Chief Scientist Demetris Skourides showcases Cyprus' strengths at the Tech Innovation Summit

The Tech Innovation Summit, organised by IMH in Cyprus, was the first of its kind summit attracting investors, startups, and entrepreneurs from all over the world in a showcase featuring the Deputy Minister of Innovation and Digital Policy, Nicodemos Damianou, the Chief Scientist of Research, Innovation, Technology and CTO of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Skourides, the Chairman of Invest Cyprus Evgenios Evgeniou, the Director of International Business, Bank of Cyprus Haris Pistos, and the CEO on Invest Cyprus, Marios Tannousis.

Deputy Minister Nicodemos Damianou, provided an overview of the policy, vision, strategy with respect to Digital transformation and innovation, and why Cyprus should be ranked high as a Technology and Innovation hub. During his address on the Technology Strategy of Cyprus, Deputy Minister Nicodemos Damianou provided insight into the Government agenda, showcasing how Digital Government, Digital Services, a Digital citizen, complemented by a Digital assistant and the Electronic signature converge to provide a seamless citizen and business experience. Furthermore, during the overview of the technology strategy, Deputy Damianou outlined the importance of accelerating the build-up and deployment of the new eGoverment Portal and simultaneously discussed the upgrading of legacy and infrastructure upgrade through modernisation initiatives. The strategy on modernisation illustrated the usage of best practices and explained the importance of a new Cloud first policy to be introduced in 2024, complemented by strong focus on Security, OpenData and standardisation.

Deputy Nicodemos Damianou highlighted that more on the status of the research, and technology ecosystem would be covered by Chief Scientist and CTO Demetris Skourides.

The Chief Scientist, Demetris Skourides, highlighted in his opening remarks that Cyprus' vision to become amongst the world’s best places to live, work and do business in, by 2035, requires several ingredients and well-executed strategy that includes, a leading technology vision, a world-class research and innovation ecosystem, and a strong focus on education, commercialisation and linking everything together to create powerful network effects. Skourides provided an overview of Cyprus strengths in the European innovation scoreboard, also featuring a strong Cypriot research ecosystem attractiveness ranking 47% above the EU average, strong linkages ranking 128% above EU average and a growing number of knowledge-intensive SME exporting high tech at 11% above EU average, while also stressing that Cyprus ranks amongst top EU member states of EU fund absorption.

Skourides provided a detailed overview of how value is created between the 12 universities, 9 research institutes, 7 Centers of Excellence, 400+ tech startups, 4000 enterpreneurs, and 2500 researchers and introduced how the Centers of Excellence Koios, Cyens, Eratosthenis, EMME CARE, CMMI, Biobank, Phaethon play in advancing basic, applied research as they re-focus their attention commercialisation.

Furthermore, Chief Scientist Skourides, outlined the government's priority as per the newly ratified Research and Innovation strategy based on the approval of the Council of Ministers, Dec 2023 which places priority on thematic areas such as Digital technologies, advanced materials, dual use technologies, Agrofood maritime and shipping and Energy, and also highlighted the emerging cluster of Space supported by enablers such as Health and environment. In addition, 30+ international companies and startups in the categories of Regtech, Fintech, Mediatech, Healthtech, and Energytech where presented showcasing Cyprus’s attractiveness across industries. As outlined from a CTO perspective, Cyprus has made leaps in both research and development in new areas and adopted emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, analytics and Cloud, and provided a series of examples in areas such as:

• Critical infrastructures powering digital twins by Koios and Cyens Centers of Excellence where artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, IoT sensors converge to create value in areas such as emergency response, smart energy and water management.
• Development tools by showcasing the innovation of IntelliJ IDEA by Jetbrains and its AI powered assistant that provides documentation support, refactoring guidance, code completion. Taking into consideration that IntelliJ is used by 3M+ java and Kotlin developers indicates the digital maturity of the company, also attributed to the strong human capital present in Cyprus.
• Cybersecurity solutions leveraging artificial intelligence to prevent malicious users, predict suspicious behavior and provide recommendation solutions based on cybersecurity llm created by Odyssey Consultants for their SIEM security solution which features on Gartner Magic Quadrant, while also outlining the capabilities of Malloc, created by a talented team of PhD women researchers from the University of Cyprus, with funding from the Research innovation foundation and investment from Y-combinator.
• Leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms by Hyperion Systems Engineering in their product Hyppos which was an outcome of a co-innovation project between Hyperion Energy Systems and Castor-C of the of Cyprus Institute.
• Leveraging artificial intelligence in the pursuit of creating Cyprus’s first Zero emission autonomous boat platform ZES funded under the RIF program, that will act as a future-proof product platform with capability to launch multiple UAV autonomous devices including submersibles and jetskis taking place at the Cyprus Marine and Maritime institute.

The Chief Scientist, CTO continued further providing examples in other areas including:

- Space, featuring the work being undertaken under the Cyprus space exploration organisation, CSEO leveraging the usage of machine learning to study the impact of Solar storms on humans and the environment.

- Robotics and automation by illustrating the capabilities of ASBIS in building robotic hardware and software as well as, Effevretech in lifescience lab automation.

- CAT-BRAIN where a renowned professor Dr Fofi Constantinidou leverages machine learning to accelerate cognitive rehabilitation, Anabiosis-Data also by an newly awarded researcher Dr. Chrysovalantis Voutouri whose startup identifies through analytics and AI the best possible path to treat cancer, and the biotech company NIPD that was acquired by Swedish Medicover. NIPD utilises cloud technologies to develop and deliver genomic analysis and genetic diagnostics.

Concluding, Chief Scientist and CTO, Demetris Skourides also elaborated on Soul Publishing, which is amongst one of the most successful case studies in the Cypriot ecosystem that has an end-to-end business model that leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation to automate, produce, and deliver content globally, featuring an impressive list of 500m+ subscribers.

The examples of success stories from a research, development and technology adoption perspective are a testament to the rapid progress the Cyprus ecosystem has made in harnessing the benefits of emerging technologies including data analytics, cloud, IoT, AI, re-affirming the impact of the research & innovation ecosystem investments

Chief Scientist Skourides provides a high-level view of the funding tools available by the research innovation foundation (RIF), showcasing how internationalisation, research excellence, innovation and knowledge transfer converge to create value in an ecosystem that aspires to surpass no.10 on the European innovation scoreboard.

Concluding, Chief Scientist Skourides introduced the audience to incentives for setting up their companies in Cyprus and also shared highlights of equity free investment and support tools offered through the knowledge transfer office, and the innovation factory of the RIF. Tools presented include market opportunity assessment, assessment of the potential to protect intellectual assets, the development of IP and commercialisation strategies, a voucher to cover patent attorney fees and a series of workshops on innovation management, product and service development as well as commercialisation.