The growth of Interfrench
September 2000 : Informal creation of Interfrench in California
Pierre-Jean Charra, with the help of Jean-Charles Bonnet organizes the first Interfrench gathering on September 30th, in Cupertino.
The initial goal is to create more cordiality and congeniality in French speakers professional gatherings which tend to be too formal to be efficient for business networking relationships.
For that purpose, coordinators, in charge of their group, introduce the newcomers to help break the ice and accelerate the contact between the participants.
October 2000 : Meetings in two cities of the Bay area
The organizers increase the number of monthly gatherings to two. One takes place in San Francisco and the other one in Cupertino.
These meetings are open to American francophiles.
November 2000 : monthly Meetings in five cities of the Bay area
The organizers create new monthly meetings in Palo Alto,
Danville, Walnut Creek.
New coordinators join the founders team (Eric Mayer, who takes care of East bay).
The meetings, initially targeted to professionals, draw more and more American francophiles interested in
meeting French speakers.
October 2001 : Decision to create SiliconFrench
Pierre-Jean Charra meets Ale Gicqueau and they decide to create a purely professional organisation, SiliconFrench, while keeping Interfrench gathering in restaurants.
November 2002 : First SiliconFrench coordinators meeting
The SiliconFrench concept motivates a group of about 20 pioneers, called
coordinators, who accept to take care of a group (alumnis of French Grandes Ecoles, francophiles of specific nationalities etc..)
March 2002 : First general gathering of SiliconFrench
The first SiliconFrench gathering is a real success. More than 150
enthusiastic francophile and French speaking professionals meet in a great spirit of friendship and professionalism.
SiliconFrench starts as a federation of alumni of French Grandes Ecoles and francophile universities, and will progressively turn into Business gatherings.
August 2002 : Pierre-Jean Charra returns to France
Pierre-Jean Charra returns to France with the mission to give SiliconFrench an international dimension, by creating a business bridge between the two countries, while Ale Gicqueau and his team take care
of extending the concept in America.
November 2002 : L'Executive Club
L'Executive Club, under Ale Gicqueau direction, gathers the francophiles and French speaking CEOs, presidents and vice-presidents
of the San Francisco Bay area, in the same friendly spirit as in the SiliconFrench events.
February 2003 : Leisure and business
Pierre-Jean Charra gathers in Paris a dozen professionals motivated by the Interfrench concept.
In Silicon Valley, Interfrench becomes the network of professionals it was at its beginnning.
THe leisure meeting activity takes the name of Interfrench/Frenchip, and the Executives meeting activity
becoes the Interfrench
Executive Club.
April 2003 : Integration of cultural differences in our objective
After sharing common thoughts with Pascal Baudry, author of 'Français et
Américains, l'autre rive', we realize how important it becomes for Interfrench to promote among its members
the best professional practices of other francophile cultures. We begin to work on the Interfrench charter.
May 2003 : Launch of Interfrench Méditerranée
Interfrench Méditerranée takes off in a press conference,
in the offices of Provence Promotion which sponsors the association
locally.
June 2003 : Decision to launch Interfrench Lille, Nice
Christophe Pannetier, president of Digiport in Lille, agrees to start
Interfrench Lille. Bertrand Blanc agrees to launch Nice.
July 2003 : First bureau meeting of Interfrench Québec
Patrice Llavador and Eric Douay, coached by Géraldine Réau of SiliconFrench, set up the
first founding meeting of Interfrench Québec in Montréal.
August 2003 : Decision is taken to start Interfrench Canada and Roumania
Patrick Magnien accepts to create a group in Toronto and Nicolas de Castelnau to start
Interfrench Roumanie.
End September 2003 : First general gathering ofInterfrench Paris
Since January 2003, a hundred coordinators and active members meet every two weeks
in the offices of the 'Association des anciens élèves de Centrale Paris' to prepare the launch
of Interfrench business networking gatherings.
By this partnership, the association Centrale Paris alumni, one of the most prestigious French Grandes Ecoles, shows its support
to the Interfrench concept.
October 2003 : Launch of monthly workshops of Interfrench Paris
This gathering launches the speed meetings in Business networking meetings en France which become now more common.
More than 150 participants take part in a mass meeting where the contact process is organized and speeds up, where Business cards exchange takes place at a great rate.
Until that time the French business networkers were limited by cultural barriers preventing them from easily speaking with people they had not been formally introduced to.
The Interfrench rule is : Everyone can meet everyone without needing to be introduced by a common friend, and should even endeavour to do so.
December 2003 : Interfrench Biotech Paris
First quarterly meeting of Interfrench Biotech Paris
More than 120 participants attend this first meeting.
May 2004 : Interfrench Workshops in Paris: 8th edition
Success remained constant with from 120 to 220 participants each month.
More than 15 groups have been set up some of which organize their own monthly gatherings
on top of the general monthly gatherings (Nanotech, Projects,
IT, Wireless, Biotech, Knowledge Management, China, Management,
Carreèrs and several others are being created).
Interfrench has been organizing meetings in Marseille with the support of Provence Promotion. New chapters are on the go in
Lille, Lyon, Nice...
Potential Interfrench founders begin to gather francophile professionals
in order to create chapters in Morocco, Québec, Roumania, Geneva, Zürich, Bruxelles, in China, in Colombia.
September 2004 : Participation in the France-Chine Colloquial, at the 'salon des micro-entreprises' in Paris,
launch of other monthly gatherings like the International gathering and the Biotech one.
October 2004 : Innovact Show in Reims
Booth at the Innovact Show in Reims, organization of the Show Speed
Meetings and of conferences on Nanotechnologies
December 2004 : The Intranet is operational
Launch of Interfrench Reims.
The Interfrench Intranet becomes really Operational and allows to
connect more than 8000 francophiles and French speakers in the world.
September 2005 : The second version of the Intranet is operational
Launch of Interfrench Reims.
The Interfrench Intranet becomes really Operational and allows to
connect more than 8000 francophiles and French speakers in the world.
October 2005 : and organizes speed meetings for INNOVACT and BIORIF
Interfrench has a booth at INNOVACT and organizes the speed meetings for INNOVACT on the 4th and 5th of October, then at BIORIF on the 18th of October.
Interfrench organizes a second International gathering in partnership with the Versailles Chamber of Commerce .
