Sep 23, 2013

Frédéric, who are you and what do you do?

I'm nearly forty, I have 5 children and I'm a social entrepreneur, writer and trainer/professor with a passion for digital culture, education, hacktivism, empowerment and social change.

I run two social businesses: a communications agency dedicated to NGOs, social companies and sustainability strategies for engaged businesses, which is called Agence LIMITE. My second social business is called Simplon.co. It is a social startup factory/dev bootcamp in Montreuil teaching programming to underprivileged boys and girls for free (some even get paid) during 6 months. The objective of this training is to help them getting a job or launching their own projects.

 


Tell us a bit about one of your latest projects your were working on.

Right now Simplon.co is demanding all my energies as it is super complex to set-up a school that is not a school, an accelerator of social change that is not an incubator... -- and all this together with people coming from poor suburbs of Paris or rural areas, dealing with unemployment, discrimination, as well as social and financial problems. But it is really an amazing experience worth all our efforts!

 

 

What recent change, technological or social, were you surprised by? Why?

Mobile: because it is massive, worldwide and huge, pushing the classic "digital divide" beyond its traditional limits and because the raise of mobile is creating highly interesting macro/micro behaviors.

 
What do you do to disconnect?

Humanitarian missions in rural areas of Africa ;-) Also, my wife chooses places for our vacation  where I cannot connect, and I thank her for that (mostly after having understood that it is good for me).

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Thank you Frédéric, we are looking forward very much to learning more about your fascinating projects at Lift with Fing in October!