On Wednesday, November 13, 2024, FORTH’s Friends Association held an event titled “Artificial Intelligence; Blessing or Curse?” at the Heraklion Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

The event was organized on the occasion of the “Miltiadis Karatzis” Award ceremony, which is given to a PhD candidate of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, in memory of late Miltiadis Karatzis. This year’s awardee, Ms. Ioanna Pandi, a PhD Candidate at the Biology Department of UoC, who carries out her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Panayiota Poirazi at FORTH, was unanimously selected by the designated committee.

The ceremony commenced with the declaration of Mr. Theodosis Tasios, Professor Emeritus of the NTUA, as an honorary member of the Association and was followed by speeches on Artificial Intelligence given by:

• Nektarios Tavernarakis, Professor of Molecular Biology Systems at the Medical School of the University of Crete, President of FORTH.

Title: “The advantages, disadvantages and applications of artificial intelligence in the field of pharmaceutical discovery”.

• Manolis Froudarakis, Assistant Professor of Physiology and Neurophysiology at the Medical School of the University of Crete, Collaborating Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology of FORTH.

Title: “Discovering the intersection between artificial intelligence and the human brain”.

• Antonis Argyros, Professor of Computer Science at the Computer Science Department of the University of Crete, Collaborating Researcher at the Institute of Computer Science of FORTH.

Title: “Computational vision; The eyes of artificial intelligence”.

The event was concluded with the award ceremony.