Don Dodge is a Developer Advocate at Google helping developers build new applications on Google platforms and technologies. Don is also an advisor to Google Ventures providing advice on venture capital investments. Prior to joining Google Don was a startup evangelist at Microsoft. Don is also a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks.

Don has been in the software business for more than 25 years. He started his software career with Digital Equipment, aka DEC, in the database group. He was part of the leadership team of five software startups. Forte Software was the first multiplatform object oriented development environment. AltaVista was the first search engine on the web. Napster was the first P2P file sharing network. Bowstreet was the first web services development environment. Groove Networks was the first secure P2P collaboration platform.

Marily Nika was born in 1985 in Athens, Greece. She taught herself how to code in BASIC at the age of 8 after discovering her brother’s programming books. She gradually developed a strong passion for maths, computers and the Internet. Marily graduated from the Department of Maritime Studies of the University of Piraeus and then decided to pursue her dream of studying Computer Science. In 2011 she was the first Greek student to receive Google’s Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, which enabled her to pursue a PhD at the department of Computing, Imperial College London, in the Analysis, Engineering, Simulation & Optimization of Performance group.

Marily graduated from the department of Maritime Studies of the University of Piraeus and then decided to continue her studies in London. She focused her PhD in exploring to what degree epidemiological models can be applied to big data sets in order to provide insights about the Social Phenomena on the Internet, and she has worked with data for Facebook and for Google. Marily has received various awards including a medal for Outstanding Achievement in extramural activities by Imperial College London, for being an inspirational role model and aspiring woman in tech. In 2013, she gave a talk at TEDxZurich entitled “A futurespective of a life yet to be lived: My hypothetical daughter’s career in tech in 2055”.

Keith Lowe is a British historian and an expert on the Second World War and its consequences. His books include the critically acclaimed Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg 1943, and the international bestseller Olethros (Savage Continent), which won the 2013 Hessell Tiltman Prize for history.

He is a regular speaker on TV and radio, and has lectured all over Europe and America on twentieth century history.

He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Born in Cambridge, England to Sudanese Iranian parents, Javid went to medical school at UCL, graduating in 2003.

Whilst undertaking specialist training in Emergency Medicine in London, ha has been in the field with Médecins sans Frontières in Iraq, Haiti, Lebanon, South Sudan and most recently Sierra Leone.

He also freelances as a reporter for the Al Jazeera English show The Cure, recording the fourth series later this year. The show focuses on innovative solutions to health problems around the world.

Romain Lacombe just stepped down as Head of Innovation and Development of Etalab, the French Prime Minister’s task force for Open Government Data, which he helped create in 2011 after authoring a seminal report on Open Data’s potential for France.
At Etalab, Romain focused on policy delivery, startups outreach and international relations, representing his country in G8 Open Data Charter technical negotiations in 2013 and coordinating France’s recent adhesion to the Open Government Partnership.

A former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, environmental researcher and World Bank consultant, Romain graduated in Physics, Applied Mathematics and Economics from Ecole Polytechnique and holds a MS in Technology Policy from MIT where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He is now launching an Internet of Things startup for greener cities.

Stuart Armstrong’s research at the Future of Humanity Institute centres on formal decision theory, the risks and possibilities of Artificial Intelligence, the long term potential for intelligent life, and anthropic (self-locating) probability. He is particularly interested in finding decision processes that give the “correct” answer under situations of anthropic ignorance and ignorance of one’s own utility function, ways of mapping humanity’s partially defined values onto an artificial entity, and the interaction between various existential risks. He aims to improve the understanding of the different types and natures of uncertainties surrounding human progress in the mid-to-far future.

Angelos is a high school senior from the Greek city of Arta, and was a creative spirit from a young age. He believed in finding ways to help people; that’ s how he came up with the PEACE (Portable Evasine Assistance) device, which may prove valuable for people with visual impairment. The device is a pair of glasses using ultrasound to detect and help avoid obstacles in the environment of an individual with visual impairment. His invention won the Local Award in Google’s 2014 Science Fair last June, encouraging him to continue his efforts and develop solutions in the future for individuals with impairment. The letter that accompanied his project also mentioned that from the age of 13 he was already sensitized to issues faced by blind people and was determined to create a device that would assist them.

