On Wednesday, January 25th, the 40th SciFY Academy on “Pioneer Initiatives for Artificial Intelligence: Changing tomorrow today” took place in INNOVATHENS.

It was the 1st Academy after 3 years that took place in a physical space and we are especially happy that we are gradually returning back to normal.

The event’s goals were for the participants to:

• Get to know the initiative of the Pioneers for Artificial Intelligence in Greece that SciFY started in the last 2 years, learn the results as well as the new steps.
• Be informed about other Artificial Intelligence actions currently running in our country in the government, technology, business, and education sectors.
• Co-design Artificial Intelligence actions to be applied to:
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Education

All this took place during the event’s 2 sections.

In the first section, “Innovating for Society, Democracy, Entrepreneurship, and Education”:

• Mr. Vassilis Giannakopoulos, Marketing & Social Impact Manager at SciFY, presented us with the ”Pioneers for Artificial Intelligence in Greece” Initiative”, its results so far, and the next steps.
• Mr. Fotis Fitsilis , Hellenic Parliament, Scientific Service, described innovative initiatives launched for the use of Artificial Intelligence in the Hellenic Parliament and Parliaments of the World.
• Mr. Haris Vassiliou, co-coordinator of the HELLAC, Open Entrepreneurship and Innovation working group, referred to how Open Data is utilized by Artificial Intelligence systems.

The second section was dedicated to the Workshops for Co-Designing Business & Educational Actions based on Artificial Intelligence. Specifically:

• Mr. Michalis Golias, IT Director of the Hellenic Development Bank,described the entrepreneurship idea that the participants dealt with during the workshop: creating a portal that helps young entrepreneurs make better investment and business decisions, providing valuable information when they need it. The service will be provided to all free of charge.
• Mr. Andreas Karampelas,Researcher of AI-Lab, organizer of WAICY GREECE, and Dr. Georgios Vouros, Director of AI-Lab Department of Digital Systems University of Piraeus – Official Partner of WAICY, talked to us about WAICY (World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth), the 2nd theme of the workshop that the participants were called to co-design. WAICY is a global AI competition that encourages kids to use their AI knowledge to create projects that solve real-world problems like climate change, human rights, global public health, etc.

The results of the workshop were incredible! The world cafe process was used, so collective results were obtained for both groups: Entrepreneurship and Education. In fact, the advisors of the two groups, Mr. Golias and Mr. Karabelas, respectively, pointed out that the ideas and new perspectives that emerged from the Workshop process are particularly helpful for further action planning.

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