France Alumni Argentina
Lancement

On June 30^th, in the conference room of the French embassy, over a hundred people came to the presentation of the "France Alumni Argentina" platform for French companies in Argentina. The French Institute in Argentina and Campus France Argentina supervises the event with the support of Business France, the Regional Financial Service and the Franco-Argentinean Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was launched in the wake of the same event on the 29^th of September 2015, which had been highly efficient in terms of feedback since it allowed to exceed the 600 threshold of alumni registered on the platform. The initiative of the second event came from an assessment that Argentinean students who wish to achieve part of their studies in France mainly come from the same areas of the country where French investments are focused. Indeed, most of the 250 French companies (over 40,000 jobs and a 3 M€ annual budget) are settled in the area of Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Mendoza.

Bringing together companies and students was thus a natural goal, since the France Alumni network is a win-win device for all parties since it greatly facilitates the search of new profiles for job opportunities and interviews.

The presentation occurred in three major steps. Firstly, a presentation of the France Alumni Argentina platform, which allowed to speak to the guests and include the initiative in our higher education and scientific collaboration policy as well as in the bilateral economic and business relation. The Campus France team then took over to detail the main characteristics of the tools and the assets for companies. An assessment of student mobility was also necessary to underline the interest of young Argentinean in the French training offer.

Secondly, Pernod Ricard company presented its experienced and focused on the description of a success case regarding and Alumni recruited in Argentina by the French group. There was much emphasis put on the added value of training and experience (internships) in France and the knowledge in French language of this collaborator.

Finally, two alumni were invited to share their training experience in France. One was a chemical engineer with a profile focused on food technology who had participated in two mobility programmes supported by the Argentinean government and this Post (ArFITec et Bec.ar). The other was specialised in digital marketing and was part of a higher education exchange. The choice of these stories was based on a game contest launched a few weeks before as part of an entertainment activity of the France Alumni Argentina platform by the local team of Campus France.