Immersion Week

Far from the rural frame depicted in the movies, Texas is on the foreground of the US economy. Second most populated state of the country with one of the highest population growth (1.43% in 2017), it would stand as the 10th economy in the world as a stand-alone country. Strongly rooted in the oil industry since the 1900s, the state significantly diversified its activities by the end of the WWII into the aerospace, defense and renewable energy sectors (Georgetown was one of the first 100% wind-powered city worldwide – Texas is the 1st wind power producer in the US). 2nd commercial exporter in the nation ($23B in 2017), counting 51 of the 500 Fortunes companies, Texas nowadays acts as one of the main player of the Sun Belt economy, reaching closely Canada GDP on its own.

Chicago is the third largest city in the US, population wise and it is situated in North East Illinois. It is the biggest city in the Midwest and is its main economic and cultural center. Chicago is the second industrial center in the US and belongs to the “manufacturing-belt”. The city is also one of the principal financial center in the world and the first agricultural stock exchange center in the world. The price of wheat and soya dor the US are decided in Chicago.

Massachusetts and New York are among the most innovative states in the United States; according to a study conducted in 2018 by the Milken Institute, they rank first and 16th respectively in the American ranking. The four pillars of this innovation economy on the North-East coast of the United States are : 1- academic excellence, 2- the level of education of the working population, 3- significant state investment, 4- an environment extremely favorable to the emergence of startups. The North-Eastern region of the United States is one of the most prestigious universities and institutions in the world (Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, etc.), representing more than a quarter of the American university potential.

In 2017, California ranked fifth in the world in terms of economic wealth, and the San Francisco Bay Area, which encompasses both the city of San Francisco, Berkeley in the East Bay, and the Silicon Valley itself, in the south bay remains more than ever the epicenter of technology, with the cohabitation of information technology giants spanning four successive generations: the "the founding fathers” (HP, Intel), the "elders" (IBM, Apple, Oracle), the "mature" (Google, Facebook, Amazon), and the "new" (Twitter, Netflix, Uber).

The federal capital of the United States and its region (Maryland and Virginia) is home to the majority of the country’s national institutions. These include federal departments, equivalent to the French ministries, such as the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, as well as major federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These agencies have their own research centers and participate in the definition and implementation of U.S. science policy. Washington is also home to several international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. The proximity of policy makers and regulators attracts many large companies, professional associations and non-profit organizations to Washington.