United Nations International Conference on Digital Governance ICEGOV 2020…

The International Conference on Digital Governance, ICEGOV 2020, in Greece

Under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance

Statements from the organizers and the Secretary General of Information Systems

ICEGOV 2020, the international conference on Digital Governance, organized for the past 12 years by the United Nations University in various parts of the world, will be held in Athens for the first time in its history, from March 31 to April 3, 2020.

The conference takes place under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance and in cooperation with the European Commission, the Hellenic Parliament, the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece, the Municipality of Athens, and the Local Government IT Company (DAEM). The publicity partner is the Huffington Post Greece.

ICEGOV 2020 is co-organized in Greece by the Research Center for Electronic Governance of the University of the Aegean, in collaboration with and at the facilities of the Harokopio University of Athens, with the support of laboratories and groups working on Digital Governance from many Greek universities.

After the previous editions in India (2017), Ireland (2018), and Australia (2019), the conference in Greece will focus on the participation of representatives and officials from the public sector in Southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. The conference will be attended by officials from the UN, the European Commission, experts in digital governance from the private and public sectors from around the world, company representatives, organizations, researchers, students, and active citizens.

More than 200 papers from 70 countries have already been submitted for review at the conference.

Yiannis Charalampidis, Associate Professor at the University of the Aegean, Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering in Samos, and President of the Conference Organization Committee, stated: “With ICEGOV coming to Greece for the first time, the pulse of global digital governance will beat in Athens in April and for much of 2020. I believe the conference will significantly help the Greek public sector, the scientific community, and Greek businesses developing related Digital Governance solutions with an international orientation.”

Dimitris Sarantis, researcher at the United Nations University in Guimarães, Portugal, and one of the co-chairs of the conference, stated: “ICEGOV, the annual global institutional meeting of scientific, business, and governmental figures in digital governance, will take place for the first time in a Southeastern European country and will focus on ‘Digital Governance in the Age of Emerging Technologies and Globalization.’ We are particularly looking forward to the presentation of innovative technologies and solutions in key areas of public administration, as well as the development of collaborative ways to address contemporary challenges.”

Professor Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos, Secretary General of Information Systems at the Ministry of Digital Governance, said: “The ICEGOV international conference is a unique opportunity for Greece to interact with experts in digital governance, government officials, and organizations from around the world. As we have already started implementing very important projects related to digital governance, we must seize this unique opportunity to engage with international best practices and present developments from the Greek public sector, as well as from Greek businesses and startups active in the field, to an international audience. Congratulations to the University of the Aegean and Harokopio University for the organization, which we will support with all our might.”

More information about the ICEGOV 2020 international conference can be found at: www.icegov.org

The Aegean University is organizing in Greece the United…

ICEGOV 2020, the conference organized for the past 12 years by the United Nations University in various parts of the world, will be held in Athens, Greece, for the first time in its history, from March 31 to April 3, 2020.

ICEGOV 2020 is co-organized in Greece by the Research Center for e-Government of the University of the Aegean, in collaboration with and hosted at the facilities of Harokopio University in Athens, with the support of laboratories and teams working on Digital Governance from many Greek universities.

Following recent editions in India (2017), Ireland (2018), and Australia (2019), the conference in Greece will focus on the participation of public sector representatives and officials from Southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. The conference will feature experts from the private and public sectors worldwide, UN and European Union officials, company representatives, organizations, researchers, students, and active citizens.

Representatives from all groups involved in the Digital Transformation of states and public sector organizations are invited to attend the conference:

Researchers and solution implementers can submit their papers on a wide range of topics: Digital Transformation, Open Data, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Government 3.0, Legal & Policy Informatics, and their applications in policy are some of the themes of the conference. PhD candidates in the field of Digital Governance can submit the progress and achievements of their doctoral dissertations and receive guidance from experienced researchers and professors. Business and public sector organization executives can submit short papers with their solutions or experiences and present them to an international audience.

Additionally, there will be special sessions with invited speakers, special presentations for public sector representatives, social events, and awards for the best papers and presentations. All papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library Proceedings, while the best papers will be published in the Government Information Quarterly, the most prestigious scientific journal in the field (SCI, Impact Factor 5+).