His parents are the journalist Kostas Getsis and the merchant Loretta Retsa, and he lives in the Greek city of Arta where he also goes to high school. After graduation, next June, he wants to be admitted to the Informatics Engineering of the University of Ioannina. He loves spending his summers at his mother’s village, Plaisia Katsanochorion.

Kajsa Ekis Ekman was born in Stockholm 1980. She is a journalist and author of two books, “Being and being bought” about trafficking in women, and “Stolen Spring” about the eurocrisis and its consequences for Greece.

Her books have been translated into several languages and she lectures around the world about crisis theory, women’s rights and Latin American politics.

She is a critic at Sweden’s major daily Dagens Nyheter and an op-ed writer for the newspaper ETC.

She is the founder of the climate action movement Klimax and the solidarity network NFG.

Born in Athens, Fotini Tsalikoglou studied Psychology at the University of Geneva under Jean Piaget. She is currently Professor of Psychology at Panteion University in Athens where she teaches Criminal Psychology and Clinical Psychology through Literature and Art.

Her scientific books include “The myth of the dangerous mentally ill”, “Mythologies of violence and repression”,’ “The psychology of everyday life”, “Psychology: The traps of the self-evident”, “Soul in the land of things”, “Schizophrenia and murder: In search for the lost paradise”.

She is the author of many novels including “I dreamed I was well”, “Eros pharmakopoios”, “All of the world’s Yes”, “I, Martha Freud”, “The daughter of Anthi Alkaiou”, “8 hours 35 minutes”, “Mipos” (with M. Karapanou), “You don’t love me, you love me”, “The paradox of maternal love (the letters of M.Lyberakis to her daughter M. Karapanou” and the fairy tale “Τhe fairy of the Earth”.

Her novels have been translated in many languages.

She has worked as a scientific director of documentary TV films on issues related to social exclusion, madness, women prisons, narrating life as a novel.

She is a regular contributor to Athenian newspapers (Vima) and magazines commenting on the current social scene.

Carrying the reader at the crossroads of science and art, Tsalikoglou’s work probes into the internal, agonizing conflicts and dilemmas of human existence.

Max Kriegleder is a robotics researcher at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Max is working with distributed dynamic systems where multiple autonomous robots join to complete a common task in a collaborative fashion. This approach has the potential of making the execution of various tasks more flexible, robust to failures, and more efficient when compared to monolithic systems. His research focuses on exploiting recent advances in computation, sensing, and communication technologies enabling multiple robots to cooperate in different contexts.

Most of his research revolves around the Distributed Flight Array, a modular robotics platform consisting of multiple autonomous vehicles that cooperate to drive on the ground and fly in a coordinated fashion when connected together.

Max studied Mechanical Engineering in Munich, Germany and is a member of an artist collective that creates installations in public spaces and uses the face and inside of buildings as a canvas for light projections. The collective collaborated in 2012 with the music ensemble Buccinatoris and performed in several ancient Swiss churches.

Gravity Sketch is a tool for creatives to quickly and intuitively sketch in 3D using augmented reality.

Gravity Sketch was started in London between four Innovation Design Engineering students from the Royal College of Art. During their studies they decided to challenge the existing tools of creation. Through intuition and inspiration from Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, they developed a series of experiments, questioning the human behaviour during the creative process. After a long process of understanding people and the future of creation, Gravity Sketch was born.

Once they tested their innovation with designers and architects they realized they had created something special, that allowed people to materialize and communicate ideas in the most interesting ways, from fine artists to game developers, architecture to planning a medical surgery.

After graduation, this group of innovators decided to jump into the next chapter, entrepreneurship. Their dream has since been to bring Gravity Sketch to the hands of creatives willing to challenge traditional creation and join the digital revolution.

Their mission is to enable the communication of an idea in a much more intuitive way, without relying on complicated software to learn how to perspective draw or build a physical model. By introducing the digital world into our physical space, they are pushing the idea of seamless communication with people in the same room and in other parts of the world.

