Nicolas Dufourcq, Bpifrance. “Are we here only to achieve progress or to contribute to it?”

Madame Figaro . – Why this year more than any other year did you choose the theme of progress as the cornerstone of your main annual gathering, BIG?
Nicholas Dufourc. – Because the news of the last months makes us remember them and believe it. tomorrow will be better than today. It’s a personal belief, but I’m not alone. when you’re an entrepreneur, you definitely believe in progress. Throughout history, humanity has always provided compensatory responses to its own excesses. To prevent them from happening again, this is called containment. Progress has its excesses, we see it on social media, but we believe in man’s ability to control or regulate it.

Do you think that scientific and technical innovation will be able to save the planet, provide final answers to environmental challenges that we still cannot imagine?
Absolutely! Today we finance 20,000 start-ups in France, 3,000 of which are green technologies. We’re helping to spawn 350 deep technology companies a year, i.e. start-ups dedicated to research and disruptive innovation, with an ambition to grow this number to 500 a year by 2027. The reason is to solve the problems related to the climate crisis. for 40% of these projects. We are not naive either. innovation may enable the achievement of European decarbonisation targets set for 2050, but we still have to wait to see the real environmental consequences. Everything takes time. for example, it will take 10 years to install small nuclear reactors almost everywhere. But today, innovation already makes it possible to produce photovoltaic panels at prices unimaginable 10 years ago. Everything will change the day we can master nuclear fusion.

But this progress that you describe, so encouraging, is also a difficult progress and therefore an exclusionary world for the majority of the population…
How do you want to build inclusive progress when social media in the West is creating a form of digital obesity, the first victims of which are disadvantaged populations? The real challenge of our country remains education. school For the rest, there is not as much determinism as is said. I can say that today in France, when you look for luck, you find it. We have to look at where the entrepreneurs we support are coming from, and even many of the CAC 40 leaders, of course, many went to big schools. But a good part came from the depths of France, and they rose through the Republic. Among the lucky destinies there are, of course, those who can dance with progress. Catching it, not necessarily through innovation, but through anything “smart”. Because France remains more than ever a land of opportunities. The support for business there is huge. You can succeed even if you have no start-up capital. The Internet, too, which gives us answers to many questions with a few clicks, access to knowledge to better understand the world, opens up a spectrum of possibilities. Being part of the process of progress is a way of being in the world.

How would you describe it?
It’s a very personal answer, but I think it goes to the question of what mark we want to leave on the earth. Are we here only to complete this progress or to contribute to its renewal? This is a question we can ask ourselves every morning. Women are well aware of this need to participate individually, always. Because if their situation is progressing in the West, there is still so much to do to continue the struggle of our mothers. Acquired rights are fragile and many countries, many cultures or religions seek to eradicate them. In France, only 10% of women graduate from science universities, engineering schools or work in technology companies every year. This is a huge problem because it means that we are still collectively trapped in gendered professions, and it starts very early, from the planning age of 13 or 14. I want to say this to your readers. we will not be able to carry out the reindustrialization of the country, which will require the creation of 1 to 2 million jobs in scientific and research professions … without women.

*which took place on October 10 at the Accor Arena Paris hotel

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