14th SciFY Academy | Open Data
"Open Data. Now!"

On Wednesday October 26, as a part of the project Your Data Stories, SciFY, ODI Athens of Open Technologies Organization - ΕΕLLΑΚ and SKEL Lab of NCSR "Demokritos" co operated for making a series of presentations related to Open Data.

The speeches were hosted by distinguished business executives and experts in this research field, presenting innovative projects that promote the exploitation and evolution of data, not only for the development of the economy and business, but also for dealing with everyday and social problems.

As we learned from the speeches, the technology and business community are investing in the future and the developing of Big Data, looking for mechanisms and platforms to maximize the use of the data and metadata. Identifying and analyzing them helps us to discern the really useful information and to separate it from the "noise", to judge its credibility and ultimately to anticipate with greater certainty the future situations and market trends, even social behavior.

Lastly, extra emphasis was placed on the ways to maintain the balance between the privacy and the openness of the data, thus covering the legal aspects of the issue. It is worth noting that despite the great participation of speakers at the event, the content of the presentations was comprehensive, in-depth and gave an integrated approach of the subject, both at the business and at the research levels.

Moreover, despite the technical expertise around Open Data, the speakers ensured the smooth transmission of information, making them understandable even to the less experienced audience. Perhaps this was due to the large response of the participants in the final stage of the event that followed, that of the open debate and questions.

14th SciFY Academy Open Data 26-10-16 from eellak on Vimeo.

12th SciFY Academy | Grow Greek Tourism Online
"5 Key Elements for a Successful Online Presence"

On Wednesday June 8, the SciFY team, co organized with INNOVATHENS The Hub of Innovation & Entrepreneurship of the City of Athens, a seminar, on Successful Online Presence.

This month as well, representatives of all the business sectors, as well as students of Marketing, Economic and Touristic schools, have come to INNOVATHENS to watch Stelios Dourakis from Grow Greek Tourism Online, explaining how we can achieve a successful online presence. Mr Stelios Dourakis, Online Advisor of the Grow Greek Tourism Online organization, with experience in Online and Tourism issues, talked about the key elements a new businessman should pay attention to, so that he can have a successful online presence, with emphasis on the touristic sector.

Initially, Mr. Dourakis presented us elements from a study on the tourism industry and how he was influenced by the Internet and more specifically by Mobile Internet, which is gaining more and more ground in our country and globally.

Later, Mr. Dourakis talked about what we should take into account when we create a website to promote our products and/or our services and how this is different when we target abroad. Moreover, a big part of the presentation was dedicated on how we can make our online presence mobile-friendly and we discussed the importance of our website's accessibility via mobile, especially for the Tourism industry.

The event was opened by Vasilis Salapatas, co-founder of SciFY, who presented two new projects developed by the SciFY team for companies and professionals.
Search for new customers: He introduced Contact Harvester, an informative tool that once is completed, will enable us to expand our business network quickly and easily. The user searches for potential clients with keywords (or just points to some potential customer sites!) and then Contact Harvester returns a detailed list of potential customers with their contact information, social networks, etc. He showed the demo version that you can find here: http://go.scify.gr/contact-harvester

Automatic comment analysis: Lastly, he introduced the Open Comments Analyzer, a tool that allows for automatic and quick analysis of comments from multiple languages. A valuable tool for market research and public relations companies, for customer service, media, etc. He showed the demo version that you can find here: go.scify.gr/comments-analyzer

Grow Greek Tourism Online, is a Google initiative aimed at enhancing the digital skills of tourism professionals all over Greece and training them on web-based tools. The event was supported by Google, the Ministry of Tourism of Greece, the Greek Tourism Organization (ΕΟΤ), and SETE.

We warmly thank mr Stelios Dourakis, INNOVATHENS and of course all who attended and participated in the seminar by making very interesting comments and questions and especially because they contributed once again to realizing our vision of the free dissemination of knowledge!

To be informed about the next events of SciFY Academy you can register here. 
If you are interested in actively participating in SciFY team, click here.

11th SciFY Academy | Bioinformatics Academy
"The fruitful collaboration of two sciences"

On Thursday May 26 SciFY's team coorganized with INNOVATHENS The Hub of Innovation & Entrepreneurship of the City of Athens, one more seminar and lab, on Bioinformatics.

