[vc_row type=“in_container“ scene_position=“center“ text_color=“dark“ text_align=“left“ overlay_strength=“0.3″][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/2″][vc_column_text]The Hellenic Open University (HOU) is a Public University founded by the Greek Government in 1992 and fully operational since 1997. HOU is the 19th Greek State University but the only one that provides distance education in both undergraduate and postgraduate levels via the development and utilization of appropriate learning material and methods of teaching. Like all other state universities in Greece, it is a Legal Entity of Public Law, completely independent and autonomous.

HOU comprises of 4 Schools and offers 31 programmes of study to about 35000 adult students, who are dispersed all over the country. It is the only Greek University that uses the distance learning methodology combined with the principles of adult education. About 80% of its students are working professionals who seek a further education degree in order to improve or change their career. Through its Schools and Laboratories, HOU applies educational, methodological and technological innovation in distance learning and educational content development. In addition, it pursues Research and Innovation activities and participates in national and international consortia and networks of excellence. HOU applies the ISO 9001:2008 quality system.

The DAISSy (Dynamic Ambient Intelligent Social Systems) group was founded in 2001 by highly skilled and motivated researchers pursuing research, innovation and adoption of the broader Ambient Intelligence vision. Currently the group consists of two branches, both based in Patras, Greece:

• Research Unit 3 of Computer Technology Institute (CTI) focuses on the design and development of pervasive and mobile systems, which are seamlessly integrated into the environment of human activity and exhibit properties of smart, adaptive, autonomous systems, and
• The research group at Hellenic Open University (HOU) conducts basic research, supports education in pervasive and mobile systems and pursues the development and adoption of social applications.

The DAISSy group has accumulated longtime R&I expertise in Ambient Intelligence, Pervasive Systems, Middleware, Service Oriented Architectures, Ontologies, Knowledge Extraction and Representation, Multi Agent Systems, Social Systems, Peer Learning Platforms, 3D Games, ICT in Education and Skills Definition and Profiling for ICT related Jobs.

Since its establishment, the DAISSy group has participated in more than 30 national and European projects, in various frameworks (i.e. FP5, FP6, FP7, Lifelong Learning, Erasmus+, etc.), amassing a total funding of more than 2,5 MEuro. Today the group employs more than 15 persons, including University professors, PhD and MSc holders, researchers in computer science, artificial intelligence and social sciences, experienced ICT engineers, programmers and administrative personnel.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=“in_container“ scene_position=“center“ text_color=“dark“ text_align=“left“ overlay_strength=“0.3″][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/2″][vc_column_text]Dr. Achilles Kameas is Associate Professor with the Hellenic Open University (HOU), where he teaches Pervasive Systems (since 2013) and Software Design (since 2003).  He is presently the Director of the Postgraduate Study Programme on “Engineering of Pervasive Computing Systems” (http://sdy.eap.gr/) and the Director of Research Unit 3 / DAISy (Dynamic Ambient Intelligent Systems) (http://daisy.cti.gr) at the Computer Technology & Publications Institute “Diophantus” (CTI). Between 2007 and 2014 he was Director of the HOU e-Comet Lab (Educational Content, Methodologies and Technologies Lab) (http://eeyem.eap.gr). He also served as Deputy Dean of the School of Sciences and Technology (SST) of the Hellenic Open University from 2007 to 2014.

Over the years, he has participated in more than 30 Research, Development and Innovation projects. Examples are the EU IST projects e-Gadgets, Astra, Plants, Social and Atraco (he was the scientific coordinator of the first two), the EU LLP projects eCult, SONETOR, TIPS, VAB, PIN, CompAAL, eVirtue (he was the scientific coordinator of the first two), the EU Erasmus plus projects SEM@SCHOOLS, TIME, EPOQUE, SONET-BULL (he is the scientific coordinator of the latter) and the national projects FragmEx and ADVENT (he is coordinator of the latter). These projects realize R&D activities in the fields Pervasive Computing Systems, Ambient Assisted Living, Technology Enhanced Learning, Ontologies and Semantically Rich Representations, and their applications. Indicative outcomes include middleware systems, platforms, tools, methodologies, ontologies and prototypes of smart devices.

He has published over 120 journal articles, conference papers and book chapters, authored 3 university textbooks and co-edited more than 10 books and conference proceedings. He was appointed conference / programme chair in more than 5 international conferences and he has participated in the programme committees of more than 50 conferences. His current research interests include ubiquitous / pervasive computing systems, Internet of Things applications, engineering and application of ontologies and ontology matching, application of ICT in healthcare, education, etc.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=“in_container“ scene_position=“center“ text_color=“dark“ text_align=“left“ overlay_strength=“0.3″][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/2″][vc_column_text]Dr. Bill Vassiliadis received his Engineering Diploma (in 1995) and his Ph.D. (in 2003, in Information Retrieval), both from the Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, Univ. of Patras, Greece. Bill has served as an adjunct professor in the above-mentioned department, and is currently an adjunct lecturer at HOU and an Associate Professor (tenure) at the Technical Educational Institute of Western Greece. Since 1998, he has participated as researcher in several EU and national R&D projects. To date, he has published more than 60 articles in international conferences and journals. Dr. Vassiliadis is involved in the design and development of the first MOOCs at HOU on the Edx platform.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=“in_container“ scene_position=“center“ text_color=“dark“ text_align=“left“ overlay_strength=“0.3″][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/2″][vc_column_text]Dr. Vassilios Stefanis has a Computer Engineering Diploma, from Computer Engineering and Informatics Department, University of Patras in 2005. He also received a M.Sc. in the field of Computer Science and Engineering from Computer Engineering and Informatics Department, University of Patras (2008). Finally, he obtained his PhD from the same Department in 2015. The title of his PhD thesis is “Adaptive interfaces using social context awareness to support personal information retrieval on mobile computing devices”.

From November of 2005, he works as a researcher and computer engineer at the Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus” (www.cti.gr). Also, he has been an external collaborator at Hellenic Open University, DAISSy research group (daissy.eap.gr) since 2012 and a lecturer at TEI of Western Greece, Department Of Business Administration (www.demes.teiwest.gr) since 2008.

His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing, internet technologies and mobile HCI. To date, he has published 8 papers in peer reviewed journals, 15 papers in international conferences and 1 book chapter.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=“in_container“ scene_position=“center“ text_color=“dark“ text_align=“left“ overlay_strength=“0.3″][vc_column column_padding=“no-extra-padding“ column_padding_position=“all“ background_color_opacity=“1″ background_hover_color_opacity=“1″ width=“1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row]