ACM FAccT 2025

Abstract

This panel brings together policy makers, scholars and representatives from NGOs in Greece to explore the promises and perils of artificial intelligence. Panelists will offer diverse perspectives —historical, technical, ethical, and social —reflecting on both the global dimensions of AI and its implications within the Greek context.

Organizers

Evaggelia Pitoura

Lead Researcher, Responsible AI Theme, Archimedes, Athena RC, Professor, University of Ioannina, Greece

Evaggelia Pitoura is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Ioannina and a Lead Researcher at Archimedes Research Unit of Athena RC, Greece. She holds a BEng degree from the University of Patras, Greece, and an MS and PhD from Purdue University, USA. Her current research interests focus on two primary areas: responsible AI and graph exploration and analysis. For her work, he has received best paper awards, a Marie Currie Fellowship and two Recognition of Service Awards from ACM. She is an ACM senior member, chair of the Greek ACM-W event steering committee, chair of the Hellenic ACM SIGMOD chapter, and member of the sectorial scientific council of Greece National Council for Research, Technology and Innovation.

Charalambos Tsekeris

Acting Chair, Greek National Commission for Bioethics & Technoethics, Principal Researcher in Digital Sociology, National Centre for Social Research, Greece

Charalambos Tsekeris is a Senior Research Fellow in Digital Sociology at the Institute of Social Research, Greek National Centre for Social Research, Athens, Greece. He is also Vice-President and Interim President of the Greek National Commission for Bioethics & Technoethics; Full Member of the Greek National Commission for Human Rights; and Member of the Greek Prime Minister’s High-Level Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Charalambos has been External Scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH Zürich); Visiting Professor at the University of Athens; Academic Associate at the Academy of Athens; Principal Investigator and Coordinator of the World Internet Project-Greece; Professor Extraordinary at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University; and Academic Associate at the Anti-Corruption Centre for Education and Research, Stellenbosch University. His current academic research involves the transformation of the internet, Futures Studies on AI, and ethical foresight approaches to disruptive technologies. Charalambos has recently published extensive foresight studies on Greece’s GenAI futures, as well as on the impact of the twin digital and green transition on the future of work.

Participants

Yannis Mastrogeorgiou

Special Secretary of Foresight Strategy, Presidency of the Government, Hellenic Republic

Yannis Mastrogeorgiou is the Special Secretary for Strategic Foresight at the Presidency of the Government of the Hellenic Republic.
He, was also the coordinator of the High Level Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence. 
Yannis has worked for years at the crossroads of politics, innovative policy research and communications. He served as Secretary General for Media and Communications in the Presidency of the Government, as Director of the Scientific Council with The Constantinos Caramanlis Institute for Democracy and as Executive Director with DIKTIO - Network for Reform in Greece and Europe, a leading Athens-based think tank, where he spearheaded informed Greek discourse on AI and its socioeconomic impact. Previously, Yannis served with the Greek Government in a variety of advising roles. He was Director of Communications and Special Adviser to the Minister at the Ministry of Development, Competitiveness and Shipping and the Ministry of Education as well as Adviser with the Hellenic Parliament. Prior to that, he worked as advisor and account manager with multinational communication firms, dealing with many important international clients.
 Yannis was educated at the University of Athens, the Athens University of Economics and Business and the University of the Aegean, where he received undergraduate and graduate degrees in History, International Affairs and European Law. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Athens. In 2012, he was a Marshall Memorial Fellow.

Lambrini Gyftokosta

Director, AI and Human Rights, Homo Digitalis

Lamprini Gyftokosta is the Director of Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights at Homo Digitalis. Previously, she has worked at BEAT, a Greek start up on ride-hailing app as Senior Data Protection Manager in Greece and Latin America. She has also worked at PwC Belgium as Senior Cyber and Privacy Manager and at Insurance Europe as Policy Advisor. She is a lawyer and holds a Master of International Trade Law, with certifications in privacy, cybersecurity, human rights and artificial intelligence. Her professional experience spans more than 15 years. During this time she has held significant roles as Project and Expert lead in major compliance projects with the General Data Protection Regulation. She has also participated in European consultations on issues related to GDPR, genetic data and health, telematics and smart cars.

Kostas Karpouzis

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Media and Culture, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece

Dr Kostas Karpouzis is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication, Media and Culture at Panteion University. His research deals with algorithms that make computer systems more adaptive to how people interact with them and how digital games and gamification can be used to teach conventional and social skills. At the same time, he explores the ethical and social values embedded in and influenced by AI systems. He is a member of the National Bioethics and Technology Ethics Committee and chair of the Computer Society Greece chapter. He has given three talks at TEDx events and his TED-Ed video "Can machines read your emotions?" has been viewed over 670,000 times and translated into 26 languages.

Alexandra Mitsotaki

Co-founder & Executive President, World Human Forum

Alexandra Mitsotaki is co-founder & executive president of the World Human Forum, a global citizen initiative which has its symbolic base in Delphi, launching international initiatives from important sites such as Delos, Aristotle’s Lyceum in Athens and Eleusis. In 1998 she founded ActionAid Hellas, the Greek affiliate of ActionAid, the international organisation against poverty and injustice. For the last 10 years she was in charge of the Hellenic Cultural Centre in Paris of which she is now vice-chair. Reacting to the financial crisis in Greece, in 2014 she co-founded Action Finance Initiative, the first microcredit organisation in Greece. She has been a member since its inception, of the High Level Roundtable of the New European Bauhaus, an initiative of the European Commission aiming to connect the European Green Deal to our living spaces. Her interdisciplinary experience over the past years has made her a profound supporter of the importance of a holistic approach to tackle the big challenges of our time.

Aristotle Tympas

Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Aristotle Tympas (MSc in Engineering, AUTH, Greece; MSc in Technology Policy; PhD in History and Sociology of Technology, Georgia Tech, USA), works as professor of the history of technology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he directs the anglophone graduate program in ‘Science, Technology, Society—Science and Technology Studies’ (offered jointly by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science & the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications). Vice-president of research of the European Inter-University Association on Society, Science and Technology (ESST), he has been chair of the ‘Tensions of Europe’ research network of European historians of technology, guest professor at the University of Vienna and the European University Viadrina, and visiting scholar at MIT and the Swedish Center of Excellence in Disability Research. He currently chairs a 200+ members EU COST research network on the use of big data, algorithms and AI in European border control (DATAMIG) and coordinates the participation of his university in an EU multi-university project on engineering and computer science education on the ethics of AI and other highly challenging scientific and technological fields (ETHICS4CHALLENGES). Starting in the mid-1990s, he has written several books and articles on aspects of the history, sociology and policy of AI-related technologies.