Wednesday 18 October 2016, around 200 participants attended the 20th anniversary event organized by Xavier Dubourg , President of the French EU|BIC Laval Mayenne Technopole.  Former French Minister of Budget and Research François D’ Aubert who was Mayor of Laval in the nineties  and the early 2000 gave the impulsion that led to the creation of LMT in  1996. He took the floor and thanked all the actors who have made it possible for LMT to be recognised as an essential lever for the creation of businesses and jobs in the whole region that covers a territory of 5 000 sq km.

François D'Aubert	Paul Janneteau	Arnaud Groff

Vice President of the Regional Council of Pays de la Loire, Mr Paul Jeanneteau stressed the importance of having highly motivated and dedicated competent people to manage and animate the incubator and congratulated Christian Travier , CEO of Laval Mayenne and his team for their excellent work so far.  He also mentioned that being part of a European network such as EBN was crucial to the technopole’s ambition to position itself and the region as a generator of innovative ideas taking as example the NEOSHOP concept which was developed within LMT and is now being duplicated in Québec and will be in Italy soon.

Keynote speaker Arnaud Groff, founder of La Fabrique à Innovations,  kept the audience entertained for the entire hour and a half with his demonstration that the more constraints you have the more innovative you are, but that keeping the brain constantly open to other’s point of view and listening carefully to the end-user ‘satisfaction  are the keys to creativity and added value that will lead to what he names “the socialization of innovation”, a concept which puts the well-being of the end-users and of society in general at the heart of the whole innovative process. The simplification of technological knowledge and accessibility to all is also one of the important factors according to him which enables trust and much higher cooperation between the innovators and potential investors or partners.