Le Figaro Nice
The rocket of higher education in Nice never stops rising.
After École 42 for IT, the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (CNAM), the Centrale Méditerranée engineering school, and very soon ISART, in the field of video games, here is an academy of metaverse opens its doors in the heart of the EcoVallée of Nice.
Its inauguration was held late Friday morning, within the walls of the CEEI, the city's start-up incubator, in the presence of the mayor of Nice and president of the Metropolis, Christian Estrosi, the vice-president of Meta Southern Europe, Laurent Solly, and Véronique Saubot, general manager of the Simplon school, which hosts this new work-study program.
Supposed to extend physical reality via augmented or virtual reality and to take the web from 2D to 3D, the metaverse is considered by many - the boss of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the first - as the next big technological leap in the evolution of the internet.
So, metaverse obliges, the symbolic red ribbon was cut by a dematerialized Christian Estrosi, which did not fail to surprise as much as to make the mayor smile,
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From December 5, 20 students who have passed the selection tests will join the academy on its Nice campus (three other metaverse academies have been inaugurated in France, in Paris, Montpellier and Marseille).
Most of them had until now been looking for work or had dropped out of school.
"Simplon's social mission is to put digital technology at the service of inclusion while serving the needs of companies and developing the employability of a population that we are trying to integrate"
, recalled Véronique Saubot.
For these future designers and developers of immersive applications, an intensive period of four months of courses will precede 15 months of work-study within various local companies, partners of the school.
At the end of the day, a certificate recognized by France Competences.
And the director of the school continued:
“We have a very 'geek' culture at Simplon, and having a partnership with Méta challenges us and pushes us to constantly progress.
»
"What is decided immediately, it works"
Laurent Solly, very proud of the partnership with Simplon and of the setting up of training on the lands of his friend Christian Estrosi - whom he knows politically very well having been Nicolas Sarkozy's chief of staff in 2005, when the edile was himself Minister Delegate for Regional Planning under the same Nicolas Sarkozy - recalled that this initiative was
"not for Meta, but supported by Meta
"
.
“
To help the development of digital ecosystems everywhere in the territories, in Europe, in France and particularly here, in Nice.
The digital revolution that we are experiencing has the particularity of being able to develop in all territories
,” he underlined.
The representative of Meta
“who have not had formal university or school training courses.”
"This is your chance!"
, he launched, while recalling that
“technology is not reserved for men.”
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For his part, the mayor of Nice did not hide his enthusiasm to see the opening of a new high school on his territory, stressing the need for the community to embody
“youth and modernity”
.
Pleading for speed without haste, the city councilor recalled, as he does regularly, that
“in public life, long-term planning does not work.
But on the contrary, what is decided immediately, it works.
Where Edhec (the business school, editor’s note) was the first large school off university campus to come and settle with us a few years ago, today it is linked!”
In fact, Nice and its metropolis have become increasingly attractive, gradually detaching themselves from the image of Épinal of an aging territory, an eldorado for retired French people.
The figures speak for themselves: in 2008, the Metropolis counted some 25,000 students, there are now more than 48,000.