Ever since I was a kid, I have admired inventors, people who create new things, break new ground. As a child, I saw myself working alone in a lab, surrounded by test tubes, trying to invent the next big thing. I probably watched too much TV!

Growing up, it didn’t really change that much, however my path became clearer in a way. Computers entered my life and I was fascinated. I received my first computer shortly before turning nine. I spent hours and hours in front of it. I didn’t really know what I was looking for and nobody was able to show me the way.

When I was ten, there was a computer in our classroom at school. Nobody ever used it. After nagging the teacher for months, he finally let the class use it. It was one of the last school days before summer break. The excitement I felt is indescribable. Somehow I managed to print something out, without asking my teacher. However, I felt I had gone too far without asking permission. Then I saw the look on the teacher’s face: he was ecstatic. He asked me what I had just done. I still felt slightly guilty but when other teachers came into the classroom to see the achievement they had never been able to accomplish, I felt like superman.

A few years later, I started using the Internet. I’m not saying I saw the potential, no. I thought it was amazing though. Nobody seemed to know about it, it was almost a private world. When it became popular - and I didn’t expect this would happen - I got really upset, I didn’t want to share this space with other people.

It has always been clear to me that I wanted to study computer engineering, and that’s what I did in a special and awesome school: Epitech in Paris.

I started the program in 2000, the glorious year of the dot-com bubble. I really wanted to be part of it. My friends at school called me the «startup guy» because my eyes were sparkling when I was talking about these companies. Just like I admired inventors when I was a kid, my new heroes became the successful startup founders: the Yang, Filo, Brin, Page and also the popes: Jobs, Wozniak and Gates.

I always knew I would create my own startup.

It took a long time, cost a lot of frustration, I figured that the reality of working on such projects wasn’t quite like I had pictured it. Luckily, two of my friends believed in my project and joined the adventure. We suffered a great deal but we’ve made it, we gave it a shot and we hope this is going to work on the long run.

I’m extremely happy and excited to announce the release of LocalRepublic.com.

What is it? Local Republic is a locally oriented problem solving social network.

How did I come up with the idea?

Well, it was in 2005. I was finishing a nine-month internship in Los Angeles, CA. I was blown away by the success of the website Craigslist. It offered exactly what people needed.

I have always been concerned about the big problems in our world: poverty, injustice global warming, etc..., I was suffering listening to the news, I felt the urge to do something to calm my inner rage. Though I’m not that much of leader type of guy, communication is not my best quality. I admire people who can protest for causes, who do concrete things to help make this world a better place, people who don’t let our politicians or big bad companies sell their shit.

But I didn’t see myself doing that, nobody would follow the shy guy that I am.

But I believed in the potential of the Internet to address the big issues of this world, and I knew how to build a website. So I started to imagine a website where people would want to go - like Craigslist - and discuss important issues.

Then, one night of 2006, I was lying in bed and I couldn’t sleep because there was too much light in my bedroom. The light was coming from the public lighting system in the industrial park across the street from where I live. I thought to myself, «what a waste of energy, there is nobody there at night». And then it had my Eureka! moment. I saw my website in front of my eyes, everything made sense.

I needed to build a website where people could report issues in their cities or villages, get together, talk about it and try to solve them. It had to be local. I knew this problem would interest the people in my city, because they pay for this lighting system. And so I understood how much issues, important issues, could be solved at a local scale, and if many local communities solved many important local issues, it would make a huge change at a global scale. 

At that moment everything came into place for me and I knew I would build this website. It took time to materialize the idea, but here it is! And it’s called Local Republic!

The following days, I continued thinking about a local approach. At the scale of a village, it’s possible to have efficient environmental policies to make a village 100% green. Environmental issues require many different solutions tailored to each locality because of geographic, social and cultural differences. People could get together, share and debate to make their city a better place. 

I was aware of the fact that no one knows better what’s good for a city than the people living in that city, because I had heard their brilliant ideas many times. And I believe that good ideas can replicate.

I believe in this project, but of course I don’t know how others will perceive it.

However, when I see what’s happening in the recent news, the importance of the Internet and websites like facebook in the freedom movement in countries like Tunisia, I believe that this is exactly what Local Republic is made for!

The website just came out, it’s completely naked, if people don’t use it, it’s the end of the adventure.

So my job right now is to make people breathe life into it. I’ll fight for it, it’s not going to be easy, but I will go out there and defend it with honesty.

And I’ll keep you posted on this blog, feel free to help, to give advices, please do!