The first meeting of the various bodies involved in the "Pharos - The Greek AI Factory for accelerating AI innovation" programme took place earlier on Tuesday at the Ministry of Digital Governance.
This "AI Factory", as it is called, which will significantly help Greece in its transition to the era of AI. To achieve this, the public and private sectors, academics and researchers will collaborate, focusing on the areas of health, the Greek language and culture, as well as sustainable development. As explained at the beginning of the first meeting, the operation of this programme will contribute decisively to the development and continued support of an innovative and competitive ecosystem for start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises.
During his speech, Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou emphasised that "it is clear on all of our faces today, it seems that something new and big is beginning. It is this effort that began 1.5 years ago and comes to unite forces and brains. We are here to support the programme with funding, and in the good news of the day, this is just the beginning. Now, however, we are here to bring together bodies, organisations, and universities. It is very important that the most important institution of our democracy, the Hellenic Parliament, has expressed the desire to participate with the enormous wealth of data it has, so yes, the Parliament is also semiologically the first body to come to support these AI Factories. In essence, what are we going to do? Keep all this talent that exists in our country here. We should work to keep all these people in our country, these brilliant scientists, create infrastructure, provide infrastructure with data."
On his part, Deputy Minister of Development responsible for Research and Innovation, Stavros Kalafatis, speaking at the first meeting of the programme, stated that he was happy to be a member of this group. "This is a national effort. Others, such as the Hellenic Parliament, are also participating in this effort. The best results come when there is synergy, an alliance of good people in this difficult, complex and exciting endeavor. As a country, we must succeed and it will have a happy outcome....We have researchers and scientific personnel of rare quality and worth. We have a government with a strong outward-looking outlook and orientation, with a readiness for all good players to work together to achieve the best results for us and our children," he noted.