 Billion), placed large satellites in a higher orbit, providing a connection only slightly slower than a leosatellite. Now owned by ses, a larger satellite company, o3b specialises in providing connectivity to islands that are otherwise cut off. OneWeb’s goal of connecting consumers is largely in the hands of SoftBank, its main investor, which owns the exclusive rights to sell the new bandwidth.
Even if the new satellites bring the internet to people and parts of the planet that have been ill-served up until now, putting ever more objects in space brings another set of difficulties. Satellites in densely packed constellations may crash into each other or other spacecraft. “If there are thousands [of satellites] then they’ll have much higher probability of colliding,” says Mr Dyer. “If there is a collision in these orbits it will be a monumental disaster. At 1,000km, if there’s an incident it will be up there for hundreds of years.” Geostationary satellites, because they do not move relative to each other, are unlikely to collide.
Managing constellations is particularly difficult, says Mr Wyler, because each satellite has only a tiny amount of power to work with (equipping small ones with bigger thrusters would be hugely expensive). So even if a crash were imminent, there would be little that could be done about it other than watch. “What are you gonna do? Nothing. Get popcorn. There’s nothing to do,” says Mr Wyler. OneWeb has designed its constellation so that faulty satellites fall out of orbit immediately to avoid this risk.
Access all areas
The new constellations will also raise tricky questions of national jurisdiction. Countries generally have control of the routers which connect them to the wider terrestrial internet. Satellites threaten that control. The national regulators that OneWeb has talked to are uneasy, says Mr Wyler, because it would create a route to the internet that countries could not monitor. OneWeb’s intention is to build 39 “gateways” on the ground around the world that will beam up and receive traffic from its satellites.
The first is under construction in Svalbard, a remote Norwegian island chain. These access points, and those planned by other firms, present another difficulty. Some countries are willing to share gateways with other countries. Others want their own because they are concerned that third parties will be able to monitor internet traffic, potentially using it to hack data flows of national importance.
Questions remain about whether the businesses involved can do all they promise cheaply enough. But if these companies succeed, their impact will go beyond helping to bring 3.5bn people online. Mr Musk has hazy plans to use Starlink as the foundation for a deep-space network that will keep spacecraft connected en route to Mars and the Moon.
With a network of satellites encircling the planet, humans will soon never be offline. High-quality internet connections will become more widespread than basic sanitation and running water. The leo broadband firms are trying to reinvent the satellite industry. But the infrastructure they are planning will provide a platform for other industries to reinvent themselves, too.
Correction (December 11th, 2018): This piece originally stated that Intelsat has launched 59 satellites in its 54-year history. That is the number of active satellites the firm has in orbit. The firm has successfully launched 94. Sorry.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security delayed the International Entrepreneur Rule to next March, and it is currently accepting comments on plans to rescind it altogether. The agency cited logistical challenges in vetting these new visas. The International Entrepreneur Rule was designed by the Obama Administration to support Silicon Valley and the high tech industry’s need for immigrant entrepreneurs and engineers. Immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. account for 44% of all startups. The news has prompted a backlash from immigrant entrepreneurs like PayPal cofounder Max Levchin and leadership at the National Venture Capital Association, who argue that rolling back the rule will drive would-be job creators to other, more welcoming nations. This is already happening.
Canadian and French Policies to Attract Entrepreneurs and Researchers Impacting Silicon Valley
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security delayed the International Entrepreneur Rule to next March, and it is currently accepting comments on plans to rescind it altogether. The agency cited logistical challenges in vetting these new visas. The International Entrepreneur Rule was designed by the Obama Administration to support Silicon Valley and the high tech industry’s need for immigrant entrepreneurs and engineers. Immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. account for 44% of all startups. The news has prompted a backlash from immigrant entrepreneurs like PayPal cofounder Max Levchin and leadership at the National Venture Capital Association, who argue that rolling back the rule will drive would-be job creators to other, more welcoming nations. This is already happening.