Titos Patrikios, son of the actors Spiros and Lela Patrikios, was born in Athens. He graduated from Varvakeios School in 1946 and immediately continued his studies at the University of Athens Law School, practicing law after his graduation for a few years. During the German Occupation he was active in the Resistance Movement, initially enlisted in EPON (United Panhellenic Organization of Youth) and then in ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army). In 1944, he was sentenced to death by collaborators with the German occupiers, but his sentence was annulled at the last minute. During his military service, he was exiled in the islands of Makronissos (1951-1952) and Ai Stratis (1952-1953), from where he was allowed to return to Athens. Between 1959-1964, he studied Sociology at the “Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes” of Paris and participated in research performed by the National Center for Scientific Research of France. He returned to Greece, but as soon as the dictatorship of Papadopoulos was established he sought refuge again in Paris, where he participated in various protests against the illegal regime, and worked as a consultant at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris and FAO in Rome. In 1975, he went back to Greece and worked as a lawyer, sociologist and literary translator. In 1982, he re-assumed the role he had before 1967 in the Greek Center of Social Sciences. In Athens, he also worked at the Center for Marxist Studies.

He was first introduced in the world of literature in 1943 with the publication of one of his poems in the literary magazine “Xekinima tis Niotis”. In 1954, his first poetry collection was published entitled “Chomatodromos”. He was a founding member of the literary magazine “Epitheorisi Technis”, where he published many articles and reviews after 1954, while many of his essays were included in compiled versions of the magazine. He was also involved in the area of translation (texts by Stendhal, Aragon, Majakowskij, Neruda, Gogol, Garaudy, Lukács) and prose, while most of his studies in sociology are written in French. His works have been translated in French, Flemish, German and Dutch. In 1994, he received the Greek national poetry prize for his entire oeuvre.

As an accomplished design leader, writer, presenter and tech pundit, Dean is helping to design and shape the future for Automotive, Publishing, Music, Film, Education and Leisure sectors, to name but a few. Creative conundrums and technological hurdles are merely challenges, not barriers.

Tell an engaging story seamlessly woven through the digital and physical fabric of our lives, then punctuate it with the unexpected! Dean will bring this philosophy to life at TEDx Athens 2014 by providing the perfect canvas to tell another four-dimensional story.

Dean was a finalist in the 2014 Shorty Awards, presents the ‘Gadgetarium’ on the Dadsaster podcast, is Inspector Gadget on Nikki Bedi’s BBC London 94.9 show, writes for Computer Arts, iCreate, Apps Magazine and his own blog www.activrightbrain.com and wrote the number 1 interactive iBook ‘Digital Publishing: The Next Steps’.

Fotis Katsikaris, married with two children, is a professional basketball coach. He became involved with this sport at a very young age, since he started playing when he was 8 years old.

After a short break from the courts, during which he studied economics and business administration in California, USA, he returned to Greece where he started his coaching career for AEK BC in 1998. From there he moved to Europe where he coached Dynamo St Petersburg in Russia, followed by Valencia BC and Bilbao BC in Spain.

He has worked as a scouter for the Boston Celtics NBA team for two seasons and has participated as a spokesman in various basketball and entrepreneur clinics all over Europe.

In 2013 he was voted Eurocup Coach of the year by the Euroleague Basketball but what he considers, as his greatest reward, is the multicultural experience he has gained over the last ten years living and working abroad, along with his family.

He is currently the head coach of the national Greek basketball team.

Julian Treasure is founder and chairman of The Sound Agency, a UK-based audio branding consultancy that asks and answers the question: “How does your brand sound?”. For over 10 years The Sound Agency has been proving that good sound is good business for clients such as Harrods, Nokia, BP and many major shopping malls across Europe.

His book Sound Business is the seminal work on creating intentional, effective business sound. He has been widely featured as a sound and communication expert in the world’s radio, print and web media, including TIME Magazine, The Economist and The Times.

Julian is also a sought-after and top-rated international speaker. Collectively his five TED.com talks on various aspects of sound and communication have been viewed an estimated sixteen million times.

Kate Raworth is an economist focused on the rewriting of economics to make it fit for addressing this century’s realities and challenges. She is the creator of the doughnut of social and planetary boundaries which, since being first published by Oxfam in 2012, has gained widespread international recognition and influence in reframing sustainable development, including shaping the United Nations’ post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. She is currently writing Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21^st century economist, to be published by Random House in Spring 2016.

