The participation and the great interest (more than 120 participants) featured the opening of the MITEF Greece startup Competition 2016 held at the Municipality of Thessaloniki on December 7, 2015.  The event was co-organized by MITEF Greece, Anatolia School of Business and Venture Garden.  During this special event, the participants had the unique opportunity to listen to Ms. Marina Hatsopoulos, Angel Investor & Entrepreneur, who shared interesting insights, aiming to familiarize the participants with entrepreneurial thinking and action, encouraging them to develop their ideas and offer them useful tools on their first business steps.  Mr.Vassilis Papakonstantinou, Chaiman of MITEF Greece, opened the event andDr.Dimitris Kontarinis, Director of the Entreprenuership Hub, Anatolia School of Business at ACT talked about VentureGarden and presented SARMTeam and their journey through the program all the way to MIT Bootcamp last June.  

Moreover, during the Career Week, 14-17 of December 2015, held in the American College of Thessaloniki, a special session was organized for the participants of VentureGarden.  Specifically, on December 15, 2015, participants attended 3 sequel sessions entitled “Starting and Running your Business”.  In the first, Mr. Mamaras and Associates informed the audience about startup accounting, in the second Mr. Pericles Botsoglou, lawyer, gave valuable information on startup legal issues and in the third, Mr. Nikos Vasiliadis, Program Management Consulting from Trek Consulting talked about Public Subsidy Opportunity – ESPA.  The event was embraced with warmth and great attentiveness by the participants all coming from the four cohorts of VentureGarden showing their great interest on issues related to contemporary entrepreneurship and startups.

The annual Christmas basketball game between the ACT varsity basketball team and the ACT Alumni, took place on Saturday January 23. A good number of ACT alumni participated in the event, as they had all been members of the ACT basketball team varsity in the past.  They were both recent graduates and graduates from as far back as 1993, which goes to show that extra-curricular can create ties with the school long after graduation.  Three teams were formed: ACT team Varsity, Alumni 1 (classes 1993-1999) and Alumni 2 (classes 2000-2015). The alumni were so excited about the game that they asked it is repeated more often and not just once a year. As a result, the next game will take place in one month.  The ACT Varsity Team was the overall winner and was awarded the “ACT Christmas Cup”. In the “pita” cutting that followed the game, ACT Coach Sakis Kourtis was the lucky one to find the “flouri” and receive an ACT sweatshirt.

In December the ACT Business Liaison, Career Services and Alumni Relations office, along with the support of the Student Government Association, organized the first ACT Career Week.  During the 4-day event more than 120 students and alumni had the opportunity to attend more than 30 seminars, workshops, guest lectures, company presentations and interviewing sessions.

KLEEMANN, VELTIO, MLS, NEDA, EUROMEDICA, SOFTONE, the GREEK COUNCIL FOR REFUGEES and SEVE shared the their activity with the students, while 12 ACT alumni, who represented 12 different professional sectors, shared with students and young alumni the realities of working in each.

The event also hosted a special section for startups, which was supported by Venture Garden and VG participating teams. TREK Consulting, Mamaras Associates and Mr. Periklis Botsoglou provided aspiring entrepreneurs with a great insight on subsidy opportunities, accounting and legal issues respectively.

Τhe Career Week also hosted two hands-on workshops on resume writing and cover letter preparation, while Randstad Hellas facilitated a workshop on career management and interviewing. Finally, two students - Dimitar Bozov and George-Ilias Belidis - shared with their fellow students their summer internship experiences in a very vivid and lively presentation.

Experiencing professional work environments, dealing with urgent social issues

and applying theory to practice. 

The students of the Social Science-Service Learning class shared their experiences, research and thoughts from a semester of theory, community service and interaction with people at the forefront of today’s urgent social issues, through presentations and discussion on Monday December 14^th.

The aim of the class is to combine theory and practice in the field of social sciences through the concepts of service, community-academic partnerships and useful research findings following student immersion in the partner communities.

The students’ research isn’t merely being graded for their class, but is also constructed in a manner that will be useful to the organization that it was carried out in.

The internships and research that the students have engaged with during the semester include - working with refugee families, assisting asylum-seeking youth,  investigating issues of health and poverty among Roma women, undertaking research on political apathy and the education and promotion of contemporary art.

Their research was presented at ACT, to faculty, staff and students as well as representatives of the cooperating NGOs.

This diverse range of activities has been made possible through the cooperation of the following local non-profit organizations, whom we would like to thank for their work with us and on-going efforts, knowledge-sharing and collaboration:  ARSIS (Filoxeneio Shelter for Refugee Families & Social Housing for asylum-seeking youth), The Dukakis Center for Humanitarian and Public Service,  Faros tou Kosmou, Solidarity Now, The State Museum for Contemporary Art.  

For further information about the class, please contact

Dr. Maria Patsarika This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Ruth Sutton This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We all use digital systems to produce images, video, music or text ourselves, but actual physical objects are only made in professional manufacturing – so far. This is changing with new cheap devices that allow Do-It-Yourself printing in 3D, CNC milling, cutting, making your own electronics, printing biological tissue, designing a new DNA, and many more future developments. Enthusiastic ‘Makers’, creative designers and educators develop new tools and new uses every day. A Digital Do-It-Yourself (DiDIY) revolution is on its way.