Canada’s Global Talent Stream Visa Program For Immigrant Entrepreneurs Targets U.S. Immigration Policy
To Silicon Valley observers, Canada has always seemed incapable of igniting a technology-driven economy, despite years of the government support for telecommunications, and a byzantine maze of government grant programs for research and development. Canada has remained a laggard in R&D investment compared to other OECD industrialized nations. Venture capital and government tax policy in Canada seemed to have a focus on short-term tax deductions rather than long-term gains as in California. Then there was the demise of Nortel and the decline of Blackberry. There may be a new opportunity to bootstrap Canada into the high-tech industry big league: Trump Administration immigration policies that are already impacting Silicon Valley. Not long after Justin Trudeau’s Liberals came to power in 2015, Trudeau sensed the opportunity to exploit Trump’s anti-immigration stances and the Liberal government swung into action to create the Global Talent Streamvisa program specifically designed for rapid immigration for entire entrepreneurial teams. Since that time Trump has fulfilled his promises by slashing the H1-B visa program and announcing the end of the Obama Administration’s Startup Visa Program. Immigrant enrollments at U.S. universities is already down over 40%. Startup Genome, the acknowledged global leader in entrepreneurial ecosystems rankings, currently ranks Vancouver and Toronto 15th and 16th globally in its 2017 study, but those in the know acknowledge that Canada still lacks crucial technology ecosystem capabilities. Nevertheless, Canada may be on the verge of a technology tidal wave.
Macron Determined To Make France “A Startup Nation” With Major Technology Initiatives
In 2015, long before Emmanuel Macron’s launched his campaign for the Presidency of France, as a minister in the Hollande government, Macron launched a significant new technology initiative, The Camp, on a seventeen-hectare campus just outside Aix-en-Provence, designed to inspire new thinking on crucial technology issues, and to incubate new entrepreneurial companies. The Camp will open officially this Autumn. Now that Macron has swept the country in a stunning Presidential victory, it is clear that technology and entrepreneurship are crucial elements of his vision for France, backing it up with a 10B € technology-based economic development fund. The South of France generally, the Cote d’Azur and Provence are emerging as France’s technology center. France’s nuclear research facility, Cadarache, just northeast of Aix-en-Provence, is the equivalent of California’s Lawrence Livermore Labs, and the home of ITER, the European nuclear fusion project. Prior to Macron’s 2015 launch of The Camp, the government had already established the Sophia Antipolis technology park near Nice, as a center for advanced telecommunications research and entrepreneurial start-ups.
The Camp, Aix-en-Provence
As if to underscore France’s rise on the global stage, France has recently leapfrogged the U.S. and Great Britain as the world’s new leader in “soft power,” the ability to harness international alliances and shape the preferences of others through a country’s appeal and attraction.
Italy, Austria, and France, in that order, are the next dominos likely to fall in the global wave of populist political sentiment. Italy and Austria will both go to the polls on the same day next month, December 4th, for somewhat different reasons, but with both outcomes likely to advance the political forces on the right in Europe. In Austria, it’s expected that Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party will prevail. That would make him the first elected far-right leader in Western Europe since 1945. Italy’s vote is a referendum initially scheduled for the fall. On the table is a package of constitutional reforms that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has proposed to streamline lawmaking, but it is increasingly being seen a plebiscite on Renzi’s government, which it appears he may lose, causing his government to fall, and creating an opportunity for the far right to form a new anti-immigration government. In the upcoming 2017 Presidential election in France, ultra-nationalist Marine Le Pen is seen as the possible front-runner.
Why some of Europe’s top leaders are walking dead
Italy, Austria, and France, in that order, are the next dominos likely to fall in the global wave of populist political sentiment. Italy and Austria will both go to the polls on the same day next month, December 4th, for somewhat different reasons, but with both outcomes likely to advance the political forces on the right in Europe. In Austria, it’s expected that Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party will prevail. That would make him the first elected far-right leader in Western Europe since 1945. Italy’s vote is a referendum initially scheduled for the fall. On the table is a package of constitutional reforms that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has proposed to streamline lawmaking, but it is increasingly being seen a plebiscite on Renzi’s government, which it appears he may lose, causing his government to fall, and creating an opportunity for the far right to form a new anti-immigration government. In the upcoming 2017 Presidential election in France, ultra-nationalist Marine Le Pen is seen as the possible front-runner.
An especially vote-heavy year lies ahead in Europe, with potentially heavy political casualties. Millions of people are heading to the polls and many are in an agitated mood.
