THE ONLY CONSTANT IN OUR LIVES IS CHANGE.

Kostas Karpouzis is a Research Director at ICCS-NTUA and Head of Games Programming at SAE Athens. In his research, he's looking for ways to make computer systems more aware of and responsive to the way people interact with each other, using natural, affective interaction and intelligent, user-adaptive algorithms. Kostas is also investigating how gamification and digital games can be used in classroom and informal settings to assist conventional teaching and help teach social issues and STEAM subjects to children and adults. Two of the games he has worked on have won the Best Serious Game award from the Games and Learning Alliance: Siren  (2013) and Navigo (2018). Besides this, he is involved in a number of science communication activities, most notably Famelab Greece, openscience.gr (Best Website award in 2018 by the Athens Science Festival), and House of Makers, a grassroots initiative which aims to promote STEM and make-ing activities. He is also an advocate for technology and CS use in schools, participating in the “Girls Go Coding” initiative to attract girls and female adults to coding.  

The Children's Chorus of the Greek National Opera was founded in September 2012 and has an exclusively educative role. To this day, the Chorus has given numerous concerts, performing a wide repertoire and has participated with great success in such productions of the Greek National Opera as La bohème, Tosca, Die Zauberflöte, Carmen, The Nutcracker, Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, in such venues as the Olympia Theater, Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Greek National Opera (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center) etc. The first chorus mistress was soprano Mata Katsouli and since autumn 2017, the Chorus is conducted by soprano Konstantina Pitsiakou. The Children's Chorus of the National Opera counts about one hundred children, aged 6 to 15 years old.

Lila Baklesi is an actress and a cum laude graduate of the National Theatre's Drama School. Through acting, she observes and tries to reach a deeper understanding of human behavior in all its various daily expressions, as well as under extreme conditions of joy and pain. Currently, she resides in London, attending acting seminars and exploring the perplexity of this new-age Babel. In her spare time, she studies History of Art. This summer she's returning to Greece, as she partakes in the tour of the play "Those under the stars" written by Telemachos Tsardakas, in which she co-stars along Konstantinos Mpimpis and co-directs along Artemis Grimpla.

ImproVIBE is Greece’s first Improv Comedy Theater training center. It was founded in 2012 by Menelaos Prokos and has been fully active to this day, offering improv shows and training as an art form as well as a way of life. During all its years of operation, it has offered improvised theatrical plays that are presented at well-known theatres around Athens, while has also toured all over Greece offering training and shows. It’s contribution on a global level is also worth mentioning and has  been recognized as Greece’s improv hub. Since 2015, ImproVIBE has been producing annually in Athens -and with huge success- Greece’s very own international improv festival, Mt Olymprov. One of ImproVIBE’s most important achievements is having introduced to the Greek public a brand new theatrical art form, and it is boasting now a 500-strong community comprised of people who are actively practising the art of improv through teaching and performing. Thousands of people have been affected by ImproVIBE’s activities and improv is gradually spreading all over the country.

Dr. Ted Papakostas is an archaeologist who decided to introduce a different view of what antiquity is in modern Greek mentality and promote what is called “pop archaeology”, through his instagram project @archaeostoryteller. Starting out as a fun pastime activity, its reception by the general public led him to the realization that there is indeed room and necessity for a more approachable way of viewing archaeology in Greece. Through his work, he aims to introduce a fun way of perceiving the past and denounce the notion that antiquity is sacred and untouchable, by making archaeological information plain yet accurate and enjoyable to a wider audience.

Mari Andrew is a writer, illustrator, and speaker who shares her work daily on Instagram @bymariandrew. What started out as making one drawing a day for a year as a form of self-expression following a season of grief and loss has inspired over one million devoted fans. Through her art, writing, and speaking, she discusses the powers of uncertainty, sensitivity, setbacks, and finding small joys all around us. Her first book, Am I There Yet?, debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list. Mari is an avid traveler and dancer who calls New City home.

