Foreword

Dear Readers,

the last semester of 2016 was very busy for IIT, with new research projects, numerous conferences, workshops and R&D dissemination activities, important research publications, seminars, lectures and great events like the well-known European Researcher's Night.

We are also very proud for the opening, early October, of the Roboskel Lab, an innovative research area that simulates a real home supervised by advanced robotics technology, a project realised with the support of IKEA and KOTSOVOLOS companies.

Our Institute is always very active in Education with various initiatives and it may be worth mentioning some of the most important between them. As such, we had the launch of a new 2-year postgraduate studies program entitled "Expertise in ICT and Special Education - Psychopedagogy of Integration", in collaboration with the Democritus University of Thrace, which hosts 70 students in each 2-year course. Moreover, for the 5th consecutive year, we organise an annual series of 10 seminars on 'Special Education and ICTs', constructing a "400 hours annual seminar", which kicked-off with a free 2-day seminar in September, attracting over 2000 teachers, educators, psychologists, etc. Also in Education, we had 11 internships completed on-campus, 4 new PhD scholarships announced, the continuation our lecture series, a platform for exchanging ideas and establishing collaborations, and the organisation of a very interesting workshop where our 8 PhD candidates who are working on their dissertation in collaboration with foreign universities presented their progress and future research steps.

I would like to conclude this foreword by wishing everybody a creative, healthy and prosperous New Year 2017!

Stelios C. A. Thomopoulos, IIT Director

Research

13 December: EU project RADIO of SKEL Lab on ERT

Dr. N. Voros from TEI of Western Greece and the RADIO project team have presented on ERT3, the third channel of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), the smart room created for the purposes of the project in the city of Nafpaktos, Greece. Read more

5 October: Opening Day for Roboskel Lab at NCSR Demokritos

An innovative research area that simulates a real home which is supervised by advanced robotics technology, was launched at NCSR "Demokritos" with the support of IKEA and KOTSOVOLOS companies. The area is hosted within the building of the NCSR Demokritos' Library. Read more

Dr. H. Papadopoulos' interviews on ERT

Dr. H. Papadopoulos from IIT was interviewed twice by the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) on September 2016, on the cooperation of NCSR Demokritos with Médecins du Monde – Greece (MdM-Greece) during the 81st Thessaloniki International Fair. Read more

• 25 December: Dr. M. Vafopoulos' (SKEL lab, IIT) article in 'Kathimerini' newspaper, entitled "Infrastructure is not only trains but also the data ...". Read more
• The European Project SPEEDD of SKEL lab, IIT, promoted in the European Commission's CORDIS website. Read more

Publications: Books, Journal articles, Conference papers

New R&D Projects
• Code@Youth (Code and Youth: An Innovative Programme in the Digital Era) (started)
• CY CISE (Cypriot information sharing environment towards an integrated national maritime surveillance awareness and enhancement of cross-sector and cross-border exchange of information) (started)
• e-Women (Innovation and Employability for Women) (started)
• FocusLocus (ADHD management Gaming System for educational achievement and social inclusion) (started)
• Google DNI StoryBot (accepted)
• IASIS (Integration and analysis of heterogeneous big data for precision medicine and suggested treatments for different types of patients) (accepted)
• MARINE-EO (Bridging Innovative Downstream Earth Observation and Copernicus enabled Services for Integrated maritime environment, surveillance and security) (started)
• MaTHiSiS (Managing Affective-learning THrough Intelligent atoms and Smart InteractionS) (started)
Complete list of R&D Projects

Events

19 December: KAS Seminar on Data Journalism

The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Greece organised a seminar in Impact Hub Athens. Dr. Giorgos Giannakopoulos from SKEL, IIT, was one of two instructors who gave practical exercises and advice to participants. The second instructor was the french journalist Nicolas Kayser-Bril. Read more

13 December: IIT in the "Digital Government" conference

Dr. M. Vafopoulos from SKEL, IIT, participated in the conference "Digital Government", in a panel discussion during section #4: "Diffusion of digital actions - Innovation & Entrepreneurship". Read more

5-8 December: IIT in the "EU Summit on Digital Innovation for Active & Healthy Ageing"

Dr. C. Spyropoulos, Dr. V. Karkaletsis and Dr. H. Papadopoulos from IIT participated in the second "European Summit on Digital Innovation for Active & Healthy Ageing", which was held in Brussels, Belgium. Read more

26 October: "Open Data Now", a very successful workshop on Open Data held in Innovathens

The event was organised by ODI Athens and SKEL Lab of IIT, in collaboration with SciFY and GFOSS. Dr. M. Vafopoulos presented the EU project 'Your Data Stories' whilst Dr. I. Klampanos presented the EU project 'Big Data Europe'. Read more

