Sylvie Lemaire has lived in Barcelona since the 1990s, before the Olympics. Born in French Brittany and with her heart in Barcelona, she has traveled, lived and worked in many countries: Germany, France, Mexico, the United States, Tunisia and Turkey. She is a business consultant, promoting French and Spanish commercial exchanges, and coordinator of Learning Expeditions, some business meetings focused on innovation and management practices. She is also the co-founder and vice president of Women Angels for STEAM, an association of women business angels that is committed to women entrepreneurs in the ICT sector. Its objective is to democratize the investment of women business angels, foster a better atmosphere for women entrepreneurs, and make ICTs more inclusive, with more women technologists and included in research and decisions.
Why did you choose Barcelona?
I traveled a lot, and for work it happened that I had to come a lot to Barcelona. I liked the city and finally decided to look for work and come here, where I settled down and started a family.
What aspects of the city would you highlight as positive?
The Mediterranean climate, gastronomy, cultural offer, its architecture, and its urban plan. I love the culture of cafes and being able to go to the cozy terraces of the hotels. I hope we can come back soon.
What do you think are the city’s strengths to overcome the crisis generated by COVID-19?
From my professional perspective, the cancellation of MWC 2020 acted as a catalyst and revelator of the resilience of the business fabric, bringing out the Tech Spirit Barcelona days. I would highlight the generous spirit of its inhabitants and the love for their city, which has also been manifested in the large number of donations and solidarity initiatives to help the most vulnerable people that have emerged in recent months.
What challenges do you think the city faces once the health emergency subsides?
Barcelona will face a series of challenges that have never occurred at the same time: the consequences of the health, social and economic crisis, together with the climate emergency and the digital divide. I believe that benchmarking with other cities will help improve and accelerate response capacity, developing initiatives with citizen participation, social collaboration or urban planning, using dialogue and technology.
Barcelona is a city with a great interest in improving, promoting change and carrying out new and innovative projects, and this is reflected in its business fabric, in which three types of companies stand out: start-ups, corporate ventures and traditional SMEs. It is a city with a lot of vibration, with a cosmopolitan spirit and with a great interest in innovation.
What do you feel is your city? What do you miss the most?
In Barcelona I feel at home. When I was in Latin America I missed the European seriousness and when I was in France I missed the Latin heat, the informal, the close interpersonal relationships. Barcelona has a perfect balance between professional seriousness and warm personal relationships.
What do you expect from Barcelona in the coming years?
To think together about what city we want, city actors must work together and define priorities for an imminent and more than ever necessary start-up. Currently there is a glocal movement towards the humanization of technology. According to this model, the use of technology must help to respond to the main innovation challenges in the most just and sustainable way, to improve people’s quality of life. At WA4STEAM we identify with this model, we are committed to a more inclusive technology.
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