Kate is a senior visiting research associate and lecturer at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, and a senior associate of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. She has presented doughnut economics widely – from the UN General Assembly to the Occupy Movement – and her writing has featured in The Guardian, The New Statesman, Resurgence, Nature Climate Change, and Wired. She has been named by The Guardian as “one of the top ten tweeters on economic transformation”.

Over the past two decades she was senior researcher at Oxfam, co-author of the UN Human Development Report, and a fellow of the Overseas Development Institute in Zanzibar. She holds a first class BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and a MSc in Economics for Development, both from Oxford University.

Luke Harding is a journalist, writer and award-winning correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the Cold War.

His latest book “The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man” was published in February by Guardian Faber. In June Oliver Stone bought film rights. Luke is the author of three previous non-fiction books. They are “The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken” (1997), nominated for the Orwell Prize; and “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy” (2011), both written with David Leigh. The screen rights to Wikileaks were sold to Hollywood and the film, “The Fifth Estate”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl, came out in 2013. “Mafia State: How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia” appeared in 2011. His books have been translated into 20 languages.

Don Levy has been at the forefront of the entertainment industry’s digital transformation throughout his career as a senior executive in animation, visual effects, digital media, television and movies.

Levy spent 17 years at Sony Pictures where he was instrumental in the establishment and growth of the studio’s visual effects, animation, post-production, and digital entertainment businesses.   Marketing positions at Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros Television, and more than 25 feature film assignments preceded his Sony tenure.  He is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy.

Don established Smith Brook Farm as a creative consultancy to help thought leaders and businesses grow. His relationships include The ETC@USC, a think tank on emerging tech affiliated with the School of Cinematic Arts, Cosmic Forces, a multifaceted digital production studio; Reincloud, an innovator in augmented and virtual reality, and Zerply, a talent and recruiting network for visual effects, animation and games. He also teaches Entertainment Marketing for Boston University’s Los Angeles program and has been a visiting scholar at USC.

Levy often speaks on the topics of innovation, visual communications and visual effects. His 2012 talk on the principles and development of visual effects is on TED.com.

She received a BA in Acting from Arizona State University. She is the co-founder and co-executive producer of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival. Maysoon was a full-time On Air Contributor to Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and has most recently appeared on The Queen Latifah Show and The Meredith Vieira Show. Maysoon is a recurring columnist at The Daily Beast and was a speaker at TEDWomen 2013. Maysoon has appeared on Comedy Central, PBS, CNN, HBO, MTV, ABC, BBC, and had a feature role in Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.

As a professional comedian, Maysoon has toured extensively in the United States and abroad. She was a headliner on the Arabs Gone Wild Comedy Tour and The Muslims Are Coming Tour. Maysoon’s screenplay, LAW, was chosen for the Sundance Middle Eastern Screenwriters Lab and she was named one of 21 leaders of the 21st century by Women’s Enews. She is the founder of Maysoon’s Kids, a scholarship and wellness program for disabled and wounded refugee children and was delighted to be a 2013 honoree of United Cerebral Palsy NYC’s Women Who Care Awards.

Faraz Warsi is the Chief Doodler and the lead interactive designer at 3Doodler.

Since his time with 3Doodler he has created a globally recognised brand, designed and built an immersive e-commerce experience and an online stage for the 3Doodler community to download stencils and showcase photos of their doodled creations. He is also appointed as 3Doodler’s Chief Doodler coming up with innovative ways to use the 3Doodler in all aspects of your life. Some of his best work include action figures, lamp shade, and even a moving ferris wheel! If you can think it, he can doodle it. His Doodles have been displayed at 3D print shows all over the world from Brazil to Hong Kong where he currently resides. He has also recently live doodled on BBC’s Blue Peter and helped designed the 3Doodler Window display at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Faraz studied Science at the University of Waterloo but changed his focus to pursue his passion for design. With his analytic approach to design Faraz has over 10 years of international experience, during which Faraz has helped build brand-orientated campaigns for Kinder, Energizer, NFL and Crayola to name a few. He is an expert in web development, user-orientated design, and online brand building.

Athena founded SKEP – Association of Social Responsibility for Children and Youth, envisioning a society of equal rights and opportunities, where all people will feel accepted and useful without discriminations.

She has been President of the Board since the organization was established in 2008 in Athens until today.