Artemis Alexiadou was born in Volos. She studied Linguistics and Philology at the University of Athens. She received an MA in Linguistics from the University of Reading, UK and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Potsdam, Germany. She received various scholarships and carried out research in Βerlin, Princeton, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and Potsdam. From 2002 to 2015 she was Professor of Theoretical and English Linguistics at the University of Stuttgart, where she was also the director of a collaborative research center, where theoretical and computational linguists joined forces to investigate ambiguity in linguistic expressions. Since 2015, she has been Professor of English Linguistics at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Vice-Director of the Leibniz-Center General Linguistics in Berlin.  She is a member of editorial teams of several journals. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2014 she was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, as in her research she has discovered patterns and networks of phenomena that were previously unknown and that contributed to new key ideas about how language works; in 2016 she received an honorary doctorate from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.  She has dual citizenship (Greece-Germany) and is currently interested in the multilingual individual and society.

Petros Kourtis is a musician and educator. His is also co-founder of the art centre “Playground for the Arts”, founder and art director of the artistic and educational camp “Artventure Camp” as well as founding member of "IASIS" band and percussion ensemble "KROTALA". Petros has been member of the Faculty in F. Nakas Athens Conservatory, a official partner of Berklee College of Music as faculty- special trainer at Studies Abroad program  (Modern and Mediterranean music course) as well as a Clinician - Visiting Artist at Berklee Valencia Campus (Mediterranean music institute). While his music course runs decades, a major station in his career was his collaboration with Dimitris Papaioannou for the Opening Ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Alexandra Diona is an art director, conceptual photographer as well as the creative force behind the blog “A Shiny Day” (ashinyday.com). Born and raised in Athens, Alexandra began her studies in Architecture, however after 3 years, she decided to follow different creative paths, working as a freelance graphic designer, event organiser and  jewellery maker - all these while being completely self-taught. She also worked as a creative director and content editor for a greek fashion brand for 3 years. Alexandra is interested in the fields of photography, ecology, decoration, design and visual content - to name but a few- and is constantly inspired by her love for the environment and most of all, life itself. Through her blog, she shares ideas on a more creative and less toxic everyday life, challenging her readers to discover and reclaim their talents, making the most of them.

Dimitris Kyriakidis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and partly raised in New York. Ιnspired by his father’s work as a donut factory owner, a love for sweet pastries was born and at the age of 12, he started developing his own recipes. In 2004, he completed his studies in Sound Engineering in Thessaloniki and in 2005, he moved to Athens in pursuit of his dream to study fashion design. In 2012, he moved to Paris where he worked in the field of Interior Design and found himself enchanted by the French culture and cuisine, especially the pastries. He returned to Athens continuing his designing work until late 2017 but decided to quit his job and follow a different path, combining his love for animals and sweets, studying pastry in a culinary school and attending masterclasses for vegan desserts. He is currently collaborating with shops in Athens creating vegan sweets, inspiring more people to try his alternative pastries.

Myrto studied Finance in Athens, earned an MBA from Boston University and then worked for 15 years as a management consultant and top-level marketing executive in fast paced organizations in New York, London and Athens. During a particularly difficult period in her life, dealing with a health issue and high levels of stress that brought her on the verge of burnout, her path led her to study Buddhist insight meditation and conscious movement. Over many years she deepened her practice, experiencing transformation and healing on every level. Transitioning from the corporate world to follow her calling in leading a life of purpose and after extensive international professional training, she founded One Breath Mindful Living Center aimed at sharing science-backed awareness practices that cultivate a more mindful, fulfilled life, and she teaches mindfulness and movement meditation to adults, children and corporations in Greece and internationally. She is a certified mindfulness and MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) instructor from the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, a certified mindfulness instructor for children from the Mindful Schools organization, as well as a certified Open Floor moving meditation instructor. She also studies systemic psychotherapy at the Athenian Institute of Anthropos (AKMA). Myrto is also a TEDx speaker and has participated at the Panhellenic Child Psychiatry conference and the European Conference for Body Psychotherapy. She maintains a daily meditation practice since 2010 and continues studying with important teachers across the world, fascinated with the breath, stillness, movement and what it is that makes us human.