These DIY devices allow people to make a virtually endless variety of things, often from their home: some of them innocuous or even beneficial, like customized cases for mobile phones, spare parts, clothing, artwork, or prosthetic limbs, but others dangerous, such as guns or biological weapons. So there is a problem of safety: For example, what remains of gun control if people can 3D print or mill their own guns – some of which might also be undetectable by current security technology? And generally, if people can make their own artefacts at home, how do we uphold standards of quality control? Another issue is responsibility, both moral and legal: for example, who is to be held responsible if the use of a digitally made artifact results in harm to someone? Also, how will the spread of DiDIY impact the job market and the modes of production – will its impact be positive or negative overall? And will it pose a threat to copyright and design rights, if it allows people to easily replicate virtually any artefact by 3D scanning and sharing of digital designs?

The research team of Vincent C. Müller and Alexandre Erler at Anatolia College/ACT will work on these ethical issues of DiDIY, as part of the European H2020 project DiDIY – see www.didiy.eu. The project brings together 7 European institutions, from design to business, to research for 30 months with an overall budget of 2,1mil€.

Thanksgiving Day was a successful day at ACT. Our regular students, together with the American and the international students celebrated this annual event hosted by ACT.

This year, the ACT Student Government Association (SGA) presented a great Thanksgiving Day activity where all students could participate.  The SGA cut out 300 turkey-fingers and distributed them to students. On these turkey fingers, participants could a write a wish to thank someone for his or her presence in their daily lives. We received more than 200 notes with wishes for students, faculty and staff.  This event showed the diversity of students at ACT, where most students have a different cultural background, and that all students, no matter their background, can co-exist together. Students exchanged wishes between them, between faculty and other staff showing their gratefulness to ACT and its services. The amount of participation from the Study Abroad and N.U.in students was rather impressive.

Alongside this event, there was also a free Thanksgiving lunch where students could enjoy a delicious turkey meal together.  From our perspective, we thank everyone for their participation and especially the Administrative Offices for their contribution. 

Written by Georgios-Ilias Belidis, Junior Class Representative to the SGA, Anatolia High School ’13 and ACT ‘17

Acclaimed Greek photojournalist Dimitris Bouras will conduct a Masterclass in Photojournalism at the Dukakis Center, in partnership with ACT's English undergraduate program, during the week of November 23-27, 2015.

The class, called "You won't be here tomorrow," will cover technical, aesthetic, practical, and moral considerations prevalent in contemporary photojournalism. Select participants will meet throughout the week and will do their own photo shoot, on the theme "What are you eating?"

Mr. Bouras, a SBALA alumnus who has lectured at the Dukakis Center previously, will culminate his residency with a presentation of some of his own photographs taken in Syria and Iraq, on Tuesday, December 1, at 1 PM in the ACT New Building A-V Room. The presentation is open to the general public.

Dimitrios Bouras was born in Thessaloniki. He has been a photojournalist since 1980, working as a freelance researcher and reporter on humanitarian issues, social injustice, poverty and war around the globe. He has covered special assignments in Greece, Bulgaria, FYROM, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Romania, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, ‘Kurdistan’ and other countries.  

He regularly contributes as a freelance photojournalist under an alias. His awards include Amnesty International, a Prix Pictet Commission and honours from Pictures of the Year International. His work has been exhibited extensively in Greece and internationally. Freelancer status affords Dimitris the possibility to overcome the constraints of the passive role of a content provider and to develop independently as advocate and documentarian. Recently he has been investigating thorny social issues in present-day Greece: drug abuse, homelessness, the life of the disabled and the impact of austerity; the uprising in the Ukraine; the “Arab Spring” and social unrest in Turkey and Middle East.

Dimitris currently resides between Athens, Greece -  Duhok, Kurdistan, Iraq and Mariupol, Ukraine. He follows developments in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. He is documenting humanitarian issues, life in refugee camps and the plight of the Peshmerga Kurdish fighters.

We are collecting dry food.

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"This is my first visit to Thessaloniki. I am struck by the traces of French presence in the city.”

-- Jean Quatremer

The Dukakis Center hosted the distinguished French journalist Jean Quatremer for a Dukakis Lecture on Friday, November 20, at the Municipality of Thessaloniki. The event was co-sponsored by the French Institute of Thessaloniki and the Journalists Union of Macedonia-Thrace, with further support from the Consulate-General of France in Thessaloniki and TV100. The entire event was conducted as an exchange with Mr. Filios Stangos, Director-General of TV100, who moderated it in the form of an extended interview.

The event began with the observation of a minute of silence in memory of the victims of terrorist attacks in Kenya, Beirut, Paris, and, on the very day of the event, Mali, and an elegant homage in Greek by Consul-General Christophe Le Rigoleur. Mr. Le Rigoleur poited out that “our moral and political obligation is to defend the democracy that some want to dissolve”.

Along the same lines, Mr. Quatremer expressed his concerns regarding the possible loss of individual freedoms and the rise of the extreme right as a reaction to the Paris terrorist attacks and the ongoing refugee crisis. He warned that “if we undermine democracy then the terrorists win and that was their goal”.

Subsequently, Mr. Quatremer presented his point of view for Greece and the financial crisis, mentioning that Greeks do not have the State they deserve. He expressed his wish that the Tsipras administration will move into implementing the necessary reforms. He stressed that “Mr. Tsipras must succeed for the good of Greece and the good of Eurozone and Europe”.

He pointed out that through the years the European Union trusted blindly the various Greek administrations but has now moved to the other extreme – change that might explain the crisis during the first six months of the Tsipras administration. He moved on by saying that Greece should not have been accepted into the Eurozone but now Greece and the European Union are like a married couple and “they will grow old together”.

Finally, regarding the refugees, the French journalist pointed that Greece should have requested help from the rest of Europe early on, something that has been realized only now.

The event closed with a formal questions & answers period and a reception where the audience had the opportunity to individually talk to Mr. Quatremer.