24 October: Dr. C. Spyropoulos member of the committee for "Best City Awards 2016"

The Best City Awards reward Innovation and Quality of Life in Cities. Dr. C. Spyropoulos from IIT was among the members of the committee for the selection of Best Cities 2016, in a ceremony held at the Auditorium of the City of Athens in Technopolis. Read more

11 October: 2nd Workshop of project "Big Data Europe"

The second Big Data Europe (BDE) project workshop, entitled "Broadening Big Data support for Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials", was organised in Brussels, Belgium. Read more

28 & 30 September: 11th European Researcher's Night

This year again, the Researcher's Night was organised and hosted with great success at the NCSR Demokritos campus. More than 8000 visitors of all ages browsed science and art exhibitions, saw experiments, participated in workshops, watched performances, concerts and interesting lectures. NCSR Demokritos organised two events, one of the many national Pre-Events on Wednesday 28/09, and the Main Event on Friday 30/09. Read more

IIT participated in numerous Scientific Events

Between September and December 2016 researchers from IIT participated in Conferences like 'Apache: Big Data Europe 2016', CD-ARES 2016, CLEF 2016, CoNEXT 2016, ECML-PKDD 2016, 'eHealth Forum 2016', HBio 2016, ICLP 2016, ILP 2016, 'INNS Big Data 2016', IoT2016(boussias), IoT2016(naftemporiki), ISWC 2016, '3rd National Conference for the development of Greek Agriculture', PPDP 2016, SITIS 2016, WHINN 2016 & Workshops like 'All Things Cellular 2016', 'Open Data. Now', SMAP 2016, SR 2016.

• 2-3 December: Dr. H. Papadopoulos from IIT participated in the Winter School of Geriatrics at the Hellenic Society for the Study and Research of Ageing (HeSSRA). The Subject of the School was "Research and Management of the risk of falls to erderly people". Read more
• 20-21 October: Dr. V. Karkaletsis from IIT delivered a keynote speech about European project Big Data Europe at the SMAP 2016 workshop, Thessaloniki, Greece. Read more

Education

19 December: IIT / Foreign Universities PhD candidates Workshop

The PhD Candidates of IIT, who are preparing their dissertation in collaboration with foreign universities, presented the progress of their work, as well as their future research steps in a workshop organised at the IIT premices. Read more

4 November: kick-off of a new postgraduate studies program in Special Education and ICT

A new 2-year postgraduate studies program has been launched, entitled "Expertise in ICT and Special Education - Psychopedagogy of Integration", in collaboration with the Democritus University of Thrace, which hosts 70 students in each 2-year course. Read more

30 Sept.: Best Thesis Awards for 2014-2015

Dep. Minister K. Fotakis awarded the four Best PhD theses from NCSR Democritos for the years 2014-2015 (completion year) in memory of graduate students Anastasia Dimozi and Andreas Armatas. Works of Dr. Athanassopoulos and Dr. Daraki took the two 2015 Best PhD thesis awards, while those of Dr. Polychronopoulos and Dr. Sofianou took the two awards for 2014. Read more

24-25 September: "Psychopedagogy of Integration in Special Education with ICT".

Net Media Lab organises, for the 5th consecutive year, an annual series of 10 seminars on 'Special Education and ICTs', constructing a "400 hours annual seminar", which kicked-off with a free 2-day seminar in September, attracting over 2000 teachers, educators, psychologists, etc. Read more

Lecture series at IIT

The IIT Seminar series gives the opportunity to postgraduate students, to new or existing members of the Institute's labs, to internal and external (invited) speakers to present their work and establish collaborations. List of upcoming and past seminars

2016-17: topics for MSc/BSc Theses and internships by IIS

See all the topics proposed by the Intelligent Information Systems (IIS) Division of IIT, for MSc/BSc theses and internships for 2016-17, in scientific areas like algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, image analysis, and many more.

• Internships completed by: Charlaytis Vasilios, Xirouhaki Theano, Zeakis Alexandros, Douska Dimitra-Eleni, Zaras Adamantios, Stamataki-Loukatou Gerasimoula, Mpouras Grigoris, Kotsoni Eleytheria, Saxoni Dimitra, Davvetas Athanasios, Sofianos Alexandros. Read more

Miscellaneous

11 job openings and 4 PhD scholarships at IIT!

IIT keeps on expanding: eleven (11) new job openings and four (4) new PhD scholarships were announced by IIT between September and December 2016.
Complete list of job openings

• Dr. C. Spyropoulos from IIT, after being selected by the Research Community of NCSR "Demokritos", participated as member in the special committee for the election of the new president of the Center. Read more
• Dr. C. Spyropoulos from IIT was member of the committee for the election of a Professor in the area of "Artificial Intelligence" at the University of Macedonia. Read more

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