Millions of voters have a chance soon to clobber the establishment as Trump supporters did
By Nahlah Ayed, CBC NewsPosted: Nov 13, 2016 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Nov 13, 2016 12:09 PM ET
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen arrives in Nanterre on Nov. 9 to make a statement on the U.S. election.
If you were surprised by the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, you might want to brace yourself for the cartwheels of change about to roll across Europe.
Because of an unusual set of circumstances, ahead is an especially vote-heavy year with potentially heavy political casualties. Millions of people are heading to the polls, and many are in an agitated mood.
The lineup of elections and referendums is a wide-open opportunity for mass venting about the many frustrations of the past years: the migration crisis, the economic crisis, the bailouts, and fallout, in a flailing European Union.
Like Nov. 8 in the U.S. — and June 23 with Brexit — the succession of polls is also a chance to clobber the establishment.
Naturally, Europe’s anti-establishment protest parties stand to reap the benefits of the discontent.
At risk are some of Europe’s top leaders, now suddenly among the political walking dead.
French President Francois Hollande leaves after making a statement in Paris on Nov. 9 about the results of the U.S. election.
By this time next year, the world’s most powerful gatherings could look very different. Donald Trump aside, rarely before has the prospect for change in the international arena been so sweeping.
Even before Trump’s triumph, Europe’s political house looked set for an overhaul. The winds of change were already blowing in France, Germany, Austria, Italy and elsewhere.
Gales in opposition sails
But Trump’s winning bluster is now putting gales in the sails of Europe’s populists and nationalists riding the anti-establishment mood.
“The French reaction was: absolutely, this is a huge boost to [populist National Front leader] Marine Le Pen,” says Xenia Wickett, the head of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank.
“The prospect of a Le Pen government in Paris is very, very real.”
Le Pen’s is an anti-immigrant, anti-establishment party. She was one of the first nationalist leaders to congratulate Trump, while her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the party, tweeted, “Today, the United States. Tomorrow, France. Bravo!”
Once on the fringes of France’s political landscape, Le Pen could be one of two candidates in the final run-off for president — and in light of Trump’s victory, France’s elite are now openly musing about the possibility she could actually win next spring, unseating Francois Hollande.
Donald Trump welcomes Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, to speak at a campaign rally in Jackson, Miss., on Aug. 24.
But the votes that will initially set the tone for Europe’s coming year are happening far sooner, and on a single day.
On Dec. 4, Italy and Austria go to the polls. Neither would normally be on Europe’s agenda this late in the year — putting them squarely, and perhaps ominously, in the American election’s wake.
Austria’s contest is a rerun of an earlier, close presidential vote, and it’s expected that Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party will prevail. That would make him the first elected far-right leader in Western Europe since 1945.
Referendum in Italy
Italy’s vote is a referendum initially scheduled for the fall. On the table is a package of constitutional reforms that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has proposed to streamline lawmaking.
But because of growing anger over the migration crisis — Italy has become the top destination for asylum seekers — as well as over corruption and dangerously high unemployment, the vote is being seen as a plebiscite on Renzi’s performance. So far it looks like he might lose — and that might bring down his government.
Waiting in the wings is the Five Star Movement, a protest party that wants curbs on migration and a referendum on dumping the euro.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel leads the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin on Nov. 2.
Also at risk are several other leaders and governments, some of whom have been around for the better part of a decade.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s popularity and her party have been hurt by the migration crisis and her decision to allow hundreds of thousands of mostly Syrians to enter the country last year.
Her Christian Democratic Union saw support plummet in local elections this year. The beneficiary was again an anti-immigrant party on the rise. The right-wing Alternative for Germany is expected to do well in next year’s national election, too.
Trump’s ‘patriotic spring’
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam and anti-immigrant Freedom Party stands to build on the back of the disillusionment. He may not form the next government after the March vote, but his party’s influence is expected to grow.
He calls Trump’s victory the latest episode of a “patriotic spring.”
While many of these parties are inspired by Trump’s win, it was actually a protest party on this side of the Atlantic that formed the best and perhaps worst model for harnessing the growing malcontent in the West.
The United Kingdom Independence Party, under Nigel Farage, had very little chance of forming a government. But it managed to help force a referendum and motivate the disillusioned to bring Britain to vote to leave the EU — and change the face of Europe.
