Just before the Christmas holiday commenced, I attended a monthly event called Open Coffee. Open Coffee was started in England and now has several global chapters, but having a chapter in Athens is particularly noteworthy as there seems to be relatively few gatherings of tech entrepreneurs and potential investors.
In the packed Benaki Museum hall, attendees were able to listen to the processes and milestones of recent startups and garner advice from the most senior successful of businesses in Greece, such as Liberis Publications. However, the most impressive in the area of technology was AthensBook.
AthensBook was started by two young entrepreneurs who have a vision of bringing Greeks online via mobile devices. Greece, as an emerging market economy, finds itself in an advantageous position in that much of the hardware infrastructure that often hinders technological changes is not engrained here. Therefore, getting the masses to depend on information dissemination and retrieval via wireless hand-held devices will not be hard to achieve. Therefore, AthensBook has positioned itself well for future success in the area of monetization via mobile advertising. So, when coming to Greece, download the AthensBook app to keep abreast of latest exchange rates, best gas station prices, local shop hours of operation and much more.
Another company to keep an eye on is Niobium Labs. They are an R&D company that specializes in creating innovative solutions for mobile and geolocation technologies.
The format of Open Coffee was well organized, the presentations were professional and the speakers held the audience’s attention quite well. See the Open Coffee link to attend their next event or if you have a start up in the Athens’ area, get yourself out there and present your products!
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