Conference Celebrates Athens as “European Capital of Innovation 2018”
20 FEBRUARY 2019

On Wednesday, February 20th, a conference was to mark the occasion of Athens being named “European Capital of Innovation 2018.” Representatives of the European Union and other innovation capitals (iCapitals), as well as partners and supporters, participated.

The conference included a series of lectures and discussions. The first panel on Athens’s global partnerships, coordinated by Mayor of Athens Giorgos Kaminis, featured speakers such as Deputy Director-General of the European Commission Patrick Child, James Anderson of Bloomberg Philanthropies, representatives of Bloomberg Associates and the Rockefeller Foundation, and Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Chief Operating Officer Panos Papoulias.

The SNF has supported the Municipality of Athens with a €10 million grant for the design and implementation of a series of initiatives including the transformation of the city’s Commercial Triangle, the educational programs Open Schools and Design for Better Learning, and the Athens Coordination Center for Migrant and Refugee Issues. These innovative programs, coordinated as public-private partnerships by the NGO Athens Partnership, contributed to the selection of Athens as the “European Capital of Innovation 2018” by the European Commission.