With a purpose to fight social stigma and the exclusion of young people with disabilities, SKEP works as a communication and social inclusion platform. Using an innovative experiential methodology and unconventional education it connects young people with disabilities, or living under adverse conditions, with Primary and Secondary Education students.

Through SKEP’s panhellenic interactive programs, Athena has reached more than 20,000 young people (general and special education), teachers, parents and the wider public.  She collaborates with more than 250 institutional, public and private bodies and schools.

For the last seven years, she has focused on how society can tear down the stereotypes and prejudice that lead to the isolation and social exclusion of “different” people.

She grew up in France, from where she came back in 1990. She studied Economics at the Assas – Paris II University. She has worked in advertising and communication consulting until the organization was established.

Born in Sudan, he lives in Greece for over 30 years. He has showed international action in issues regarding the defense of human rights and combating racism and xenophobia. After his admittance in the National Kapodistrian University of Athens in the Faculty of Philosophy he specialized in the training and support for immigrant labor relations issues. As President of the Greek Forum of Migrants he represents the institution in platforms and organisations at national and European level, such as the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), the European Platform for the Rights of Immigrants (EPMWR), EGAM, ECRE etc.

He was the third member of the Council for the Integration of Immigrants in the municipality of Athens, Executive Director of the Commission of the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church on issues of migration and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies (ISTAME) “Andreas Papandreou”.

Katerina Matsa, is a Psychiatrist and a former director of the Drug Dependence Treatment Unit “18 ANO”, operating under the administration of the Attica Psychiatric Hospital and the Greek NHS (ESY). She is married to Savas Michail.

She is honorary president of the Scientific Association of the Attica Psychiatric Hospital, honorary president of the Greek Hospital Doctors Union Federation (OENGE), and president of the Support Association for the Scientific and Social Work of 18 ANO.

She is also chief editor of the historic Greek psychiatry journal “Cahiers Psychiatriques” published since 1984. She belongs to the generation of mental health workers that fought against the brutality of the psychiatric asylum institution, in the wake of the ideas emerging from May ’68, and who are still striving to achieve an emancipating Psychiatry, while struggling against the deliberate demolition of the public health and mental health system.

In the ’80s, along with a small group of mental health workers in the Mental Hospital of Dafni, she fought to create the “18 ANO” program, a drug-free dependence treatment program based on psychotherapy, art and the participation of the dependent individuals in the social process, and she established the collectivity of the treatment group as a foundation of the treatment process. The development of this program faced a tough fight, particularly during the last two decades, against government policies and repressive mechanisms, but also against the academic status quo, the biomedical model of dependence as a “chronic, cerebral disease”, and the enforcement of the substitution policy as a means of social control and exclusion. Today, it counts more than 30 structures within Attica, with model programs for dependent mothers with their children, for teenagers, young women, individuals with co-morbid conditions, Internet addictions, food disorders etc.

Katerina Matsa has published 5 books («Psaxame anthropous kai vrikame skies. To ainigma tis toxikomanias”, “I periptosi Evridiki. I kliniki tis toxikomanias”, “Psychotherapia kai Techni stin apexartisi. To paradeigma tou 18 ANO”, “To adynato penthos kai i krypti. O toxikomanis kai o thanatos”, “Tapeinosi kai ntropi. Gynaikes toxikomaneis”) and has contributed to many collective volumes dealing with mental health and dependency issues.

Since her retirement from the Greek NHS in 2013, she has been participating in the collective work provided by the Social Solidarity Clinics, as a form of resistance against the current humanitarian crisis.

Apostolos Kalfopoulos is an Architect, an Independent Curator and an Art-Critic. He is a Lecturer at the School of Architecture in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki teaching design, art and theory of architecture, applied and visual arts. He is the Founder and Director of DYNAMO a non-profit and independent body, that supports original research and contemporary creation by generating knowledge, creativity and innovation.

His main research and practice interests range from Architectural Design and Visual Arts, to Service and Strategic Design, to Exhibition Design, Product and Communication Design. He has independently curated and designed many exhibitions in museums, international events and exhibition spaces in Greece and abroad. He has also organized and moderated a series of international workshops on architecture, design and art. He has been invited to give lectures in a series of institutions, museums and universities on the relation of Art, Architecture and Design. He has co-organized and participated in many conferences on Architecture, Design, Applied Arts, Visual Arts and Creative Cities. As the founder and director of DYNAMO he has organized and curated more than 40 projects.

