Marseille edit
Since this Friday, July 21st, it is all the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur which is in mourning. Frédéric Chevalier, the major face of the environment of the entrepreneurship and the innovations, died from an accident of motorcycle at the age of only 52. Return on an exemplary route.
While The Camp, the " first European digital campus ", was going to open its doors in September in Aix in Provence, the worthy project of Silicon Valley lost the founder, Frédéric Chevalier. Before managing to create a project of this scale of several million euros, the man in the multiple caps had to deal with his weapons.
The debuts
After a DUT Tech de Co in Aix-en-Provence, Frédéric Chevalier makes his first steps in the professional world for RMC, where he learns the threads of the communication and marketing. He leaves the company and tries to set up a map "Jeunes" in connection with the mutual students. The project is a failure but it does not mean that the former sportsman of top-level stops there. In 1990, he established HighCo with the aim of proposing intelligent solutions of marketing to companies to influence the buyers’ behavior. He made this time an unprecedented success because 6 years later, the company offered a grant and brought Frédéric Chevalier with the fact that the youngest chairman of company esteemed in France, at the age of only thirty one. HighCo hasn’t got less than 700 collaborators today and has made 155 million euros of turnover in 2016.
An ambitious project
However, this success did not deprive Frédéric Chevalier from the taste of the adventure, which eventually gave in to the wanderlust. In 2013, he left HighCo with a project in head: to create a place reserved for the entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurs and creative comings from any horizons. We talked about it last March, this project was named The Camp and collected all the necessity to accompany start-ups and train students in the digital technology in the area of 11,000 m². Is it a watchword? Raise awareness of the actors of tomorrow in the innovations which will make cities of future, "smart cities ".
He would like to make the European region Silicon Valley, and we hope that it will be the case. It belongs to us, men and women of the digital, to think about solutions to build a healthier and more sustainable future.
All our condolences to his family, close, numerous colleagues and partners.
Article written by Marion Vannelli.
Photo credits: every right Golem Images for Tea Camp and Corinne Vezzoni and Partners