Thalia Rizou
Thalia Rizou is passionate about navigating complexity to design systemic solutions and transformational change. For the last 7 years, she has been the director of the social innovation agency ”among” and she has worked with the Europen Program for Integration & Migration, Deloitte, Bosch Alumni Network, ChangemakerXchange, London School of Economics, Bodossaki Foundation, Municipalities and more. She has trainers 700+ people from 30+ countries in methodologies that bring social change like project management, human-centered services, systemic thinking etc. If she is not talking about impact, she is probably hiking in the mountains.
Chrysa Petala
Chrysa Petala is the co-founder and Project Manager of innovation agecny “among”, specializing in Facilitating and Visual Notetaking. She has implemented dozens of workshops and projects in Greece and abroad. Optimistic and creative, with professional experience in the social-cultural sector. She has a particular interest in innovative management and the human-centered approach. She studied Accounting and Finance and is certified in Service Design by the IDEO organization. An economist by profession and a social entrepreneur at heart, she best combines rationality with creativity. At the same time, he is a member of networks such as Culture for Change, EFB and Humanity in Action.
Dimitra Ermeidou
Dimitra Ermeidou, a therapeutic photography instructor and an art photographer, is the co-founder and head of the NPO “Eyes of Light,” one of the first organisations in Greece dedicated to the field of Arts in Health. She holds a Master’s degree in Photography from Temple University in the USA, and her work has been presented and awarded internationally. Her professional experience includes academic teaching of photography and counseling through photography in the USA, where she explored the fields of Therapeutic, Meditative, and Participative Photography. Since 2019, she has been organizing therapeutic photography seminars for individuals with cancer and other groups, earning recognition as the “Best Therapeutic Photography Workshop Provider” at the 2021 Private Healthcare Awards by Global Health & Pharma in the United Kingdom.
Christina Vlachou
Christina Vlachou is a Cultural Manager. She studied Economics and holds a master’s degree in Cultural Management (UNESCO Chair MA Cultural Policy and Management, Université Lumière Lyon2, Belgrade University of Arts). For the last fourteen years she has been active in the field of culture, focusing on artistic research and creative projects with a social impact, having worked in museums, festivals, galleries and cultural institutions. She specializes in the field of creative direction, communication, production and fundraising of creative programs and events. Since 2021 she is the co-founder of Off Stream, a non-profit company that focuses on culture, education and the inclusion of people with sensory impairments in the experience of art.
Angeliki Tseliou
Project and content manager specializing in education and culture. She studied Greek Literature and Literary Translation, and obtained a D.E.A. degree from Paris IV. She has collaborated, among others, with the National Book Centre of Greece, with the youth supplement of KATHIMERINI newspaper, with ATHOC 2004, with PostScriptum, Information Architecture and with various publishers as project manager, content and communication consultant, publishing manager and book translator. Since 2016, she has been focusing on cultural education projects with a distinct social footprint. In September 2021, she co-founded Places & Traces, a non-profit organisation based on the island of Lemnos, with the aim of designing and implementing projects that interdisciplinary highlight contemporary local narratives.
Vivian Doumba, Iris Perouliou Sergaki – STIPO Greece
STIPO Greece Non-Profit Organization is the local office of the international urban development team, STIPO, focused on public space and neighborhood revitalization using participation as a primary approach, based in Amsterdam. The two workshop facilitators are the co-founders of STIPO Greece, Vivian Doumpa, Urban & Spatial Planner and Urban Geographer, and Iris Perouliou Sergaki, Architect and Urban – Spatial Planner, and they are also members of the Culture for Change association. The office’s interests extend beyond participatory planning, which they use as a tool for community empowerment, non-formal education, socio-cultural management, and the development of artistic tools and interventions for the appropriation of the public sphere.
Konstantina Karameris
Konstantina Karameri is a law school graduate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds a master’s degree in Art Law and Economics from the International University of Greece. He is originally from Fokida (Delphi, Agia Efthymia) but grew up in Thessaloniki. She is currently Senior Project Manager and Researcher at Stimmuli for Social Change. In this context, she has developed her experience in designing educational programs for primary and secondary school students but also for teachers and young professionals. She specializes in the development of interdisciplinary projects that use creativity interventions to achieve learning objectives and social actions, and has experience in advocacy and research initiatives and research in the cultural and creative field. Since 2021 she is a founding member of A.M.K.E. ‘Omigyri’ International Centre for Science, Culture and Education in Delphi.
Argyro Barata
Argyro has an extensive experience of 20 years in the design and organization of cultural projects for tourist destinations, major Greek festivals and international organizations. In 2014, in the midst of the economic crisis, an initiative to support the creative community with participatory practices, FEAST Greece, was launched. Today, FEAST operates as a non-profit platform that helps creators develop their business ideas through a personalized support program.
She strongly supports the active participation of citizens in public life and has been involved at times in the past either as a coordinator or mentor and consultant in the development of programs and workshops aimed at developing the collective impact of citizens through participatory processes.
Natassa Dourida
She defines herself as a cultural engineer: Her work consists of inventing methods of gathering communities of creative professionals and activating them towards the revival of abandoned historical monuments of Athens. She studied civil engineering and specialized in the protection of monuments in the architecture of the National Academy of Sciences. During the Robert her START fellowship, she created the Communitism project, which consisted of a community development methodology that would establish a community-run social and cultural center, in a building that the owners would provide free of charge in order to ensure its maintenance. The project developed into the association entitled “Union of Citizens for the Preservation of the Newest Cultural Heritage with the distinctive title Communitism”, which operated for 6 years in Metaxourgio. The dynamics of combining untapped cultural heritage and untapped creative individuals is the subject of her research through a collaboration with the Newrope of the ETH Zurich Polytechnic.
Katerina Hantzi
Katerina Handzi has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Social Entrepreneurship for 2022 by the Euclid Network, having excelled in various roles in social and cleantech entrepreneurship, education and community development in Europe and Africa. It empowers and supports entrepreneurs in the early stages of their businesses, helping them build sustainable businesses. This is done with the aim of maximizing their positive social and environmental impact, approaching it in a realistic, honest and sustainable way.
Darius Polok
Darius has been the Managing Director of the International Alumni Center (iaC Berlin) of Robert Bosch Stiftung since its start in January 2017. He brings into the organization his deep conviction that networks matter and can be an asset to tackle complex challenges. His dedication to lifelong learning and passion for creating “serendipity moments” distill not just Darius’ individual work, but iaC’s collaboration mentality as a team, supporting an environment of trust and mutual listening. His career has included a wide variety of roles with a recurrent focus on non-formal education, cross-sector collaboration, and systemic intervention. Since there is always more to learn about how to best build and navigate impact-oriented networks, he is keen to exchange thoughts, insights and experiences with other practitioners and thinkers.
