Collaboration Brings Google to French Business School

Google has announced the first formal teaching collaboration between the company and a business school — a link between the Silicon Valley Internet giant and students in France. HEC, one of the top French business schools, and Google France made the announcement in Paris last week.

“Google can help us to train students to become entrepreneurs in digital business,” said Bernard Ramanantsoa, the director general of HEC. The collaboration is titled Google@HEC, but it will actually be a series of lectures, seminars and meetings for HEC students, taught by digital entrepreneurs and Google employees.

The partnership is a first for the company, said Jean-Marc Tassetto, director general of Google France. “We are entering a new phase in transformation and cooperation,” he said. Céline Lazorthes, an HEC graduate who now runs Leetchi.com, an online payment service with 15 employees, said that while digital business in France was blossoming, there was still much to learn from Silicon Valley. “All the advice they can give to a young e-entrepreneur can be helpful,” she said.

The number of British university applications has fallen after an increase in tuition fees, but experts say the actual effect has been modest when the declining population of students of first-year university age is taken into account.