He was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Deputy Mayor for Culture, Education and Tourism for the strategic design of short, medium and long-term policies for the Development of Fine and Applied Arts for the Municipality of Thessaloniki. He has been a member of juries of national and international architectural and art competitions. He has edited and curated a series of publications and other media and he has written and published a series of texts in exhibition catalogues of established and upcoming Greek Creators.

Αndreas Polyzogopoulos was born in December of 1981 and grew up in Samiko, a small village in South-West Greece. That’s where he got involved in music by studying guitar at the age of ten.

At sixteen he moved to Athens and started participating in rock and blues bands but soon he discovered jazz. He studieed jazz guitar with Yiotis Samaras at Philipos Nakas Conservatory and in 2000 picked up the trumpet.

In October 2002 he moved to the Netherlands and studied at the Conservatorium Van Amsterdam. He also took lessons from Markus Stockhausen and Angelo Verploegen and followed a workshop with Paolo Fresu in Sardegna. While studying in Amsterdam he played with various multi-ethnic groups and in 2006 he formed “Poly Quartet”, a group that performed his own compositions. In 2008, this band recorded the album “Perfumed Dreams” and won the first place in “Motives for Jazz” competition in Belgium. The same year he graduated from Conservatorium van Amsterdam and returned to Greece.

Andreas colaborated with Tore Brunborg, Michel Portal, Gunter Baby Zomer, Markus Stockhausen, Tony Lakatos, Savina Yannatou, Dulce Pontes, Serge Teyssot Gay (Noir Desires), Anne Paceo, Kostas Theodorou, Yiorgos Kontrafouris, Mode Plagal, Nikos Sidirokastritis, Yiotis Kiourtsoglou, David Lynch, Stavros Lantsias, Haig Yazdjan, Vangelis Katsoulis, Takis Barberis, Thanasis Papakonstantinou among others. He appeared on 40 records, has performed all over Greece and Europe and in 2010 was a member of the European Youth Jazz Orchestra.

His latest project is a CD with songs of his favourite rock band and all-time inspiration Pink Floyd (Heart of The Sun – The music of Pink Floyd, puzzlemusik 2013).

Elena and Fenia Tsikitikou studied at the Higher Professional Dance School “Andromache Kafandari”, graduating with honors in 2010 with a BA in Dance Teaching. In 2008 they took part in the talent show “So you think you can dance” in Greece, where Elena won the first place. This success secured her a three-year full scholarship for postgraduate dance studies in London. In 2010, both sisters moved to London where they started their postgraduate studies in Contemporary Dance in Trinity Laban and got a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Dance. Elena continued her studies at the London Contemporary Dance School, acquiring two additional Master’s degrees in Choreography and Contemporary dance performance.

As a member of the dance group Edge, Elena had the chance to work with some of the most distinguished choreographers in the UK (Trisha Brown, Ben Wright, Yael Flexer) and toured around several cities in England and other worldwide destinations, like Israel, Portugal, Austria and Italy. During her stay in England, apart from her studies, Elena took part in several important choreographic shows and events, in emerging English artist video clips, in fashion events and other artistic happenings.

Fenia also started working in London as a professional dancer.  She was included in many important productions that gave her the opportunity to evolve even more as a dancer and at the same time to give worldwide shows, from Italy to North Korea. Some of the groups she’s worked with include the “Hinged” Dance Company, the “Incandescence” Circus Theatre Company, “Cody’s Moving Group” and “Watkins Dance”. She also took part in music videos of emerging English artists, in fashion shows and other artistic happenings. One of the most important moments of her dancing career was when she took part in one of the biggest international musicals, the West Side Story, where she held one of the key roles in the UK Tour cast for the 2013-2014 season, touring all around the United Kingdom with 370 shows.

This year, they both spend her time between Greece and abroad, since their professional obligations require their presence in both places.

Baby Guru is an ever-evolving musical organism conceived by three childhood friends, in a basement, at the end of 2009. Tired of the typical rock band thing, they lay emphasis on spontaneity and unexpected inspiration, while they cultivate an obsession with the kraut rock legacy, pop melodies, psychedelic music and mama Africa percussion experiments. They remain incurably charmed by the analog warmth of proto-electronica and the raw power of garage punk, while they demonstrate a driving perspective of instinctive grooves and vocal lines that range from meditative to Dadaistic.