“I’m the catalyst for the downfall of the Blairites, the Clintonites, the Bushites, and all these dreadful people who work hand in glove with Goldman Sachs and everybody else, have made themselves rich, and ruined our countries,” he said last week.
It is certainly language that is resonating across this continent and across the pond.
Farage, Trump, and others are tapping into a rich vein of discontent that will yet produce many more surprising headlines.
U.S. President Barack Obama meets president-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Nov. 10.
“Anybody but Le Pen”: French turn to tactical voting to stop far right
In a stunning rebuke to Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, French voters rejected her politics of fear. This is particularly poignant following the recent terrorist attack in Paris. The Front National (FN) has traditionally been strong in Provence/Cotes d’Azur, its home base, and Normandy. The National Front failed to win a single region, though it had appeared that the party might win as many as six regions following the first round of voting. French voters exercised “tactical voting” to defeat Le Pen, which sounds very familiar to Canadians in our recent election. The word on the street was “anybody but Le Pen.” Americans need to take note of this and how the United States international reputation is being damaged by Donald Trump.
Front National makes no gains in final round of regional elections
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party misses out a week after achieving record support, exit polls show
An emotional Marine Le Pen speaks after the French regional election results. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters
Sunday 13 December 2015 20.30 GMTLast modified on Monday 14 December 201500.41 GMT
France’s far-right Front National has failed to win control of any regions in the final round of local elections despite a historically high score in the first-round when it was ranked as the most popular party in France.
The defeat of the FN was down to mass tactical voting, an increase in turnout and warnings by the left that what it called the “antisemitic and racist” party would bring France to its knees. All this combined to stop the FN translating its huge first-round score of nearly 28% into the overall control of any region.
But the Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, deliberately avoided any triumphalism and did not claim that the steady rise of the far-right party had been definitively stopped.
“Tonight there is no relief, no triumphalism, no message of victory,” he said. “The danger of the far right has not been removed – far from it – and I won’t forget the results of the first round and of past elections.” He said it was now the government’s duty to “listen more to the French people” and “to act in a stronger, faster way” particularly on employment in a country with record joblessness.
He conceded that tactical voting was not enough to counter the far right and win support: “We have to give people back the desire to vote for and not just against.”
Exit polls on Sunday night showed that with less than 18 months to go until the next French presidential election, the nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-European FN still gained hundreds of regional councillors across France — tripling its presence on regional councils and extending its nationwide reach, cementing its grassroots powerbase and boosting its quest for power nationwide.
Despite the FN failing to grab its first region, Marine Le Pen will still use her party’s first round breakthrough performance as a springboard for her bid for the 2017 presidential election.
Addressing her supporters, Le Pen presented her party as the victim of “calumny and defamation” by the government who she said had “intimidated and infantilised” voters by teaming up with its rivals on the right to keep the FN out of power.
She said the tactical voting by leftwingers who chose Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party in order to put up a “barricade” against the FN had already played into her claim that she and her voters were the victims of an elitist system that persecuted them. She vowed during the campaign that her voters would take their revenge by turning out in even greater numbers during the presidential campaign.
Le Pen herself failed to capitalise on her high first-round score in the vast northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, after the Socialist party pulled out of the race and made an extraordinary plea for its voters to chose Sarkozy’s candidate Xavier Bertrand just to stop Le Pen. First estimations showed that Bertrand, Sarkozy’s former employment minister, won with a resounding 57% of the vote.
In an emotional speech, Bertrand said it was not his “victory” and implored the political class to reinvent itself to counter the rise of the FN.
Le Pen’s 26-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, 26, an MP and rising party star hoping to lead the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, was also kept out by the tactical voting of the left for another Sarkozy candidate, the hardline mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi. First estimations showed he had won by about 54.4%.
The defeat of both the Le Pens showed the difficulty of a far-right personality to get past the 50% threshold when faced with a mainstream candidate. This is crucial to the presidential election where Le Pen is expected to make it to the second-round run-off.
Turnout was up by around seven percentage points on the first-round, especially in areas where the FN could have won, suggesting a strong mobilisation to beat the party. There had been a marked rise in requests for proxy votes between the two rounds.
