The association

Silicon Sentier: connecting the drive for innovation

Silicon Sentier is an association of innovative companies that together illustrate Paris’ unique digital identity.
Created to promote start-ups and develop resource sharing, Silicon Sentier stands today as a key driver in fostering the digital culture, focusing on accompanying the most promising individual and collective digital projects in the Ile-de-France region.

Share resources and services to drive innovation in the Ile-de-France region
Silicon Sentier contributes to the economic dynamics of the region by making its resources, skills and services available within the association. La Cantine is 150 square meters of space for use by members: it can be used for co-working projects, expert workshops, job-boarding, meetings and many other activities.
As a new technology hub, Silicon Sentier shares the values of Open Innovation and co-working: collaboration, openness and transparency. All of the initiatives supported by the association benefit from project cross-fertilization, cooptation and the development of shared activities.

Promoting exchange between digital players
Combining the strength of over 170 members, solid institutional backing and the trust of key digital players, Silicon Sentier serves to unite the region’s digital ecosystem around shared dynamics. This approach is illustrated by the nearly 150 events organized in 2009, calling upon over 400 experts to share their knowledge and insight with nearly 10,000 public attendees.
Silicon Sentier’s powerful network today includes leading entrepreneurs, institutions, investors and over 11,000 contacts.

Spreading the digital culture and building awareness of emerging digital sector leaders
Since its creation in 2000, Silicon Sentier has initiated several key projects, such as La Cantine, the region’s leading center dedicated to providing digital players a shared networking space, shared resources and events. In addition, the association has conceived and launched the Quarter Numérique (Digital Neighborhood) project, a key regional experimentation laboratory for innovative services.

Silicon Sentier provides support to industry professionals looking to develop and test their new products and digital solutions (Living Lab, Fab Lab, etc.).

Silicon Sentier organizes events designed to build exchange and networking opportunities between various digital communities and key players in the development of new technologies. Examples include BarCamps, workshops and  conferences.

The association also co-sponsors and organizes recurring theme-based events, such as Mobile Monday Paris, Open Days and ‘Developer Days’.

In addition to the myriad opportunities it creates for face-to-face networking, Silicon Sentier is very active on the Web, with a presence on all major social networks, an on-line weekly newsletter distributed to nearly 10,000 contacts, and its various websites, such as lacantine.org and silconsentier.org,, the two of which together boasted a total of nearly 160,000 visitors in 2009.

Download the Annual Report 2010 (in french)