Over 100 people watched Dr Artemis Chatzigeorgiou, Professor of Bioinformatics at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Thessaly and associate professor at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute, an introduction to the world of Bioinformatics in order to get acquainted with the "fruitful collaboration of two sciences".

Initially, Dr. Artemis Chatzigeorgiou referred to the most important steps that have taken place in the field of Bioinformatics. She also discussed the research and applied trends that link the fields of information technology and biology.

 Such trends concern the New Generation Sequencing, the use and experimental verification of the function of MicroRNAs, and the analysis of texts of biological research using Physical Language Analysis.

Moreover, there was a discussion on how Bioinformatics helped on papers relevant to e.g. gene editing, and how informative tools make the analysis procedures and recalling knowledge about biology and modern therapies easier.

The event was opened by Mr. Petros Kaloupis, where he talked about his very interesting initiative, concerning Supporting Technologies. Specifically, he referred to the first social network with access for the disabled, the DisabledBook. It is a social media with the aim of interconnecting, serving and interacting with all social or voluntary services in Greece or abroad. 

You can watch the interview of the η DisabledBook team for CNΝ here and for more information about DisabledBook click here.

We warmly thank Dr Artemis Chatzigeorgiou, Mr Petros Kaloupis, INNOVATHENS and of course all our friends who attended and participated in the seminar by making very interesting comments and questions and they contributed once again to realizing our vision of the free dissemination of knowledge!

Download the presentation here. To be informed about the next events of SciFY Academy you can register here. 

If you are interested in actively participating in SciFY team, click here.

Introductory Seminar on Using LinkedIn for Persons and Organizations

More than 120 people attended the 6th SciFY Academy at INNOVATHENS on Wednesday, November 18, 2015. The very strong beginning for SciFY Academy for the new academic year with Maria Pafioli, founder and head of the CVexperts - CV and Career Consultant company, where she introduced us practically to the world of LinkedIn.

The event was opened by Ioanna Theodorou, founding member of the Startupboat initiative where she talked about their action and the way they contribute in  the refugee crisis under the prism of technology and innovation.

In the second part of the event Maria Pafioli introduced us to the world of LinkedIn and guided us to the possibilities it offers us, as well as its evolution globally and in Greece the last two years. After this, she introduced the 3 stages separating us from all the other LinkedIn users (degree of separation), in contrary with other social media and there was a presentation of the advantages and disadvantages that the premium accounts offer.

Additionally she  referred to the right approach to the professional communities that interest us, the correct way of promoting our professional profile and the mistakes we should avoid. She shared with us many practical advice and tips ‘n’ tricks that help us create and evolve our professional appearance in LinkedIn like for example the use of SEO and the free learning webinars.

In the last part, there was a discussion on when we should create a personal and when a corporal page, followed by a presentation of good and bad practices in corporate pages. As a closure, Maria Pafioli, referred to the  possibilities LinkedIn is giving to Non-for-Profit organizations for their networking and their voluntary action and urged us to use it in a very practical way by giving us as the only way to contact her, the name of her LinkedIn profile.

You can find την Ms Pafioli's presentation here and you can watch the whole event of the 6th SciFY Academy here. To be informed about the next SciFY Academy events you can subscribe here.

We want to thank the speakers, CVexperts, INNOVATHENS, Startupboat and all our friends who attended in the seminar and they contributed once again to realizing our vision of the free dissemination of knowledge!

5th SciFY Academy: Sharing #OpenKnowledge for Business Model Canvas!

Over 100 people came on Wednesday July 15, 2015 at the 5th SciFY Academy that took place at INNOVATHENS. This time we shared open knowledge about the use of Business Model Canvas for Non-for-Profit Organizations, with speaker Mr Dimitris Paksimadis, member of KEMEL, f. President & Director Manager of OgilvyOne Athens and f. General Director of ΒΒDΟ Advertising.

Let’s Crowdsource the Future of Europe!
International Conference

How much do you think your opinion counts on the decisions of the European Union?
How can we influence our future?

On Tuesday May 9th, 10:00, SciFY - Science For You (www.scify.org), invites you to the international conference "Let’s Crowdsource the Future of Europe", at HIGGS (Viktoros Ougko 15, Athens) to evaluate "why, how and when" we can participate in the European Union's decision-making process. At a critical time for the EU, representatives of Civil Society from 6 EU countries will discuss the role citizens can play by using modern techniques (practices and methods) of crowdsourcing.

