A Nov. 10, 2014 news item on Nanowerk features a French company, NanoThinking, and its venture into a business and research platform for collaboration (Note: A link has been removed),

Following a conception period in close connection with innovation and nanotechnology professionals, NanoThinking now offers NanoTechValley: a collaborative platform dedicated to providers and users of nanotechnology, designed for two purposes: to stimulate the emergence of R&D projects and to offer access to cutting edge equipment proposed by the community.

Here’s more from a Nov. 2014 NanoThinking presentation document about NanoTechValley,

“Currently in a phase of emergence, the field of nanotechnology is still very atomized. This reality hampers the combination of the skills, projects and activities enclosed inside laboratories and industrial firms. The idea at the origin of our project was therefore to create a web platform which features would be designed specifically to foster the emergence of collaborative projects and arrange the meeting of offers and needs” explains Thomas Dubouchet, CEO at Nanothinking.

In order to address the needs of its future users, the platform includes the following features: secure access, possibility to share documents and hold discussion with multiple users, custom privacy settings and an invitation based system which will facilitate new participations in projects proposed by the community.

You can find out more about NanoThinking here (be sure to scroll down the page) and about NanoTechValley here.

This French project reminds me,  not only of Silicon Valley, but of a couple of NanoQuébec projects mentioned in a Sept. 19, 2012 posting (NanoQuébec sets up I-Nano, their version of an industrial dating service) and a May 13, 2013 posting (NanoQuébec and iNano get to the chapel while Canada Economic Development presides). While I described the project as a ‘dating service’, it could also be described as a platform designed to encourage collaborations between business and academe.

In any event, it’s good to see projects designed to help researchers connect with each other and connect with business partners wherever they may be located.

I last wrote about NanoThinking in a Dec. 30, 2013 posting which featured the company’s Global NanoTechMap.