First estimates showed the left had performed better than expected, winning at least five regions. Sarkozy’s Les Républicains also stood on around five regions, a poorer showing than might have been expected for the main rightwing opposition party, given that two of those regions were won with the support of tactical leftwing voters.
The outcome appeared to comfort the Socialist prime minister’s tactic of agressively warning of the damage the FN could cause. He had warned that if the FN won, it would foster divisions and “this division could lead to civil war”.
He called it a party that “didn’t love France”, that cheated French people and that would bring the country to its knees. The Socialist party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis had also warned that the FN would be like returning to the wartime Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime except “under Vichy it was the Jews [who were targeted]. Now it’s Muslims.”
Marine Le Pen had slammed the tactics and political manoeuvring as undemocratic, accusing her opponents of “intellectual terrorism” in seeking to block her party’s path to power.
The FN was once simply content with attracting protest votes for the gruff ex-paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen, but it has radically changed strategy since his daughter Marine Le Pen took over in 2011, seeking to build a base of locally elected officials to target the top levels of power.
Marine Le Pen’s strategy is to take positions of power across the country. She hopes the good first-round showing, despite not winning any regions, will boost her chances in the 2017 presidential race where polls suggest she could knock out a mainstream candidate and reach the second-round runoff.
Le Pen has led a drive to detoxify the party and move away from the racist, jackbooted, antisemitic imagery of the past. But the party’s hardline positions on Islam and immigration remain unchanged. Since the Paris terrorist attacks last month, the FN’s key concerns – the refugee crisis, security, the place of Islam and national identity – have become the main talking points in France, personally benefiting Le Pen.
The FN sought to capitalise on the sense of disaffection with the mainstream political class, high unemployment, inequality and social despair in a range of areas from rural villages to the northern rustbelt. The party had also capitalised on the migrant crisis, particularly in Calais where thousands of migrants are camping in squalid conditions in the hope of reaching Britain.
This issue began with Fox News alleged terrorism expert, Steven Emerson claiming that there were “no go areas” in England for non-Muslims. In an extraordinary turn of events, British Prime Minister David Cameron was asked to comment on Emerson’s claim, and replied that he had almost “choked on his porridge” when he first heard that claim, and that the alleged terrorism expert was “a complete idiot.” It was an extraordinary but necessary response from the PM, and both Fox News and Emerson apologized to Cameron. But the French were not done with Fox News.. at an extremely sensitive moment for the French, the Canal Plus satirical news show Le Petit Journal, described as something of a French version of John Stewart’s The Daily Show, decided to use classic French satire to further skewer Fox News. The brilliant stroke of genius, included fake news reports from Fox correspondents in Paris reporting from the alleged “no go areas.”
This issue began with Fox News alleged terrorism expert, Steven Emerson claiming that there were “no go areas” in England for non-Muslims. In an extraordinary turn of events, British Prime Minister David Cameron was asked to comment on Emerson’s claim, and replied that he had almost “choked on his porridge” when he first heard that claim, and that the alleged terrorism expert was “a complete idiot.” It was an extraordinary but necessary response from the PM, and both Fox News and Emerson apologized to Cameron. But the French were not done with Fox News.. at an extremely sensitive moment for the French, the Canal Plus satirical news show Le Petit Journal, described as something of a French version of John Stewart’s The Daily Show,decided to use classic French satire to further skewer Fox News. The brilliant stroke of genius, included fake news reports from Fox correspondents in Paris reporting from the alleged “no go areas.”
Fox News Becomes the Unwilling Star of a French TV Satire
Yann Barthès, the host of “Le Petit Journal,” a mock news show that satirized Fox News for its reporting on “no-go zones” for non-Muslims.CreditCapucine Granier-Deferre for The New York Times
PARIS — Mockery is a national weapon in France, so when an American cable news channel raised false alarms about rampant lawlessness in some Paris neighborhoods — proclaiming them “no-go zones” for non-Muslims, avoided even by the police — a popular French television show rebutted the claims the way it best knew how: with satire, spoofs and a campaign of exaggeration and sarcasm.
The show, “Le Petit Journal,” is a French version of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — irreverent and reliant on mock correspondents who showcase the foibles of the high and mighty.