The purpose of the event is to gain insight as to how EU decisions are made and in what ways crowdsourcing will allow us to participate directly. During the workshop we will discuss the following questions:

• Claiming our time: When is the time to speak?

The purpose of the panel is to set the issue of the stage (when) of the legislative process in the EU we can use crowdsourcing to intervene.

• Claiming our space: On what should we intervene?

The purpose of the panel is to set the issue of the topics (where) that we should crowdsource and the local best practices that could be used on an EU level.

• Doing it our way: How should we intervene?

The purpose of the panel is to set the issue of the tools and methodologies (how) that can enhance crowdsourcing in the EU legislative process.

The above questions will be answered through open discussions with representatives of civil society initiatives in Greece and 5 other European countries, political scientists, technology experts and through workshops where the participants will be invited to discuss how to co-shape the future of Europe. We will also share the experience that we already gained from similar events that took place in Ljubljana, London and Amsterdam.

Free Entrance ‐ Limited seats
Registrations: http://go.scify.gr/EUCROWDtickets
Certification of Attendance

Facebook Event: http://go.scify.gr/EUCROWDevent
Event Program: http://go.scify.gr/EUCROWDprogr
More info about the project: http://go.scify.gr/eucrowd

*The discussion will be held in English
The event is part of the EU project “European Citizens Crowdsourcing – EUCROWD” which has been funded with the support of the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union. The event is supported by the New Technologies Laboratory in Communication, Education and Media of the University of Athens.
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Contact Person:
Despoina Chalvatzi, Μ: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Τ:+30 6983047848, +30 211 400 4192
More info about SciFY: www.scify.org

When we stop seeing disability as a weakness, hope is reignited. In SciFY, what we can do is to offer tools to people that will make their life a little bit easier. These are the results of our work.

This summer with your help we gathered the resources to create new games for blind children. In Autumn we created them and the children have already started playing and special schools use them. Could you imagine what new opportunities you made possible?

Our plan had further stages, as you know.
Specialists Education Teachers from around the world have requested to be able to create Memor-i games for education and entertainment, own their own. Variations on themes, variations in other languages, etc.

We continued according to plan and sought resources. Thanks to the funding of the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation we can now take this step.

Well, we’re commencing  the Memor-i studio!

An application that will allow everyone to make their own Memor-i games for the impaired in vision as well as the sighted, easily and without programming knowledge, and to offer it free to all.
Therefore the work and creativity of one person can be provided freely and free to all, creating a multiplier effect. A game that a Greek makes can be played by blind children in Greece but also in the States, a variation made by a German can be enjoyed in Austria....

Well, no need to say more at the moment. You understand.
We start work and soon you will be informed of the new results!

The John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation is a non-profit organization established in 2005 to continue the benevolent legacy of John S. Latsis. The Foundation plans, manages, and funds programmes that cover a broad range of fields, such as education, science, health, social welfare, culture, arts and the environment, in collaboration with civil society partners and key players within these areas. An additional pillar of the Foundation’s activities is the operation of the Neraida Floating Museum, which, by offering visitors free access and organizing various events, seeks to highlight the maritime and entrepreneurial history of Greece, familiarize youth with the maritime profession, and promote environmental awareness. The Foundation seeks to remain in sync with and respond to current social needs. www.latsis-foundation.org

Privacy Policy for ICSee application (all versions)

What kind of personal data is collected

Like millions of other mobile applications, we use Google Analytics to understand how visitors interact with our system. Google Analytics is a piece of software that grabs data about our users (you). It’s something like an advanced server log.

Google Analytics records things like:

• What features of our app you use.

• How long you stay on each screen.

• What kind of device and operating system you are using.

• And quite a bit more: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

What do we do with your data?

The collected information allows us to better understand:

• the kind of people who use our application;

• the devices and operating systems they mostly appear to use.

The above allow us to better design future versions, enable or disable features and understand our impact.

Occasionally, we may compile aggregate statistics about the number of user we have, as well as a breakdown by country, device, or similar grouping. No personally identifying data is included in this type of reporting.

All of our activity falls within the bounds of the Google Analytics Terms of Service.

Effective date and updates

The effective date of this policy is Jan 1st, 2017. We will communicate any changes through our website (scify.org) or through the application itself.

Project “European Citizens Crowdsourcing – EUCROWD” has been funded with the support of the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union.

Agreement/decision number: 20161579