Interview of Vice Chairman in Greek News Agenda

With the aid of the Hellenic Innovation Network (HIN), an outgrowth of MITEF Greece that started almost five years ago, the Organization provides Greek and Cypriot startups with a bridge to the U.S. through pitching and networking opportunities. Based in Boston and with the support of the Greek Consulate, HIN aims to facilitate cross-border collaboration as well as access to potential investors, partners, customers, mentors, advisors and board members. This year’s seminars and workshops had to go online because of the pandemic and many webcasts were organized on fields such as covid-19 research, cyber-security challenges, Blockchain, mobility etc.

MITEF Greece is also organizing an annual Startup Competition, an accelerating program through which local technology entrepreneurs compete for prizes and global recognition to advance their business goals. This flagship program of MITEF Greece running already its 6th cycle, accepted many participations for the Energy and Maritime specialty tracks in addition to the General track that usually attracts a diverse array of technology driven innovation ventures. This week, on July 15 & 16, the third and final round of the Competition will take place in Athens comprising the final judging of the 15 finalists and the Awards Ceremony which this year will go live.

Greek News Agenda* had the opportunity to speak with the Vice Chairman of the MITEF Greece Vassilis Papakonstantinou about the goals and the activities of the organization as well as about the Greek startup ecosystem and its potential particularly when it comes to the technology transfer from research labs to world-class technology companies.

MITEF Greece puts a great emphasis on the connection between the academic research community and business or, as it is usually described, on the “technology transfer from lab to market”. How are you trying to achieve this “osmosis” in MITEF Greece and why is this important in your opinion?

MITEF is the global ambassador of MIT’s great tradition in technology transfer driven entrepreneurship. MIT Alumni around the world have created companies with $2 trillion annual revenues. If they were put together they would represent the 10th largest economy in the world. MITEF was started 40 years ago by the MIT Alumni association to facilitate technology transfer, so, as you can imagine, it is implicitly the organization’s “raison d’être”.

Technology transfer represents the cornerstone of the organization’s vision “to build a better world by accelerating the creation and growth of world-class technology companies”. Basic research is very important, but it is not conducted in the void. Research labs exist within our society and usually, they get funded, directly or indirectly, by society. We believe that research should provide direct benefits back to society as soon as possible and, although there are other ways, we believe that technology entrepreneurship is among the most fulfilling alternatives for the researchers themselves. Therefore, we are laser-focused on encouraging and supporting deep-tech driven entrepreneurship based on technology transfer from lab to market.

We brought the MITEF network to Greece back in 2013, exactly because we believe that the technology transfer driven entrepreneurship has a huge potential in our country. You can picture the situation like this. You can think of the research community in our country as the root system of the tree and the technology-driven entrepreneurship community as its branches. The root system has grown strong over the years, fueled by national and European funding. Yet, the branches are weak, and only recently started to show some growth. If we could accelerate this growth, then we can create a new powerful and sustainable engine for our economy that can measure up to the traditional ones, like shipping and tourism.

Thanks to the MIT brand and long-standing credentials of the global MIT community, MITEF Greece can provide the local research community with the necessary support. The community understands our value and commitment and as a result, it is much easier for us to “ignite the osmosis” between the Greek research labs and the global market. To achieve this osmosis and produce results, we have designed a series of high quality, carefully curated programs. First, we organize workshops for the local research community to understand the challenges and opportunities of technology transfer. Second, we organize community events and high-end international conferences on market verticals, to enable the local community to better comprehend the challenges and opportunities in the global market, to be inspired and activated. Third, we organize an annual acceleration program, the MITEF Greece Startup Competition. This is our flagship program that already runs its 6th cycle and supports 25 technology ventures every year, many of whom have managed to raise more than €30 million in venture funding. Finally, we are currently designing a new program, tentatively named “Tech Insiders Club”, which will focus on the investors and business executives side, providing them with insights to understand the various aspects of technology and eventually helping them to make more educated decisions related to technology investments.

We believe that this holistic approach to supporting technology-driven entrepreneurship, which includes a very strong brand name, high-end content, and global networking opportunities, can be a gamechanger for the Greek technology ecosystem.