UNIC-Sponsored Ask Me Anything Stage: Insightful Dialogues with Young Entrepreneurs

Inspire 2024 Entrepreneurial Festival, the largest entrepreneurial festival ever held in Cyprus, launched today, featuring over 100 speakers and anticipating more than 3,000 registered attendees.

Maria Ftelleha Markidou, Head and Co-founder of Life-Changing Ideas, the groundbreaking executive training series at the University of Nicosia, served as the Stage Master for the Ask Me Anything Stage at Zena Palace, sponsored by UNIC. This platform allowed successful entrepreneurs to reflect on their career journeys while giving the audience the opportunity to ask anything they wished about building and running a successful business.

Maria Ftelleha Markidou

The entrepreneurs featured were Yiannis Hadjiconstantouras, Co-Founder and Managing Director of People First, and Andreas Panayi, Founder and CEO of Kinisis Ventures Ltd. Among other things, they discussed what led them to entrepreneurship and they both agreed that this had been a desire rooted deeply within them.

Panayi explained how Kinisis Ventures focuses on investing in innovation and was asked about the company’s portfolio, which includes Threedium, Embio Diagnostics, Ascanio, Heroes Made, Promed Bioscience, Irerobot and hydrogen energy systems. Panayi touched upon a rather cultural obstacle, by highlighting that the best school of entrepreneurship is failure – and admitted that he failed himself a few times "but in Cyprus we don’t like to fail." He emphasized that failure is a good thing as long as you take the lessons from it.

Hadjiconstantouras also outlined his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his first company, Student Life, before venturing into the food industry, where he recognised a booming market. Notably, Doorstep is part of his company. When asked by the audience how he was maintaining balance among his employees, he highlighted the importance of listening to his team members and addressing their needs—whether that involves providing extra time, more compensation, or accommodating disabilities. By adapting to these needs, and their journey he has earned loyalty and the rewards that come with it, Hadjiconstantouras noted.