Athens, Rising

It was Saturday night in Athens, and I was surrounded by dozens of young Greeks on the packed veranda of Six d.o.g.s., a cafe-bar and arts space that runs the length of an alleyway in the Monastiraki neighborhood. It was the 10-year anniversary party for Laternative, a local radio show launched in the wake of the country’s debt crisis, and people spilled into the gallery space, gathered under light-strung trees in the back garden and in the club area where the first of several bands was about to play.

Most of the partygoers looked to be in their early and mid 20s, just like I was the first time I came to this exact spot nearly 12 years ago, back when it was a tiny indie rock bar called Kinky. Standing here now, I could almost see myself as I was then: a 24-year-old backpacker sitting alone in the corner, smoking cheap Greek cigarettes and nursing a raki, unaware that my life had come to a crossroads.

There are places we live and places we visit, and then there are the other places. Places we return to, where we put down roots, but not strong enough roots to hold us — places that change us, that we haunt and are haunted by. Nowhere embodies this for me more than Athens, a city I’ve watched shift and evolve, endure crisis and chaos and economic collapse, and yet emerge from the wreckage as one of the continent’s most vibrant and significant cultural capitals, more popular than ever as a tourist destination. (Last year Athens welcomed a record 5 million visitors, double the 2012 figure.)

'The HOME Project' NGO is taking refugee kids off the streets of Athens (video)

Children are the silent heart of the refugee crisis. More than half of the world’s displaced population comprises minors torn from their war-ridden homelands who cross European borders in search of security and well-being. Many are unaccompanied and particularly vulnerable, prone to exploitation or violence similar to that they are fleeing. With the closure of the Greek borders, it is estimated that 2,100 children remain homeless and stranded in the country.

At the same time, an eight-year financial crisis has led to the creation of another problem in the Athenian urban landscape: numerous uninhabited and often abandoned buildings across the center of the city, in various states of continuous decay.

Where most people would detect two unrelated problems, Sofia Kouvelaki envisioned a solution that would benefit everyone. Kouvelaki is the head of the HOME Project, a nongovernmental organization that aims to provide security, support and social inclusion services to young refugees arriving in Greece. The principal tool of the initiative is the organization’s shelters: 11 formerly abandoned buildings which the initiative has rented and refurbished, converting them into welcoming homes for unaccompanied minors.

MoMA opens applications for four 12-month internships for Greek nationals

As a sponsor of the J-1 visa program, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is committed to providing opportunities for international students and emerging professionals to learn about the practices and organizational systems of an American museum. To this end, with the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, MoMA is accepting applications for four 12-month internships for Greek nationals.

racecheck: Πώς δύο αδέλφια δημιούργησαν το «TripAdvisor» των αθλητών

Ο Αλέξανδρος και η Κατερίνα Τάντη είναι δύο αδέλφια που δεν είχαν ποτέ καμία επαγγελματική σχέση με τον αθλητισμό. Με καριέρες στον τραπεζικό τομέα και οι δύο, δεν είχαν σκεφτεί ποτέ να ασχοληθούν με κάτι άλλο.

Όμως η ζωή και οι ευκαιρίες που δεν άφησαν να τους προσπεράσουν, τους έφεραν μπροστά από μια εκπληκτική ιδέα. Να δημιουργήσουν μια κοινότητα μέσω της οποίας οι αθλητές μοιράζονται τις εμπειρίες και τις εντυπώσεις τους (race reviews) από αγώνες διαφόρων αθλημάτων που συμμετέχουν σε όλο τον κόσμο. Τα δύο αδέλφια δημιούργησαν ένα ιδιότυπο “TripAdvisor” αλλά για αγώνες (μάλιστα αρχικά το ονόμασαν race advisor), απλά και μόνο για να βοηθήσουν ανθρώπους που ήθελαν να αντλήσουν πληροφορίες και να ανταλλάξουν τις εμπειρίες τους για διάφορους αγώνες.

Tesla Greece R&D group to tap into strong local electrical engineering talent

Tesla’s engineering and design teams are primarily based in the US and especially in California, but the company has been expanding internationally over the last few years with teams in the UK and Germany. 

Now we learn that the automaker is also building a small research and development office in Athens, Greece to develop new electric motor technologies.

Several reports came out of Greece over the last few weeks about rumors of Tesla establishing a local presence in the country. 

The nature of the company’s presence was never clear since Greece is a market that Tesla has yet to officially enter. electrek reached out to the company for a comment on the situation and a spokesperson confirmed that Tesla is establishing a local research and development office:     

“Tesla is building a small research and development office in Athens, which will be comprised of a highly-qualified engineering team. This team will focus solely on limited research and development activities to accelerate electric motor technology development through close collaboration with our team in the US.”

