Theme: Redefining Reality

The first University Event in Greece.
Our Theme is Redefining Reality. Our goal is to create astrong and innovative TED community in our University. Along with the event, we also initiated a Students Idea Competition about University Improvement. (http://www.studentsact.tedxaueb.com/)

We had 40 ideas, and 3 will be done along with the university .

Athens University of Economics and Bussines
Patisiwn 76
Athens
Greece

George "Skoumas" Papanikolaou

George Skoumas Papanikolaou was born in Ioannina in 1987. From his childhood he would explore artistic sectors like music and drawing through self-taught experimentation. He graduated from high-school in Arta and he started his studies in the Department of Telematics in Epirus. Simultaneously, he got involved with photography and in general with multimedia. During his travels all over Europe he collected experiences and pictures. After buying his first DSLR camera he started experimenting photography and video. In 2011 he began recording his first no-budget action short-film, which despite the low initial expectations of creating a short trailer, evolved into a completed movie. Except photography and film-making, he enjoys the creation of short satiric productions practicing his humor. He collaborates with the Comedy Lab, maintains his own personal blog, sharing experiences and pieces of advice, and is developing plans for his next big production.

Urania Gazelli

Urania Gazelli is the creative name chosen by Greek designer Rania Giourmetaki for her bags label. The name was inspired by her much beloved late grandmother. With a background as an industrial designer, she has deep understanding of precise, high quality workmanship and aesthetics which is evident in each bag. Inspired by feminine sense of practicality, her design philosophy meets futurism with classicism. Her plexiglass handcrafted clutch bags are created in her homeland of Greece and are made using fine materials and finished with the brand's signature gold sign plated inside the bag. While her approach is playful and modern, it is always grounded in careful combinations and techniques, giving each piece the feeling of luxury and elegance.

Petroula Karagianni

EDUCATOR Born 30 years ago in Athens and raised here, Petroula graduated from AUEB in 2005 and straight after moved to Rotterdam, The Netherlands to work in the global leadership team of AIESEC. When Rotterdam started to become too familiar, she moved to Zurich, Switzerland to work in the Banking industry, in the Finance and Strategy areas. That is when she decided to have a break and redefine the way she saw reality shaping around and ahead of her. Determined to follow her passion for Education, she quit her job, went on a soul-search and after a few months started her Masters on Educational Leadership, she started blogging her ideas around Education and started working with a few organizations that support entrepreneurs in Greece, that provide funds for education in the developing world and that offer cultural immersion programs. After 7 years living abroad, she decided to come back to Greece in January 2012, where she started working with AUEB in the area of Research and Academic Affairs project management. She loves traveling, as she has already been in 37 countries and she believes in the power that each one of us has to make our dreams our reality.

Sotiris Lymperopoulos Lymperopoulos

FOOD SCOUTER After a degree in economics, a master in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, a project in econometrics at Sony Europe , a successful business in the fashion industry and 3 years of uninterrupted trip to the mountains and seas Sotiris Lymperopoulos decided that the city does not suit him . He left behind his old life and settled permanently in a small village in Messinia ,Raches. There he decided to try to live without money. He spent a lot of time collecting greens and herbs in the mountains of the area and found that there is a large number of edible plants never reach the markets of major cities. With zero capital, a basket and a knife knocked on the door of the best restaurants in Athens and tried to convince them that gastronomy in Greece should not be the lobster but the chicory. Began assuming management of wild food for estiatorio Milos.And while everyone else snubbed his service he decided to take the greens and go to Paris. There he met some of the most famous chefs in Europe who have shown much interest in his work and confirmed that his idea has future. Turning back he had decided to build a brand name based in the concept of wild food. Thus in 2011 Radiki was born.

Eleonora Viviani

WEB DESIGNER In 2002, after graduating in Industrial Design at IED School of Design in Milan, she collaborated with Luca Trazzi Studio, designing home appliances. She then worked for two years at Gino Finizio – Design&Management, mainly dealing with transportation design, research and web design. Fascinated by the internet world, she decided to gain experience in a web agency and she worked as a web designer for companies such as Fontana Arte, Cyrus Company, Segis, among others. In 2006 she moved to MTV Italy, designed the community of mtv.it and restyling of the Italian website of Nickelodeon. It was there where she encountered those who would become the founders of Stereomood. In June 2008 she moved to The Walt Disney Company in Italy. She has created the website Dyou.it, a new Disney teen magazine. In March 2011, she resigned to devote herself to Stereomood, which has now become, two years after its launch, a worldwide sensation. She is the CEO of the company and responsible of the image of the site. She travels, cooks and listens to music for inspiration.

Swap Not Shop Team

CLOTHING EXCHANGE MOVEMENT Sandra-Odette Kypriotaki, Thalia Geladaki and Viviana Miliaresi shared a love for feel-good vibes, DIY and clothes. Speaking of the latter, in fact they had too many, some of which they no longer wore. This is the reason why almost four years ago, they decided to host a feel-good DIY clothing exchange party among friends and acquaintances to give clothes a second (and a third, and a fourth) chance. Sandra's hyperactivity and love for noise and humans, Thalia's immense treasure hunting sprees in decadent shops and flea markets as well as jewellery making, and Viviana's strong sense of justice along with the view that objects should change hands, contributed to what quickly became a small anti-consumerism movement known as ‘Swap Not Shop!'. Apart from stuffed wardrobes, they also share similar backgrounds in fashion and communications, a strong human-centric perspective and the belief that days should be ceased and things we disagree with should be changed.