They’ve spent 2010 performing live shows in Athens and giving “Yogi Sister” EPs (vol.1 & 2) -a series of primitive recordings- for free download. In 2011, they made a dynamic comeback with their debut album, “Baby Guru”, which was released on March 8th via Inner Ear. They also wrote the soundtrack for the theatrical play “Why I Killed My Best Friend”, directed by Vasia Attarian. Their sophomore LP, “Pieces”, was released in October 2012. It was distributed throughout Europe via Rough Trade and V2 Records and the band was invited to perform at Eurosonic Noorderslag and Europavox (plus some gigs across the Netherlands).

Baby Guru’s third LP, “Marginalia”, was released in March 2014.

Baby Guru are: Prins Obi, King Elephant and Sir Kosmiche.

Yiorgos Tsiatsioulis: Accordion, Keyboards Lefteris Chavoutsas: Classical & Electric Guitar, Duduk Petros Varthakouris: Double Bass, Yiannis Angelopoulos: Drums

The idea of creating this group emerged from the need to express the music tradition of Greece, which is directly linked to the music heritages of many other countries, particularly neighboring. Our goal is to formulate a new music proposal, and to give a new sound and aesthetics to the music scene.

GoJam Group is practically an effort to bridge Mediterranean (oriental – flamenco) and Balkan music cultures through the lens of jazz.

The GoJam Group was formed in 2002 by the accordionist Yiorgos Tsiatsoulis. At first, their repertoire was comprised mainly of jazz covers as well as their own versions of pieces for accordion and bandoneon by Galliano, Piazzola, etc. Soon, the need for a more personal and deeper artistic expression has led to the development of an original repertoire comprised of original compositions by each member.

Yiorgos Tsiatsoulis was born in Athens in 1975. He has been playing the accordion since the age of eight. He started his career by studying classical music, expressing at the same time a particular interest in Greek folk music tradition. He finished his studies in accordion, also studying piano and harmony.

Lefteris Chavoutsas was born in Piraeus in 1968. He has been playing the guitar since the age of 13, focusing his interest in flamenco music. At the same time, He started playing the oud, the bouzouki and the violin researching traditional music themes of Greece.

Petros Varthakouris was born in the island of Paros in 1974. He started playing the piano already from his childhood (7 years old) and expressed a special interest in jazz music. Ten years later his attention switched to guitar and electric bass, while studying at the same time jazz harmony. At the age of 26, he focused his interest in the double bass, an instrument which remains up to this day his great love.

Yiannis Angelopoulos was born in Veria in 1973. He started playing snare drum in the Municipal marching band and very soon got into drums (13 years old). He began his musical studies in Athens and finished them in Rotterdam Conservatoire, where he got his degree in 2002.

All the members of the group have collaborated with many known and unknown Greek artists, playing with them and recording traditional and contemporary Greek music.

Je swing is a musical group that mostly plays Swing-Jazz music and the French gypsy jazz idiom “Jazz manouche”, inspired by the music of the great Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt (1910-1953).

The group was created in the spring of 2012 by four musicians: the guitarist Antonis Arfani, the guitarist Giorgos Chronopoulos, the contrabassist Giorgos Ventouris, and the accordionist Giorgos Tsiatsouli, who come from diverse musical backgrounds though united by their love for Jazz manouche. At first, the band’s direction was the orchestral version of Swing and Jazz manouche. But, in the winter of 2014, Irini Triantafyllidis was added to the “Je swing” musical company enriching the band’s sound with her song and vocal improvisations, and contributing to enhancing its repertoire also towards vocal jazz.

“Je swing” is a flexible band that expands by hosting musicians and dancers, thus enhancing the range of sound and visual performances for the audience-spectators. They perform at various events and spaces where similar musical styles are hosted, but also at Jazz festivals, bars and social events.

The musical ambience alternates between the sweet melancholy of a jazz ballad down to the fun dancing mood of the up-tempo swing, with melodies borrowed from the entire spectrum of the European and American Jazz of the years 1920-1960.