Μειώθηκε κατά 80% η χρήση πλαστικής σακούλας στα σουπερμάρκετ τον Ιανουάριο

Με τους 6 στους 10 έλληνες να δηλώνουν ότι θα πάψουν να χρησιμοποιούν πλαστικές σακούλες και μόνο το 11% να δηλώνει ότι θα συνεχίζει να πληρώνει για την σακούλα του σουπερμάρκετ αισιόδοξα είναι τα μηνύματα από τον πρώτο μήνα εφαρμογής του νέου μέτρου με στόχο να μείωση της χρήσης της πλαστικής σακούλας.

Είναι ενδεικτικό ότι στο 80% έφτασε η μείωση της χρήσης πλαστικής σακούλας στα σουπερμάρκετ με τα στοιχεία να δείχνουν αύξηση της χρήσης στις πωλήσεις τσαντών πολλαπλών χρήσεων που ξεπερνά το 5.000%. Το ποσοστό αυτό αντιπροσωπεύει πρακτικά 2,5-3 εκατ. νέες τσάντες πολλαπλών χρήσεων στην αγορά , γεγονός που σημαίνει ότι πάνω από 2 στα 3 νοικοκυριά επιλέγουν τη λύση αυτή για τις αγορές τους, έναντι της πληρωμής για πλαστική σακούλα μίας χρήσης.

Lisa Campbell: the grandmother who took 2,000 refugees under her wing in Oinofyta

When Lisa Campbell arrived in Greece in November 2015 to help care for the flood of refugees she planned on staying for just a few weeks. She ended up running a refugee camp - until it was suddenly closed last month. What made an American Mormon grandmother of six leave behind her family and her job to deal with the chaos of Greece's refugee crisis?

Like most people in the US, I hadn't been aware of the scale of the refugee disaster until the pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach started being shown on US news in 2015.

But it wasn't until I actually got here and saw for myself the piles of life jackets and the boats stacked on the beach that the magnitude of it really hit me.

I had taken a leave of absence from my job and planned to be in Greece for 45 days. My assumption was that I would find people who were housed, fed, and had basic services available.

That first morning on the island of Lesbos, I went out on my balcony and I could see nine boats coming across from Turkey already. You hear people say that the boats are overloaded, but to see 50 people get off of a boat that would be full with 10 is overwhelming. I can't tell you how many times people would get off the boat and literally kiss the ground. That grabs you.

Greece's Leonidis bids farewell to friend and rival Naim Süleymanoğlu at funeral

Valerios Leonidis, Greek weightlifting champion who was a friend and rival of deceased Turkish Olympic weightlifting champion Naim Süleymanoğlu, showed the true nature of sportsmanship once again when he attended the funeral of the "Pocket Hercules" on Sunday.

Among the dozens of fellow athletes and dignitaries at Süleymanoğlu's funeral, Leonidis stood out as he quietly approached the late weightlifter's coffin draped with a Turkish flag and kissed it. He was probably the only Greek national to attend the funeral and few recognized this 51-year-old former weightlifter from Greece.

Yet, it was Leonidis who inadvertently cemented Süleymanoğlu's fame as a record-breaker. In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he and Süleymanoğlu were in the spotlight as two tough rivals expected to bring home more than a few titles.

"The good side of Greece" supports the GoFundMe campaign for seriously injured diving champion Androgeos Sampsakis

Please donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/seriously-injured-diving-champion 


A message by Evangelos "Stefanos" Tzivopoulos, Head Diving Coach / President of the Hellene Clavadistas:

My beloved friends all over the world.

I am doing this GoFundMe for my beloved friend National and International Junior Champion Androgeos Sampsakis.
 
Androgeos is 17 and is an extremely sweet and talented kid. He is the Greek and Balkan champion this year and a very promising athlete.

Stamatis Krimigis Earns Top Honor from International Academy of Astronautics

The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has presented its premier honor — the von Karman Award — to Stamatis 'Tom' Krimigis, eminent space scientist and head emeritus of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

Named for aerodynamics pioneer Theodore von Karman, founder and first president of the IAA, the annual award recognizes outstanding lifetime scientific achievement. In presenting the award on Sept. 24 during its annual Academy Day celebration in Adelaide, Australia, the IAA cited Krimigis for his leadership and scholarship in the space sciences and astronautics, including his discovery and promotion of the physics of energetic particles throughout the solar system and into near-interstellar space; his development of scientific instruments to explore the environments where those particles exist; and his articulation and application of policy-shifting paradigms in robotic space exploration that led to fundamental advances across astronautics.

Krimigis is the only scientist in the world to lead or participate in space physics experiments on all nine classical planets. He has served as a principal investigator on five NASA missions — including the legendary Voyagers and the Cassini Saturn orbiter — and as a co-investigator on many others.