Welcome to my personal meta.wikipedia page ! A page that I have always avoided to create but now I am glad to be here :-)
In a nuthsell, I enjoy mingling with activities, research projects, you name it, linked with open technologies. I consider this a good entry point for agitating preconceived ideas in organisations, business, schools, friends, family... My full name is Athanasios Priftis, raising -and this is far from being easy - two children (15 and 19 years’ old). I am swinging between Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland), Thonon (France) and Athens (Greece). And with that you have a clue of the languages that I speak... fluently. People have descibed me as someone contributing to the area : of relationships that one can build – and how to do so – for people who work together on something but not in one place.
I am a researcher at HES - HEGGE and coordinate the research activities of Ynternet.org Research Foundation. During the last ten years, I have coordinated several applied research projects, on decentralized protocols and applications, smart contracts and blockchain implementation for the State of Geneva and other organizations. A list of related articles is to be found here here. I am also a Senior Consultant on learning with collaborative tools and practices for the World Bank and Openwise. I hold a MSc in Information Science, University of Loughborough (UK).
I am, also, an active member of the Ecopol Cooperative of living together in Grandvaux (close to Lausanne). And then, there would be so many other places to find me: TEDxGeneva, the CHAB local complementary currency, the LAC pour TOUS initiative...
Projects I have really enjoyed working with are Wiki Loves Africa, OLPC in Greek Schools, various special issues of Republic
During the period 2011 - 2014
I was researcher for the: Government Partnership an international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens Panteion University on a FP7 project studying Transnational Digital Networks, Gender, and Migration (MIGNET). Working group for the economic and technological analysis of the Information Society of the National Polytechnics University (LIEE).
During the period 2004 - 2011
I was member of the Greek eGovernment Task Force of the Prime Minister’s Office. The main projects that were initiated include: The Greek Open Government Initiative the Open Government Project, the Transparency Project on state spending (Di@vgeia program) and several other actions and coordinator Internet Services Department in PASOK (Socialist Party Greece), a team of 13 people of various profiles. Our team’s goals included the implementation of internet services for all PASOK’s members and friends, the reviewing and organization of intra-party procedures, the development of volunteering networks, design, support and fund raising of national elections & electoral campaigns.
During the period 2002 - 2003
I was coordinator of the European Union Member States for the World Summit on the Information Society (UN, Geneva) during the Greek Presidency of Europe. As the coordinator of the European Union Member States for the World Summit on the Information Society (United Nations, Geneva), I participated in various EU and UN meetings, closed group negotiations and drafting of policy reports for the EU Commission and the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and adviser to the Minister of Economy and Finance. Main responsibilities included: following Information Society initiatives and policies across Europe and Greek government, co-ordinating the preparation of the government strategy on issues of the Greek Presidency of Europe.
Lecturing activities
October 2014 - present: Researcher and lecturer for the HES in the area of the wikinomics, developing collaborative competences and applications harnessing the effects of communities participation. Current research projects address social bookmarking, collaborative competences and governance structures.
December 2013 - April 2014: Invited lecturer in the National Centre for Public Administration and Local Government on government and open governance issues.
September 2013 - April 2014: National Researcher for the Independent Reporting Mechanism of the Open Government Partnership, responsible for the evaluation of Greece in the OGP context.
August 2013 - January 2014: Researcher on “Automatic online collection of data for ICT related indicators”, with GFOSS on behalf of Eurostat (2013)
January 2010 - May 2013: Researcher at MIG@NET, a project on migrant individuals and communities and their participation in the production and transformation of transnational digital networks, as well as the effect of transnational digital networks on migrant mobility and integration.
Project coordination activities (2018 - 2024)
Various research and application projects including the Social Innovation Project DIBS here. Previous research activities: a) CoWaBoo (http://www.cowaboo.net), a protocol for descentalised collaborative applicationsb) SCODES (https://scodes.ch) with a blockchained based prototype (https://proto3.ynternet.org) for the collective building rights management for the Département de l'aménagement du logement et de l'environnement (DALE) de l’état de Genève.
Various EU training projects on netizehsip (see full list here.
Selected reviewed publications in English
Priftis A. Equey C. and Trabichet J.-P. (2022) Designing a Digital Citizen-Centered Service Through Social Innovation Proceedings of the XXXIII ISPIM Innovation Conference "Innovating in a Digital World", Copenhagen, Denmark on 05 June to 08 June 2022. ISBN: 978-952-335-695-5. LUT Scientific and Expertise Publications.
