Tariq Krim

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"There is no place to defend the legacy and the singular vision of French and European digital culture."

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Besides The Sovereign Way, you can find me on my homepage: tariqkrim.com.

Bio (short)

Tariq Krim is an iconic Web entrepreneur and an Internet pioneer. He is one of the leading advocates of the legacy and the singular vision of French and European digital culture. He also started the Slow Web movement, which calls for a calmer use of digital technology and artificial intelligence.

He founded several start-ups, including Netvibes and Jolicloud. He has advised the French government (eG8, the mission that led to the creation of the French Tech, and Vice President of the Conseil National du Numérique).

He is also the creator of The Sovereign Way, a publishing house and think tank that studies the interdependencies between digital technology, artificial intelligence, geopolitics, culture and the world of defense.

In 2007 he became the first French person to receive the MIT TR35 award for the Internet. He was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He is a graduate of Université Paris 7, ENST and the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2019 he was promoted to Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Detailed biography

A scientist by training, Tariq Krim is one of the iconic entrepreneurs of the Web.

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Internet pioneer, co-initiator of Web 2.0 and engaged intellectual, he also started the Slow Web movement, which calls for a calmer use of digital technology. A pioneer of the geopolitics of digital technology, he is one of the leading advocates of digital sovereignty in France and in Europe.

His digital adventure began as a child in the early 1980s, exploring the very first networks such as the American service The Source.

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Taking advantage of the videotex experiment in central Paris, he built his first Minitel server in 1984 and, a few years later, his first BBS. He immersed himself in the underground computer culture of the time.

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In the early 1990s, he moved to San Francisco to share the birth of the Web and of cyberculture (Burning Man, the first virtual reality experiments, the launch of Wired magazine) with the listeners of Radio Nova and then the readers of La Tribune. During a stint at Sun Microsystems in 1996 (and its joint venture with Thomson), he discovered the beginnings of cloud computing.

Having become an entrepreneur, he launched one of the first blogging platforms in early 2000 and started GenerationMP3, the blog that quickly became the meeting place for everyone interested in these new forms of music distribution.

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At the same time, he advised independent music labels (SPPF), performing artists (ADAMI) and then independent film producers (SACD, PROCIREP) on their digital distribution strategy.

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Facing political leaders who were largely won over by the big American platforms, he became one of the leading advocates of a European vision of content distribution, one that respects privacy and the use of content formats free of digital locks (DRM).

Always passionate about simplifying users' everyday digital lives, he is the founder of the start-ups Netvibes and Jolicloud, among the very first French start-ups to succeed internationally.

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To this day, Netvibes remains the French start-up with the greatest influence on product design in Silicon Valley. The widget model it popularized is used by billions of smartphones today. In 2007, Time Magazine listed it among the world's 50 best innovations. The same year, it won the Crunchie Award for best international start-up, a prize awarded by Silicon Valley's journalists and investors.

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Jolicloud sold the Jolibook, the first computer under 250 euros with its own operating system entirely based on the web (JoliOS) and its own personal cloud system (Jolicloud Me).

He opened the way to a new way of computing by introducing features that are now standard on every modern device, such as the Chromebook or the iPad.

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For his most loyal users he launched Polite, a personal digital sovereignty platform. Available by subscription only, it lets you take back control of a digital life scattered across many services that are often incompatible with one another.

For some twenty years, Tariq Krim has been campaigning for a genuine digital sovereignty policy in France. He is the author of several essays, op-eds and white papers on the subject.

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Passionate about artificial intelligence since childhood, he now focuses on the place of our cognitive autonomy in a world where machines will take up more and more room in our lives.

An international speaker, he specializes in the major shifts of the Internet and was one of the first to raise the alarm on the ethics, geopolitics and militarization of the network and of the digital economy.

Tariq has been an official and unofficial adviser to several French governments.

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He was behind the first eG8, the first Tech summit held alongside the G8, organized by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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He was a member of the expert committee set up by the Secretary of State for the Digital Economy, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, to think about Net neutrality.

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As Vice President of the Conseil National du Numérique under François Hollande, he made numerous recommendations to the government and took part in drafting the Digital Republic Act.

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At the same time, he was commissioned by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, Fleur Pellerin, to reflect on France's innovation strategy. This mission paved the way for the birth of the French Tech a year later.

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Among his recommendations: putting French developers at the heart of a digital sovereignty policy, creating a government CTO (Chief Technology Officer) position, and creating a visa for digital talent (implemented as the French Tech Visa).

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His positions on digital sovereignty, although at odds with government policy, nonetheless contributed to the creation of a dedicated ministry during Emmanuel Macron's second term.

Honors

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In 2007 he received the prestigious MIT TR35 science award, the first French person to win it in the Internet category. He was also named a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2008.

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Tariq is a graduate of Université Paris 7, the École nationale supérieure des Télécommunications and Harvard University (Kennedy School of Government).

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He was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2008 and promoted to Officer in 2019.