Two Komotians are on Forbes Greek magazine’s “30 Under 30” list

The list includes the 30 most influential young people under the age of 30 in the fields of business, science, social contribution, innovation and sports

They were awarded for their ‘e-Blood Donors’ app which records emergency blood donation needs and is already used by 22 hospital services across the country.

Two Komotians, Leandros Courtidis and Angelos Hovardas, were included together in the “30 under 30” list of the Greek edition of Forbes magazine. This special event was organized for the first time by the Greek edition of Forbes and Forbesgreece.gr on Monday, November 6 at the Athens Concert Hall.

During this, Forbes Greece’s list of the 30 most influential young people under the age of 30 in areas such as business, science, social contribution, innovation and sports for the year 2024 was presented.

Two discussion panels – What did the Minister of Education say?
The event was presented by Capital.gr and Forbes Greece journalist, Matina Harkovtaki, and included two panel discussions.

In the first session entitled “Youth and Opportunities”, three young people from previous “30 Under 30 Greece” lists spoke with Education Minister Kyriakos Pirakakis about the difficulties and challenges they face on the path to success and recognition. Lefteris Arabakis, Co-Founder of Enaleia, Anna Natsvelisvili, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Morphoses, and Giorgos Kakouliadis, Founder of BrainVRse, participated in the selected panel discussion, moderated by Christos Tarantellis, Partner and Head of Central and Public Sector Management, EY. Greece.

“It is of great importance through education to acquire scientific and professional knowledge, but also the so-called ‘horizontal skills’ (soft skills),” said Minister Kyriakos Pirakakis, who asked to “learn to work in groups, and not be afraid of failure.” To develop both algorithmic thinking and imagination.” He announced on the same occasion that “the changes that we will launch during the coming period in the Ministry of Education, Religion and Sports will be in this direction.”

Next, three influential figures who have been included in Forbes 30 Under 30 Greece lists in previous years, and continue to be examples of perseverance and effort, shared their personal stories. Specifically, their story was submitted by: Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos, CEO and Co-Founder of DeepSea Technologies, Maria Sakkari, Tennis Champion, Eleftherios Karabatsakis, Co-Founder of Carge.

In the second and final session, entitled “Startups and Investments,” three startups spoke with fund managers and financiers. The aforementioned session, moderated by Vaso Angelito, Capital.gr journalist and Forbes Greece journalist, was attended by: Apostolos Apostolakis, Managing Partner of VentureFriends, and Michalis Vlastarakis, Chief Marketing Officer at Eurobank and Chairman of the Coordination Committee of the egg – enter Grow Go programme. Apostolos Tamvakakis, Managing Partner of EOS Capital Partners, Giorgos Varvarilis, Co-Founder and CEO of Augmenta, Marios Vlachogiannis, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Coffe-eco, Zoe Giafri, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Advantis Medical Imaging.

The sponsors were: AB Vassilopoulos, PPC, EUROBANK, EU Hellas, PORSCHE

Leandros Courtidis (2005) and Angelos Michael Hovardas (2004) – Electronic Blood Donors
The e-blood donor app, which started as a project in student halls in rural Thrace and evolved into an NGO, was created by Leandros Kortidis and Angelos Michael Hovardas.

The application, which was created amid the Covid-19 pandemic, has the ability to register emergency blood donation needs, in addition to scheduled trips organized by the blood donation service at Komotini Hospital. It also aims to not only immediately inform citizens, but also sensitize them to the value of voluntary blood donation, platelet collection and bone marrow donation.

In this way, the application contributes to organizing blood draws, meeting current blood donation needs and improving blood stock management through the hospital’s blood donation service.

e-Blood donors have been awarded 8 times at national and European level, with the last accolade in September 2022 returning Greece to the top positions in the European Young Scientists Competition after 26 years, where e-Blood donors won third place in the 33rd European Young Scientists Competition. Scholars Competition 2022 (#EUCYS2022) held in Leiden, Netherlands.

In addition, the Ministry of Digital Governance has put under its auspices the information system and instant notification of blood donation needs “E-Blood Donors”.

To this day, the app is used by 22 hospitals and blood donation agencies across Greece from Didimoticho to Karpathos. In total, since the first day of operation of the application, 1,429 scheduled blood donation trips were published, while the information system informed citizens in real time through push notifications about 473 emergency blood needs.

For example, during the incident in Tempe, the platform through aimodosies.gr played a crucial role in informing the public of information about 99 blood donation services, which were operating during their normal operating hours, as well as blood donation services, which were operating outside their working hours. Ordinary during these difficult times.

The electronic blood donor platform, in addition to increasing the number of blood donors, contributed to improving the public health and well-being of the local community by promoting the values ​​of compassion and selflessness. By encouraging young people to participate in blood donation, they have created a culture of giving and support, which has had a positive impact on society as a whole.

During its two and a half years of operation, the app received 672,846 visits and 19,582 unique visitors.