Sophie Lamprou

SOCIAL RESEARCHER Sophie's passion are communities made of socially responsible citizens that think, design, prototype & act together. She is part of the founding team of the HUB Athens(www.the-hub.net), a collaborative community of 5.400 entrepreneurs & innovators, that promotes, engages and drives social change through entrepreneurship & innovation. It is a platform that improves and facilitates the ecosystem to implement solution oriented actions for sustainable impact. Graduate of the Department of Management Science & Technology, Sophie was part of AIESEC (www.aiesec.org) from local to international level. In 2010, she moved in Madrid. The last 3 years, she is part of the hosting team of the Hub Madrid (www.hubmadrid.com), where she went to learn by doing how the HUB works. She is also part of the Creative Society team, (www.creativesociety.org) a creative consulting community, supporting and empowering business & groups to solve problems by using their creative potential, where she was leading a global research for the conditions that accelerate youth entrepreneurship. Engaged with a social centre in Madrid, a bikers community and urban farmers, Sophie brings diverse expertise in activities & collective actions.

Klimis Pirounakis

SECOND CHANCE SCHOOL HEADMASTER Klimis was born in Piraeus in 1950 and his father was a priest, father George Pirounakis. After his studies at Department of Theology at University of Macedonia, Klimis moved to his farm in Kaparelli, Thebes, where he lives until today with his family. He there teached Theology in the local High School, since he became headmaster of Kaparelli's High School. A very intense moment in his life was a car accident that happened in 1968 when he was 18 years old, and since then he started to count and appreciate every second of his life and he gave a promise to himself to serve the others because he needs to be useful. Thus, 4 years ago he initiated and became the head master of a Second Chance School in prisons of Thebes, giving breath and hope to the prisoners. The second chance school has teachers and psychology and career counselors, and it is one of the four schools operating in prisons of our country.

Damianos Chatziantoniou

DATA SCIENTIST Damianos Chantziantoniou is an assistant professor in the Department of Management Science & Technology in AUEB, focusing on the field of Data Management & Analytics. He has published more than 30 articles at top conferences and journals, and his work has influenced a wide variety of technologies including the Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle's 8i and 9i systems and the ANSI SQL Standard. There are more than 11 U.S. patents using Damianos' research work as primary reference and more than 150 citations to his work, including 9 data management textbooks. Besides academia, Damianos has been involved in several technology start-up companies. Panakea Software Inc. (founder, 1998), based in New York City, developed and marketed database querying/reporting technology to make analytic tasks easier to express and faster to evaluate. VoiceWeb SA (founder, 2001), based in Athens, focused on speech & telecom applications. VoiceWeb is currently the leading company in the Balkans in speech-related applications. Damianos has also served in 2007-2008 as a senior research consultant in Aster Data Systems, a high-profile database technology start-up based on Silicon Valley, dealing with big data. Aster Data was acquired in March of 2011 by Teradata.

Dimitris Tsakos

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT Dimitris Tsakos was born and raised in Chalkida. He studied in Athens University and Economics and Business in Department of Management Science and Technology and he completed his MBA in Holland. His origin is Greek-Irish and that fact gave him the "virus" of travelling (firstly in Ireland and later in Europe, America and Asia). His trips make him particularly poor in money but rich in experiences! He has the habit to observe the social mechanism of the places he visits and especially the way that people consider themselves as part of the society. The differences help him understand what leads some societies to growth through a continuous running race and others through simple and smart organization. His working experience is mainly in start-up companies as member of the founding team, fact that makes him have an opinion about everything, sometimes in an annoying way! Lately, he actively participates in the creation of "Investors Club Greece", a platform that brings together international investors and Greek enterprises that want to make a breakthrough for their development.

Theofilos Vasileiadis

BUSINESS CREATOR In the summer of 1997 Theofilos Vasileiadis started a journey, full of intense and passionate moments, by founding the on-line recruitment company Kariera in Athens, Greece. In the following years to come, with Fanis Rigas as a co-pilot, he led a group of extraordinary talented and creative individuals in launching and growing businesses, in Greece, Romania, Italy, USA, India and currently Dubai & Saudi Arabia. His business acumen was acknowledged (jointly with Fanis) by the Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence, awarded by the President of the Greek Republic. His fundamental challenge these days is balancing between the perfect storm of ideas raging in his head and his two children (21 months old Celia and 3 months old Stefanos). He never hesitates to leave business aside and focus on pursuing fresh knowledge, as at his time in Harvard Business School in Boston, where he spent 3 months before graduating from the Owners-Presidents Management Program or his current commitment on studying Greek Civilization in the Greek Open University. He will never forget the afternoon he first thought of founding a start-up, the 2 weeks he spent in Malawi with the Millennium Promise team, the first time Celia walked and the first time Stefanos laughed.

Valerie Kontakos

PRODUCER / DIRECTOR A native New Yorker, she moved to Athens in 2003. Upon finishing NYU film school she worked on features and commercials until she met and worked for David and Albert Maysles and decided to concentrate exclusively on documentaries. Her work has aired on PBS (USA), WNET (NY), ERT (Greece), YLE (Finland), EBS (Korea). Since moving to Greece she has produced two documentary series for the national public broadcaster, ERT and independently produced a number of other documentaries. In 2009 she started Exile Room a non-profit media arts organization which organizes documentary workshops and screens documentary films.

George Kolliopoulos

ENTREPRENEUR Born perfectionist. Studied law at the University of Athens. Worked as a copywriter in advertising. Played drums at various indie rock bands. Wrote many texts on many pieces of paper (wannabe-literature, he calls them). Read much literature. Founded Speiron in 2006, the first luxury food & beverage company in Greece. λ /lambda/ ultra premium olive oil was launched in 2007. It is the first luxury olive oil in the world. Visionary, passionate and persistent, he adores the work of Ian Schrager, Takis Zenetos and Seth Godin. He’s in love with modernist architecture. He’s obsessed with rock music and Pitsika, his cat. He is always out there, reinventing things.