The city of Grenoble in southeastern France sits at the foot of the Alps along the Isère River, surrounded by beautiful craggy peaks. Have you ever heard of the Claude Lelouch film 13 jours en France? This documentary tells the story of the Tenth Winter Olympic Games that were held exactly fifty years ago in 1968 here in Grenoble.
Fort de la Bastille is a prime tourist attraction in Grenoble
The Alps look so close from here
The international conference was the High Level Forum held for four days (November 11–14) in Grenoble. This is the seventh time that the conference has been held since the initial gathering in 2012. The event was sponsored by CEA Tech, the technology research branch of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. Its purpose was to bring together and promote richer exchange among agencies, universities, local government bodies, and other organizations in charge of innovation in various cities and areas around the world.
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Click here for the official High Level Forum website
This year’s event was the biggest yet, with a total of around 150 participants from some 40 municipalities and areas. Knowledge Capital was the main participant from Osaka area, joining a team of nine area delegates that included representatives from the City of Osaka and Osaka University. Apparently there were more people on the delegation from Osaka than from any other city or area.
Osaka representatives take the stage at a dinner party
Opening meet-and-greet session
On the first day of the conference, there were keynote speeches followed by a presentation from Takuya Nomura, the General Producer of Knowledge Capital. He spoke about our organization’s activities, achievements, upcoming vision, and projects underway in the Osaka area. The other participants responded well to the presentation, many of them showing a keen interest in our human resource development activities.
Following the main conference, the participants split into groups and held workshops aimed at developing shared solutions to common issues. The extensive event program also included facility tours, networking dinners, and other opportunities for participants to connect with one another. With key players from business, academia, science, and more coming together to represent different cities and areas from around the world, you can imagine the rich opportunities these four days offered to learn about innovation-focused initiatives directly from those leading projects and programs in each country.
Subcommittee presentation from the City of Osaka
Workshops
The rich interactions continued even during coffee breaks
Commemorative photo of all participants
Knowledge Capital has been participating in these conferences for two years now. CEA-Leti, the technology research branch at CEA Tech, hosted the 2016 conference. CEA-Leti and Knowledge Capital have become more closely involved in a variety of joint projects since they signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Knowledge Capital participated in this latest event at the invitation of CEA-Leti as part of their joint work.
These High Level Forums are held once a year. Lund, Sweden has already been chosen as the site of the next one in 2019. We can’t wait to see what kind of innovations and opportunities are in store for us then!
