Summer School on Youth Entrepreneurship, Chios July 2015

For the fourth consecutive year, the 4th Summer School on Youth Entrepreneurship was organized with great success by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit of the University of the Aegean, in collaboration with the School of Management, in Chios, from 6th to 10th July 2015.

The aim of the Summer School was to guide students from various University departments in turning their business ideas into practice, through lectures and mentoring given by University teachers and business executives.  Six business ideas were formed by the 18 participating pre-graduate and post-graduate students, targeting agricultural, tourism, health and education products and services.

Winning teams and judging committee members at the Summer School awards ceremony

The Summer School is an initiative of the Employment & Career Structure of the University of the Aegean, within the Operational Programme "Education and Lifelong Learning: 2007-2015". 

More information on the Summer School can be found at: http://summerschool2015-mke.aegean.gr/ 

The Samos 2015 Summit - "Beyond Government 2.0"

The 6th Samos Summit was held in Doryssa Hotel, in Samos Greece on June 29 - July 3 2015.  The overall topic of the Summit was On ICT-enabled Governance : “Beyond Government 2.0”.  Specific focus in this year’s summit was given to the following 4 areas of ICT-enabled governance, aiming at delivering high level insights on the new roadmap for research and practice:

• Information (big, open and linked data, information processing and visualization for governance)
• Infrastructures (cloud infrastructures, machine intelligence, pervasive computing)
• People (collaborative decision making, social media in governance, social computing)
• Organisation (legal issues, process re-engineering, interoperability guidelines and standards)

Also, specific attention was given to Smart Cities examples and practices, followed by a workshop on Samos smart city / smart island possibilities, with the collaboration of Samos Municipality officials.

Samos 2015 Summit participants at Doryssa Resort 

In conjunction with the 6th Samos Summit, the 3rd International Summer School On Open and Collaborative Governance was held, with the participation of students from European Union, the Balkans and US.

More information on the agenda and participants of the Samos 2015 Summit can be found at http://www.samos-summit.org

What is Government 3.0 ?

Preparing my talk for the Samos 2015 Summit on ICT-enabled governance I noticed a scarcity of resources for Government 3.0 and the new paradigms for the public sector beyond 2015.  Apart from some early developments in Korea and a few presentations, not much to see on what is coming in this vivid domain.  So, I prepared a slideset that can be seen online below, and I only copy/paste a couple of things here:

Government 3.0 definition

Government 3.0 refers to the utilization of Information and Communication Technologies and neighboring scientific and technological domains, towards societal problems solving, resource optimization and citizen well-being, through civic and enterprise collaboration at local and international level

The paradigm shift for Government 3.0 

The e-Governance Hype Cycle

My complete slide set can be found at : http://www.slideshare.net/charalabidis/government-30 

Workshops on Open Data and Entrepreneurship at Krems, Austria

Being at Krems, Austria is a very nice experience, by itself.  So calming, so picturesque and SO clean that redefines a few performance thresholds and levels of citizen commitment.  A little difficult to reach, maybe as much as it should, by the somewhat busy but also well-managed Vienna International Airport, but very easy and welcoming when you get there - via three train connections, one change involving some goodish walking, should you take the train path (no direct bus, too). Thanks to our host Peter Parycek, friend and new professor of e-governance at Krems University, a shuttle bus took us there in 60 minutes. 

Krems an der Donau

Danube University Krems, exists within a very cosy, manageable Campus, combining the old buildings of the former tobacco processing / cigarette factory with a newly built, modern set of auditoriums and  labs.  Utilising such halls and some nearby hotels, the CEDEM Conference on eDemocracy and Open Government took place, together with the SHARE-PSI 2.0 meeting on open data and public sector transformation.

I has the pleasure to co-organise a workshop on Open Data critical success factors, together with colleagues from Netherlands, Sweden and Austria.  The workshop touched upon the key issues that public sector organisations, enterprises and citizens have to deal with, in order to have success in curating, publishing and using open data.  Get a glimpse at the taxonomy of critical success factors for open data, still being restructured through a series of workshops worldwide.

Workshop on Critical Success Factors for Open Data 

Then, I had the experience of organising another workshop on "University - based Business Accelerators", presenting and deliberating on the work we do with Aegean Startups, our new incubator in University of the Aegean.  My opening presentation on Business Accelerators lists some of the functions and services of these new organisations that Universities now put in place.

Participants of the Workshop on "University-based Business Accelerators"

  

A visit to Bletchley Park

During April 2015, during my latest visit to London, I spent one morning in Bletchley Park, "once Britain's Best Kept Secret" as they call it.  Bletchley is about 1 hour by train from London, on the north.  The place has become very popular after two events in 2014 (I do not really know if one influenced the other):

One of the more than 20 ENIGMA machines
- looking brand new

- The "Imitation Game" movie that went the most popular movie about the story of Alan Turing and the codebrakers of the second world war

- The complete restoration of the place, which opened for the public at the beginning of 2015 (Bletchley was there before, but without the restoration there was not much to see).

So, is it worth the visit ? (the entrance is around 15 GBP, the ticket might cost another 15 GBP and you will need 4-5 hours at least).  My answer is yes.  The visit will give you some unique insights in the ENIGMA machines, the code-braking techniques and of course the Bombe ! (this weird mechanical computer, that was used to find the positions of ENIGMA wheels based on intercepted messages).

Also, you will able to see not one, but actually two Bombes (Not originals - as all of them were destroyed right after the end of the war.  Or at least this is what the British Government said at the time).  One was made for the needs of the Imitation Game movie (it does not seem to work, but is a very well-made replica) and a full-functioning replica made by the Bletchley park and collaborators.

With the working replica of the Bombe 

Another nice opportunity for the visitor is to see all the restored offices and warehouses of the centre, as it was during the war.  You can also have a seat in Alan Turing's office !

Working at Alan Turing's office at Blechley Park

A nice add-on is the near-by National Museum of Computing, where at an extra cost yo can see the remake of the allegedly first-built electronic computer  / Colossus (built in 1943, before the ENIAC in US).

The Colossus