Priftis A. and Trabichet J.-P. (2021) Open government benchmarking for the state of Geneva, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, Athens, Greece, 2021-10-06, ISBN 9781450390118.
Priftis A. Afonso L. Bondolfi T. and Trabichet J.-P. (2019) “Building a platform of social entrepreneurship and living together”, Proceedings of the OpenLivingLab Days 2019 Conference, Thessaloniki, Greece, 3-5 September 2019, Pp. 244-253, ISBN:9789082102796
Priftis A., Israel J. and Trabichet J.-P. (2019) “Smart contacts as APIs” Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics disponible à https://hesso.tind.io/record/4792?ln=en
Priftis A. and Trabichet J.-P. (2018) “The CoWaBoo Protocol and Applications: Towards the Learnable Social Semantic Web”, International Journal on Advances in Software, ISSN 1942-2628, pp. 6-17 vol.11, no.1&2.
A. Priftis and J-P.Trabichet, “CoWaBoo: a descriptive protocol of learning driven applications,” The Ninth International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and On-Line Learning (eLmL 2017), IARIA, March 2017, pp 94-100 ISSN: 2308-4367, ISBN: 978-1-61208-541-8
Full list of reviewied publications here.
Priftis A. Afonso L. Bondolfi T. and Trabichet J.-P. (2018) “Building a platform of social entrepreneurship and living together”, Proceedings of the OpenLivingLab Days 2019 Conference, Thessaloniki, Greece, 3-5 September 2019, Pp. 244-253, ISBN:9789082102796
Priftis A. and Trabichet J.-P. (2018) “The CoWaBoo Protocol and Applications: Towards the Learnable Social Semantic Web”, International Journal on Advances in Software, ISSN 1942-2628, pp. 6-17 vol.11, no.1&2.
Melidis Alexandros, Deligiannis Athanasios, Priftis Athanasios, (2017), Independent Reporting Mechanism Greece: Progress Report 2015–2016 (http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/comment-report/greece-end-term-report-public-comment-2014-2016)
Priftis, Athanasios; Trabichet, Jean-Philippe; Molas-Castells, Núria (2016) Recasting “wikinomics” in educational environments case studies in the wikinomics project, in Re-Imagining Learning Scenarios, proceedings of the EDEN 2016 Annual Conference Budapest, Hungary 14-17 June 2016
Priftis, Athanasios; Slater, Matthew; Trabichet, Jean-Philippe (2016), The Credit Commons an open protocol of promises in Proceedings of IASC Regional European Conference 2016, Bern, Switzerland, 10-13 May 2016
Priftis, Athanasios, Theo Bondolfi, and Yves Boisselier (2014) “Revisiting the Wikinomics Concept: Towards New Methodological Approaches.” In New Horizons in Web Based Learning, edited by Yiwei Cao, Terje Väljataga, Jeff K.T. Tang, Howard Leung, and Mart Laanpere, 8699:153–61. Springer International Publishing, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13296-9_17.
Priftis Athanasios (2014), Independent Reporting Mechanism Greece: Progress Report 2012–2013 (http://www.opengovpartnership.org/files/greece-ogp-irm-public-comment-engpdf/download)
Priftis T. (2013), “Home”, O-Zone: A Journal of Object-Oriented Studies, Issue 1: Object/Ecology, Spring 2013.
Bouras C., Giannaka E., Karounos Th., Priftis T.,Poulopoulos V., Tsiatsos Th., "A Unified Framework for Political Support eDemocracy Practices", Int. J. Electronic Democracy, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2008,
Oppenheim C. and Priftis T. , “Development of a National Information Policy in Greece”, Information Development, vol. 15, no.1, March 1999, p. 32-43.
Selected presentations in English on Open Government
Athanasios Priftis, (2014) Ever tried to "open a government? TEDxGeneva 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrdu7NMcOOY)
Athanasios Priftis, (2012) Igniting change? An OpenGov Story (http://igniteshow.com/videos/igniting-change-opengov-story)
Athanasios Priftis, (2011) Shaping policy using digital channels: Ensuring effective public consultation (https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/wp1104-programme.pdf