Sophia Antipolis
"I arrived in Biot in 1978 to work on a thesis in the research centre of Paris’s Ecole des Mines, located in Sophia Antipolis." 18 April 2018
In 1978, Sophia Antipolis was a small business park: there were only a few buildings and no road to get to Biot.
So, I would head out on foot from the village of Biot and walk up to the plateau through the scrublands. Every day, I would cross paths with a shepherd and his sheep. Sophia Antipolis had little to no impact on Biot’s economy at the time.
Sophia Antipolis expanded over the years and today more than 30,000 people work in the technology park!
This growth radically changed the town of Biot, whose economy shifted from agriculture and tourism to research, higher education and technology. In my opinion, this was a real chance to create harmony between the heritage of Biot, arts and crafts, science and technology.