Innovate in Greece by SEV & Endeavor Greece

Lars Rasmussen: The creator of Google Maps

Lars Rasmussen agrees that the Google Maps is his greatest professional achievement.

During the dot-com crash, 20 years ago, Lars Rasmussen lost his job and decided to build a software with his brother. Their software would become the Google Maps success. Lars was faced with severe financial problems and came under enormous pressure from Yahoo, whereas Google.. rejected them.

In the conversation with Marco Veremis and Peggy Antonakou, General Manager Southeast Europe at Google, they discuss the difficulties he had to overcome for success, Google’s way of thinking, his overall professional path, and his major career milestones: Director of Engineering with Facebook, Co-founder with Weav, and investor with Canva.

We'd like to thank Google for its support in producing the Innovative Greeks Talks series.

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Web3 Unicorn Mysten Labs Is Making Greece Its Next Engineering Hub

California-based Web3 infrastructure company Mysten Labs has big plans for Greece as it looks to make the country its next engineering hub and gradually expand in the region. Recently, the company raised $300M in a Series B led by FTX Ventures and reached a valuation of more than $2 billion, with plans to use the latest funds on expansion and to continue building the core infrastructure to power web3’s next wave of applications.

Google’s Cloud Investment in Greece to Create 20,000 Jobs by 2030

Technology giant Google’s plans to invest 2.2 billion euros in its first cloud services in Greece are expected to create 20,000 new jobs and boost the country’s GDP by 2 billion euros by 2030. The IT giant will create three data centers by 2024.

Read more here.

Dyania Health raises $5.3 MM seed capital raise to fuel the advancement of their proprietary and clinician-built natural language processing technology to drive clinical and synthetic research. Investors include: Innospark Ventures, Outsiders Fund, Wild Basin Investments, Big Pi Ventures, Tau Ventures, Genesis Ventures, T-Life Capital (formerly Charamida Investments).

PD Neurotechnology Ltd., PD Monitor is among the five most promising technologies, NICE recommended, for people with Parkinson’s disease.

Public Group, one of the largest retail and eCommerce groups in Greece and Cyprus, is the first to bring to the Greek market Klarna’s Pay in 3 service empowering online customers. Cementing its partnership with the leading global fintech, Public Group also joined Klarna’s recently announced $800m financing round as a strategic investor. The investment, completed by the Group’s venture capital arm Public Capital Partners, is proof of its focus on tech platforms that bring to consumers innovative services and new ways to enjoy online shopping.

TITAN H2CEM is included in the “Hy2Use” Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) for the hydrogen value chain to help TITAN Group advance green hydrogen use towards the decarbonization of cement manufacturing.

VC-backed startup Wealthyhood expands from London to Europe. Launched by Greek founders, Wealthyhood plans to start operations to Greece, Cyrpus, Spain, Portugal and Italy launching its European expansion from the south. New funding round is planned for early 2023.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is leading a pilot project to turn the Greek island of Naxos in the Aegean Sea into a smart island. The smart island aspires to offer a better quality of life to its residents, opportunities for local businesses, and an attractive destination for tourists and digital nomads from around the world.

In July 2022, the "BrainRegain - Hellenism in Action" initiative, in collaboration with EY, published Greece Country Highlights, a first systematic attempt to inform the Greeks of the diaspora, about the developments of the current economic and social framework of the country. Those conditions create opportunities for the Diaspora to repatriate to Greece.

SEV supports the growth of the Greek digital health ecosystem. During the 2nd meetup of SEV's working group for the healthcare and life sciences, 44 participants followed presentations about the global trends in the industry, European reimbursement schemes, the legal challenges of clinical trials and funding strategies.

Member of the Parliament and chairperson of the Hellenic Parliament's Committee on Research and Technology, Prof. Christos Tarantilis argues that translating Greece's academic research to innovative products for prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment is a fully achievable goal.

Read the full interview here.

Vimachem develops specialized manufacturing execution systems that serve the needs of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. We met with Alex Vidras the founder and CEO of Vimachem. Here's what he told us.

Find the full interview here.

Join the 10th Innovation Ready workshop, "Smart Materials" to find out more about technologies designed and developed in Greece.

For more information, click here.

Organized by SEV, 29 November 2022 at 16:30.

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