What is a Foresight Workshop?

Foresight workshops are a proven method for medium- and long-term strategic planning across public organizations, local government bodies, and businesses.

As the first Foresight workshop of its kind conducted by a Greek municipality, its goal is to explore FOUR potential futures for the city of Ioannina and the challenges these potential futures present.

The first Ioannina Foresight Workshop takes place at the C.Ioannina Open Innovation Space (Κάνιγγος 1ΒΓ) on Thursday, March 13th, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, as part of TechFuse 2025 and led by Epaminondas Christofilopoulos, holder of the UNESCO Chair for Strategic Foresight and President of the Metropolitan Organization of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMus).

Why Does This Foresight Workshop Matter for Ioannina?

• It reframes existing challenges as opportunities for the city’s growth
• Identifies connections between planned actions, emerging opportunities, and potential risks
• Uncovers hidden factors that may affect the successful implementation of long-term strategies.

Next step? Non-Profit Innovation and Digital Economy Hub puts the insights gained from this Foresight workshop into immediate action via:

1. An Ideathon/Hackathon – C.Ioannina, Saturday, March 15th, 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Teams will design and prototype innovative solutions to address the future challenges identified during the Foresight Workshop.
2. Emerging Startups & Entrepreneurs: We then assist the Ideathon/Hackathon teams in transitioning into startups, securing funding, and expanding their networks in collaboration with the Cooperative Bank of Epirus and the European Innovation Hub DigiGov.
3. Regional Strategy: Key challenges, digital solutions, business models, and policy insights are shared with regional authorities, municipalities, universities, research institutions, and business chambers, to help steer their strategic plans.

Sports facilities Limnopoulas

Within the framework of TechFuse, an important social action will be organized in collaboration with ActionAid Hellas and with the support of the APSI PINDOS and the Region of Epirus.

On Friday morning, March 14th , secondary school students will participate in the action “Sports for Inclusion: A Different Football for Equality”, where through a different kind of football match they will better learn about the values ​​of equality, respect and solidarity.

TechFuse’s goals, in addition to strengthening the local ecosystem and promoting Ioannina as a hub of innovation and digital economy, also include the promotion of the Epirus lifestyle.

So, on Friday evening, March 14th, Greece’s first-in-history food blogger, Tassos Antoniou, author of culinary books and founder of mamapeinao.gr , in collaboration with Thanasis Tassos, owner of the restaurant Erectus and chef patron of the restaurant θamõn , will cook recipes from his latest book titled “Μαμά πεινάω, αλλά θα μαγειρέψω εγώ” for the participants of the Conference.

Most of the products that will be used in the recipes are local with the aim of promoting local production and gastronomy.

InstructLab is an open-source project designed to solve key challenges in Large Language Model development by enabling structured, incremental contributions from the community. This workshop will explore how InstructLab facilitates large-scale alignment for chatbots, allowing organizations and individuals to fine-tune models through a collaborative and additive approach.

The first half of the session will provide an overview of the limitations of traditional open-source LLM contributions and how InstructLab’s structured workflow addresses these gaps. The second half will feature a live demo showcasing the step-by-step process of using InstructLab to contribute and refine models effectively.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the challenges of open-source LLM contributions
• How InstructLab enables structured, community-driven model improvement
• Hands-on demonstration of the contribution workflow

Duration: 60 minutes

What is an Ideathon & Hackathon?

Ideathons & Hackathons are a globally recognized approach for tackling challenges effectively. These competitions bring together multidisciplinary teams to design and implement innovative solutions by combining diverse skill sets.

As part of TechFuse 2025, the Ioannina Ideathon & Hackathon takes place at the C.Ioannina Open Innovation Space (Κάνιγγισ 1ΒΓ) on Saturday, March 15, from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. The Ideathon & Hackathon is supported by the Cooperative Bank of Epirus and co-organized by the European Innovation Hub DigiGov, with participation from the Department of Computer Engineering & Informatics and the Department of Informatics & Telecommunications at the University of Ioannina.

Who Can Participate?

The Ideathon & Hackathon includes teams of students, recent graduates, and professionals from Ioannina’s innovation and digital economy ecosystem. Their mission is to design and implement forward-thinking solutions for the city’s future challenges, such as identified during the Ioannina Foresight Workshop held on March 13, two days prior.

These solutions may take the form of digital products or services, business concepts, or policy proposals, the aim of which are to effectively translate future insights into present-day innovations.

Upon the day’s closing, teams will have the opportunity to present the challenge they addressed, their approach, and the solution they developed. The most innovative solution will be awarded a symbolic award of €300.

Non-Profit Innovation and Digital Economy Hub, in collaboration with its partners, supports teams that wish to evolve into startups, seek funding and develop outbound sales networks.

Benefits for participants:

• Address real-world challenges using innovative approaches, gaining highly valuable skills for the job market.
• Connect and collaborate with companies in Ioannina’s innovation and digital economy ecosystem, building meaningful relationships that can support their career development.
• Meanwhile, local companies engage with emerging talent and experienced professionals, opening opportunities for collaboration and potential recruitment to fill vacant positions.

Interested Students and Graduates: Please fill in this form to participate.