A few steps from Viva Technology, one of the first trade fairs where professionals, start-ups and leaders in technological innovation, were finally able to abandon the virtual world and meet “for real” at the Parc des Expositions de la Porte de Versailles (15th century), the French Event Booster (FEB) innovation platform, created 4 years ago by event heavyweights, including the manager of the exhibition center, Viparis, hoists a little higher the cursor back to “life before”: the incubator runs a temporary “showroom”, until the end of June in the Parc des Expositions.
A small salon for young shoots
At the time of the resumption of events, organizers and companies can test, on a life-size basis, “innovative solutions to the problems of major events. So the multisensor counting mat from Technis, a young growth incubated since 2020, the autonomous connected cloakroom from Ouidrop, designer furniture made from 100% recycled (and 100% recyclable) waste from Furnitures For Good, or even eco-responsible communication objects and entirely edible from Tridifoodies, a young pioneer company in France in 3D food printing… For the ten young shoots gathered, it's like a small show near the big Viva Tech show, and professionals in the sector are starting their market there . Viparis, Accor Arena or the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (Cojo),“The showroom was visited by around fifty major players, all confronted with the search for solutions in the themes of the takeover, that is to say security, the digitalization and hybridization of events, the environmental impact , the quality of life at work, etc. ”, rejoices Jeanne Choffé, head of the FEB, whose“ proteges ”benefit from an incomparable showcase and network of partners.
Containment, a chance for start-ups
Paradox of a pandemic which has frozen the event, it will finally have served innovation start-ups. "The crisis has created a vacuum and innovation has been able to take its place, it is a fabulous playground for start-ups and for support structures like ours", estimates Jeanne Choffé. "We realize that these innovations correspond not only to the needs of events but also to those of communities and companies," adds Maïlis Fernandes, from the young Parisian start-up Furnitures for Good, born and incubated at the French Event Booster. The key is the supply of totally zero waste furniture that would find its place in nurseries or schools. A little further, the young Parisian founders of Hado Sport, an augmented reality game from Japan, hope to seduce those in charge of Cojo,with their game “50% physical and 50% video game, which combines a genre of squash and video game strategy”.
Beyond the showroom open until the end of June, the innovation platform aims far, and is due to its specificity: “We are not an incubator, rather an accelerator, prefers Jeanne Choffé.
The companies that we select each year are not at the project stage but already created, we give them the experimentation, the network of our partners ”.
Since its creation in 2018, the FEB has supported 32 start-ups, 86% of which have taken off like Madame Pee and her ecological urinals for women, created more than 330 jobs and raised nearly 3 million euros.
2300 participants
Around the French Event Booster, the 15th century Exhibition Center is waking up at the same rate as all the Viparis sites: slowly but surely, on the scale of the reception level of 5,000 people set by the authorities until the 30th. June. Started on June 9 at the Palais des Congrès (17th century), with the Society of French Language Resuscitators (SRLF), the recovery even exceeded expectations: “The organizers have chosen 100% face-to-face and were counting on 1,500 participants. , they were 2,300, greets the CEO of Viparis, Pablo Nakhlé-Cerruti. The physical encounter is a major lever of economic recovery, and an entire ecosystem is coming back to life ”. Proof of this is "the number of fairs and conferences planned for the second half of 2021, which is equivalent to what it was in the second half of 2019,and the return of the recurrence of certain events ”. At the Porte de Versailles, no less than 17 trade fairs and conferences are scheduled between September and the end of November. "90% of the events planned for the last months of the year are confirmed," says Pablo Nakhlé-Cerruti. In 2020, Viparis hosted 64 major events, compared to more than 220 on average each year.