Yiannis Charalampidis, Associate Professor at the University of the Aegean, Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering in Samos, and Conference Chair, stated: “We are happy that, after an international competition, we took on the organization of ICEGOV 2020. So, after India, Ireland, and Australia, the pulse of Global Digital Governance will beat in Athens in April and for much of 2020. We want to help the Greek public sector, the Greek scientific community, and especially Greek companies developing relevant solutions and services with an international orientation to seize this significant opportunity, and we look forward to their ideas and proposals.”

More information about the international conference ICEGOV 2020, as well as the call for papers, with a submission deadline at the end of September 2019, can be found at : www.icegov.org

Berkeley University and the University of the Aegean are…

Students from the University of California, Berkeley, as part of their studies in entrepreneurship and innovation at the Sutardjia Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET), collaborated with a team of students from the University of the Aegean, from the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering in Samos, under the coordination and supervision of professors from both universities.

Choosing one of the three topics proposed by Professor Yiannis Charalampidis from the University of the Aegean in the Data-X course at Berkeley, taught by Professor Ikhlaq Sidhu, the Berkeley team’s first goal was to create an open database encompassing a wide range of data for the Aegean Islands.

Παράλληλα, και δουλεύοντας 10.000 μίλια και 10 “ώρες” πιο μακριά, η Ελληνική Ομάδα αποτελούμενη από μεταπτυχιακούς φοιτητές στην Ηλεκτρονική Διακυβέρνηση και στην Ψηφιακή Καινοτομία του Τμήματος Μηχανικών Πληροφοριακών και Επικοινωνιακών Συστημάτων στη Σάμο, που υλοποιούσαν τη Διπλωματική τους εργασία, συγκέντρωνε δεδομένα από εθνικούς και τοπικούς ιστότοπους, κυρίως της Ελλάδας.

Η ομάδα του Berkeley ολοκληρώνοντας πρώτη, παρέδωσε  χρήσιμες πληροφορίες και ενδεικτικές οπτικοποιήσεις δεδομένων, αναγνωρίζοντας τη συμβολή των «Ελλήνων». Με τη σειρά της η Ελληνική ομάδα, παρέδωσε ένα πιο  πλήρες, διαδικτυακό σύστημα, βασισμένο στα τελευταία πρότυπα και εργαλεία ανοικτού λογισμικού  (CKAN, WordPress), με δυναμικές οπτικοποιήσεις των νησιωτικών δεδομένων και την ικανότητα «έξυπνης» ανίχνευσης επιχειρηματικών ευκαιριών.

Η «βάση ανοικτών δεδομένων για επιχειρηματίες» είναι σε δοκιμαστική λειτουργία στο  http://islab.samos.aegean.gr/openaegean/ ενώ στελέχη της Δημόσιας Διοίκησης και της Τοπικής Αυτοδιοίκησης καλούνται σε συνεργασία, καθώς το Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου προσεγγίζεται ήδη από  φορείς και ξένες πρεσβείες.

Κοινές επιστημονικές εργασίες πραγματοποιούνται σε σταθερό, ανερχόμενο ρυθμό, ανάμεσα σε ομάδες φοιτητών του Πανεπιστημίου Αιγαίου, σε συνεργασία με ξένα ΑΕΙ, βρισκόμενες σε διάφορα στάδια σχεδιασμού και ανάπτυξης.

Participation of students from the Department of Information and…

The undergraduate students of the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, Georgios Kakouliadis and Nikolaos Athanasiou, will participate in the Mindspace Trip (https://www.mindspace.gr/trip) in the USA, which connects young people with entrepreneurship.

They will present two projects:

1. The NGO company BrainFirst (https://brainfirst.gr), which aims to bridge the gap between technology and education, and
2. The IT services company Petaflop Solutions (https://petaflopsolutions.com), where, utilizing the knowledge they have gained from the university as well as their personal study, they provide comprehensive digital solutions for businesses.

More information: https://paratiritis-news.gr/details.php?id=217707

University of the Aegean participates in and is awarded…

The participation of student teams from the University of the Aegean in the 3rd Innovation Marathon for smart cities, “City Challenge,” which was organized in Athens by the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE), was completed with great success. Over 150 participants took part in the competition, presenting innovative ideas for transportation, waste management, citizen participation, safety, and quality of life in modern cities.

