EKT's strong presence at European Commission conference on employment and entrepreneurship

On 29-30 January 2019, the National Documentation Centre (EKT) actively took part in the conference 'It’s in our hands’ Employment, Investment and Entrepreneurship in the EU organised by the European Commission and held at the Athens Concert Hall. EKT's purpose in the conference was two-fold: to inform attendees about the services of Enterprise Europe Network-Hellas, the Greek node of Enterprise Europe Network for which EKT is co-ordinator and hold a separate session featuring the 'Knowledge and Partnership Bridges' initiative which EKT co-ordinates.

The first day (Tuesday 29 January) was dedicated to entrepreneurship with young entrepreneurs from Greece, such as Andreas Fatouros, International advisor Clio Muse App, Eleftheria Zourou, Doctoranytime, Vassilis Tsipas, Founder of Plantbox, Christos Raftoyiannis, Founder and International Advisor Citycrop Automated Indoor Farming, sharing their stories and paths to success with the audience, while the highlight of the day was a Discussion with the Citizens, which included the participation of the Vice President of the European Commission, Jyrki Katainen.

In the afternoon of the same day, there were interesting information sessions focusing on entrepreneurship, one of which featured 'Knowledge and Partnership Bridges'. The packed audience learned about the vision and services offered by the online platform www.knowledgebridges.gr.

During the second part of the session, Dimitris Maragkos, the initiative co-ordinator at EKT, had the chance to talk to three Greeks who have chosen to remain in Greece, taking advantage of and investing  in opportunities emerging in the country.

Manolis Bambatsikos studied and worked abroad for major companies such as Lego and Warner Bros before deciding to return to Greece with the help of Bridges and invest in an innovative concept that combines two seemingly unrelated sciences, animation and medicine. He referred to the focal points of the transition from concept to enterprise and from abroad to Greece. The key factors in his  professional success were: realistic goals, his desire to work in Greece, patience and above all perseverance.

Manolis Makris, who, on completing his studies, made the unconventional choice to return to his birth place  Leros where he is responsible for the Greek division of a multinational IT company. What is remarkable is that he has succeeded in gathering employees from all over Greece, and the next goal is to attract Greeks from abroad. He mentioned the fact that recently a Greek-American approached the company through the Bridges platform for possible collaboration.

Christos Alexakos talked about his idea to found InSyBio Ltd in 2013 along with other young scientists. InSyBio is a leading bioinformatics company focused on identifying nodal biomarkers using advanced tools meta-analysis of biological and medical large-scale data. He referred to the challenges researchers face when they have decided to cross the entrepreneurial Rubicon.

During the two-day event, many more guests from the area of employment and entrepreneurship, representatives of successful start-ups, investors,and public bodies presented job opportunities and focused on more practical issues such as job interviews, CV preparation, networking, guidance, use of new technology and access to funding and investment opportunities where participants can collaborate and talk with these bodies.