Usually “Le Petit Journal” reserves its venom for French politicians and the local news media. But in the days after the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead, including 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, it set its sights on a trans-Atlantic target, America’s Fox News, after the channel claimed that swaths of England and France were ruled according to Shariah.
Photo
One episode of “Le Petit Journal” featured fake Fox News correspondents screaming about the dangers to be found on the streets and in the kebab shops of Paris.CreditCanal+
“It’s more effective than being upset,” Mr. Barthès said.
On Saturday, Fox News apologized four times on the air for its reports about the no-go zones, acknowledging that there was no reason to believe that they existed. It called the reports an “error” and apologized to “any and all,” including “the people of France.”
It is hard to say whether the apologies were the result of “Le Petit Journal’s” mockery; a campaign instigated by the program to inundate Fox News with emails; or Fox News’s realization that its reporting, which reinforced a popular conservative warning about a purported spread of Shariah in the Western world, was wrong.
In a statement Monday, Michael Clemente, an executive vice president at the network, said: “We issued a correction and apology across several platforms, so that any viewers who may have tuned in to the earlier programming would have a chance to hear our corrected reporting.”
Before the apologies, Mr. Barthès and his “correspondents” hounded Fox News, which is not widely available on French television. Mr. Barthès’s show, which has about 3 million viewers and follows in the satirical tradition of Charlie Hebdo, but in a much gentler style, showed generous portions of the Fox clips where the no-go zones were discussed, providing French translations.
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Mr. Barthès reviewed his script in his dressing room before going on stage. He has hosted the show since it began in 2004.CreditCapucine Granier-Deferre for The New York Times
Their comics confronted Fox News correspondents when they spotted them reporting live in Paris. In one video, two of the show’s correspondents pretended to be American journalists venturing into supposedly forbidden areas and, in slapstick fashion, cowering by a Turkish kebab shop and a couscous restaurant and falling to the ground at the sound of a jackhammer.
Representatives of “Le Petit Journal” also showed up at the New York offices of Fox News on Thursday to seek comment, Mr. Barthès said, until security turned them away.
Mr. Barthès said that his show was unable to obtain any response from Fox News, so he turned to his viewers for help, giving the email addresses of Fox executives. When the show posted the information on Twitter, he said, they had 7,000 retweets in five minutes.
The theme was picked up by others on social media who expressed mock horror at the “danger” in Paris. A food guide site mapped the best places to dine in the so-called lawless zones, including a bakery where the owner had won awards for baguettes.
The commotion began this month when Steve Emerson, identified as a terrorism expert, told the host Sean Hannity, “there are no-go zones” throughout Europe ruled by Muslims. He then elaborated in an interview with another Fox host, Jeanine Pirro, claiming that the entire city of Birmingham, England, was a place where “non-Muslims simply don’t go in.”
On the day the Charlie Hebdo attackers were killed, Nolan Peterson, who on his website describes himself as a freelance writer and a combat veteran, went on Fox News on and identified what he called 741 Muslim-dominated “no-go zones” around France and said the areas reminded him of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq.Even the British prime minister, David Cameron, reacted to the Birmingham claim, saying, “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge.” He called Mr. Emerson “an idiot.”
Muslim leaders say that Muslims are often the victims of attacks, especially since the Paris killings, which were carried out by Islamic militants. The head of a French organization known as the National Observatory Against Islamophobia called for protection by the state, saying there had been “116 anti-Muslim acts, including 28 incidents at mosques and 88 threats,” in the two days after the Jan. 7 shooting.
Fox was abject in its apologies, as was Mr. Emerson. Julie Banderas, a Fox anchor, said that “over the course of this last week, we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.”
“Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly are not allowed in and police supposedly won’t go,” Ms. Banderas continued. “To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”
Apologies were issued on-air three other times.
Carly Shanahan, a spokeswoman for Fox News in New York, said the communications office never received a query by telephone or email from “Le Petit Journal.” Mr. Barthès said the show had made repeated attempts, including his own emails.
Mr. Barthès said he was not sure whether his show could take credit for the apologies. “The important thing is that we really had fun,” Mr. Barthès said. “It’s important for the French audience to know about this. They don’t really know Fox News, and they think it’s an enormous channel, very American, with announcers with big voices and blonde women who look like Barbies.”
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