The University of the Aegean had more than 15 students in the final, making it the largest participation from a Greek university, with the following teams:

Design your City – A participatory governance platform for proposing ideas for municipal projects, utilizing cryptocurrencies to reward citizens who participate (implemented by Christos Soterelis, Zacharias Mitzelos, Nikolaos Bousios, and Iosifina Maragkou / University of the Aegean)

Bee Open – A Liquid Democracy application for local government (implemented by Christos Christou, Panagiotis Keramidis, Athanasios Kapsalis, and Nikolaos Stylianos Potaris / University of the Aegean)

Think Out Of The Code – An application for managing volunteering in municipalities (implemented by Konstantinos Kalyvas, Filippos Alexakis, Athanasios Moira, Nikolaos Katsilidis / University of the Aegean and Despoina Kalyva / University of Patras)

OctoQueue – A smart queue management application for museums, archaeological sites, and other city attractions (implemented by Emelia Myriam Michail, Maria Durmetaki, and Markos Paleologos / University of the Aegean)

After the evaluation process of over 30 proposals that reached the final stage of the competition, the Design your City team from the University of the Aegean won second place in the competition, with a cash prize of €3,000. The participation of the University of the Aegean students was supported by KEDE, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit, and the University of the Aegean’s Property Exploitation and Management Company.

Students from the department were awarded in the hackathon:…

Students Zacharias Mitzelos and Panagiotis-Stefanos Makos from the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering of the University of the Aegean, members of the EL/LAK Community of the Department, participated in the “Crowdhackathon #agriculture” hackathon, which took place from April 5-7, 2019, in Athens. The goal of this hackathon, with over 350 participants, was to create innovative, original pilot applications that improve existing e-services and processes of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food and its supervised bodies, as well as propose new value-added services for those involved in the agri-food sector. The students’ application won second place, out of 27 other teams.

The team from the Department focused on the issue that many landowners do not utilize their farmland, and in some cases, owning land can become a burden for the owner (taxes, basic maintenance, deforestation, etc.). On the other hand, there are farmers who need additional land to expand their production, test a new crop, or are newcomers to the field and do not wish or are unable to take the risk of purchasing land. The application developed by the student team aims to act as an “intermediary” that will connect these two parties, enabling the underutilized farmland to be used through a simple, low-risk, and low-cost transaction, benefiting both the tenant and the owner.

AEGEAN Startups at the University of Berkeley!

For the first time, Greek students and professors participate in the Berkeley Entrepreneurship Bootcamp

The participation of a team of Greek students and professors in the University of Berkeley’s entrepreneurship accelerator was successfully completed in January 2019. The Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp is an entrepreneurship training program where selected students and researchers from around the world present and develop their ideas with the help of professors, mentors, and investors from Silicon Valley and the wider San Francisco Bay Area.

The first award-winning teams from Aegean Startups (students from the University of the Aegean and the National Technical University of Athens), as well as researchers from the University of the Aegean, participated in the Berkeley Bootcamp, among about 120 participants selected from 15 countries. The Greek students and researchers participated in three ideas/teams, which were among the best proposals presented:

• MyNequin, software for creating 3D models for online clothing shopping (Leader: UC Berkeley, Team: Greece, US, India)\
• Social Food, an app that allows leftover portions in restaurants to be given to socially supported families (Leader: University of the Aegean, Team: US, South Korea, Japan)
• VR Community, a digital community around virtual reality (Leader: Sunway University, Malaysia, Team: US, Greece, Malaysia)

Yiannis Charalambidis, Associate Professor at the University of the Aegean and head of Aegean Startups, stated: “The participation of the Greek team in the University of Berkeley’s entrepreneurship accelerator is part of a continuous effort to collaborate with the renowned American university. For the first time, Greek students showcased their ideas and potential in an international, competitive environment, and we all learned important lessons about working methods, strategies, and secrets to success for new businesses that emerge from universities and research. We thank the supporters of this initiative, which we want to continue.”

Giorgos Kamourakis, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering at the University of the Aegean, based in Samos, said: “We are particularly happy that students and professors from our department and university are participating and succeeding in the international environment of one of the world’s top universities. Extroversion, international collaborations, and global excellence are some of the principles we strive to follow in practice, despite any difficulties.”

The participation of the Greek team at UC Berkeley was financially supported by the University of the Aegean’s Property Exploitation and Management Company, the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, the Information Systems Laboratory of the University of the Aegean, and the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE).

More information can be found on the website www.aegean-startups.gr.