Afroditi Panagiotakou – Director of Culture at the Onassis Foundation on the Microsoft and Skai TV program “Synthesis”
Sunday, June 14 at 23:10, on Skai TV & Τhursday, 18 June at Microsoft's website
In the company of leading thinkers, scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs, the Director of Culture at the Onassis Foundation, Afroditi Panagiotakou, speaks with Pavlos Tsimas about our collective futures in a discussion motivated in the main by technology, and by the aftermath of the global pandemic that touched all our lives. Watch all the interviews on Skai TV from Sunday, June 14, and on the Microsoft website from Monday, June 15.
The Microsoft “Synthesis” program – produced by Microsoft in collaboration with Skai TV, and available to watch on the Microsoft website from 15 June – seeks to highlight the challenges and questions that arise from technological advances, and our reorientation towards a digital world.
In a series of four online episodes, leading thinkers, scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs meet virtually to formulate a pioneering synthesis of visionary ideas, focusing on the most pressing issues facing the international community today. Interviewed extensively by the journalist Pavlos Tsimos, the speakers enter into a productive and necessary debate on our collective futures, motivated in the main by technology, and by the aftermath of the global pandemic that touched all our lives.
Speakers include the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, talking about his experiences of the last few months and the country’s strategy for the future, and speaking with Yale Professor Nicholas Christakis, about what the pandemic can teach us and about technology as a driving force for change at both a national and international level. Director of Culture at the Onassis Foundation Afroditi Panagiotakou, Dr Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Microsoft President Brad Smith, MIT Professor Constantinos Daskalakis, Microsoft Greece, Cyprus and Malta CEO Theodosis Michalopoulos, Greek Minister of State and Digital Governance Kyriakos Pierrakakis, CEOs, and the heads of key sectors and organizations are just some of the figures brought together to form the eclectic mosaic that is Microsoft “Synthesis”.
“That’s the thing: when you have no bricks and mortar presence, when you’re not selling any tickets, what are you left with? You’re left with people, and with content. And that, we realized, is our trump card. […] The sensation of people sitting together in an auditorium is something we’re truly going to miss. Let’s be clear about that. As an experience, it cannot be replaced.”
A continuation of Microsoft Summit Greece’s flagship annual event, which has for the last four years distinguished itself as a fruitful step forward for technology in Greece attended by thousands, this series of online episodes does not seek to replace the summit but rather serves a different purpose: to bring the international discourse on technology, and the changes it effects on every aspect of our lives and the economy, to Greece in real time.
In order to give all citizens access to this content and debate, Skai TV will be broadcasting the “Synthesis” program – an abridged version of the four online episodes, lasting one hour – on Sunday, June 14 at 23:10, while the four online episodes will be available from Monday, June 15 on the Microsoft website, with one premiering each day at 10:00 until Thursday, June 18.