How do we move beyond incremental improvements and truly discover the next wave of game-changing innovation? In Athens, a bold initiative is launching at May 7-9, 2025, proposing an answer rooted in ancient history, yet aimed squarely at the future.
Panathēnea, a reimagining of a festival that defined ancient Athens, now seeks to become more than just another conference. Panathēnea aims to be a vibrant meeting point where technology, art, and startups converge to spark world-changing ideas.
We spoke with Rasmussen, Elomida and Evi from the Panathēnea team about the festival and its major sponsors, including the National Bank of Greece and Aegean Airlines. Featuring knowledgeable speakers from companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Canva, Panathēnea is setting itself up as an exciting experiment in discovering innovation, making the most of Athens’ flourishing tech ecosystem.
Amilla for the Modern Age
The festival’s model is built on distinct pillars, drawing inspiration from its namesake while employing modern strategies. The origin story of this festival blends ancient wisdom with the modern tools. When searching for a suitable historical anchor, the founders famously consulted with one of the world’s greatest classical scholars, called ChatGPT, to rediscover Panathenaia. What resonated was its core function. A festival lasting 1,000 years… Because it’s a very good mechanism for identifying excellence.
According to co-founding mentor Elomida Visviki, the choice of Athena as patron is significant because she embodies not just warfare, but also the wisdom, strategy, and skilled creation that truly define the multifaceted nature of innovation. Modern Panathēnea revives this competitive spirit through its startup competition, focusing on Amilla, a Greek concept signifying noble, fair competition designed to elevate all participants. The goal extends beyond distributing accolades; it’s about actively identifying the next wave of impactful ideas. As Lars Rasmussen notes, competition is the main engine for this search, functioning within the structure he calls the 3Cs framework, consisting of competition, connection, and celebration.
A student-led team organizes the event, and their head of marketing, Evi Kourounakou explains their approach to integrating the past: “We bring from the past the 3Cs, we’re trying to connect these symbols, incorporate this into the experience. It’s tricky, but we bring it in a modern way. It’s not a revival, it’s a reimagination.”
In our current data-driven world, this perspective lends competition a new dimension, presenting it as a potential tool for effective trend-spotting and the early identification of promising ventures.
Cross-pollination to merge innovation cultures
Purposefully uniting participants from technology, art, and startups lies at the heart of Panathēnea. It seeks to blend diverse approaches to innovation and specialized knowledge, aiming to bring truly significant concepts to life. Underlying this strategy is the conviction that the most impactful progress often occurs where various fields of expertise connect and interact.
Complex challenges in AI ethics require insights from the humanities; user-centric tech design benefits from artistic creativity; startup agility can accelerate deep tech R&D.
Curated serendipity and empowered teams
Resisting the trend of mega-conferences, the first Panathēnea will host a curated group of 2,000 founders, investors, and thinkers. The focus is on quality interactions, aiming to help attendees find their counterpart. A custom-designed system for strategic networking and over 20 VC-hosted side events will further facilitate targeted connections and will reflect a “human-scaled, founder-first” philosophy.
The festival’s own structure presents an interesting operational model. Student-led and registered as a not-for-profit, it relies on recent graduates guided by experienced mentors. This setup emerged partly through serendipity, as the core student team initially intended simply to establish their own distinct event. Kourounakou recalls the turning point when team member Lefteris Katsiadakis connected with Rasmussen at the Slush festival in Helsinki: “…He had like the courage to go speak to Lars… everything after that was like all stars aligned… I think that’s when our roads collided and after that week, we’ve been running all together.”
This energy is channeled through a collaborative structure. “The way we wanted to build this, it was that we are all in this together,” Kourounakou explains, emphasizing the goal to bring together all the people in the ecosystem, leveraging mentors primarily for connections, wisdom and mentorship. She adds, “I feel so grateful for all the support because we are a team that had so much energy… [and] never had this much support before.”
The Athens advantage: Context as catalyst
Why Athens? During a meeting with Simon Schaefer, Rasmussen was introduced to a compelling framework: every successful ecosystem is built on three pillars: a factory for innovation, a major conference, and the generation of intellectual property. Athens already has the foundations in place, and Panathēnea is set to fulfill the final piece.
At the event, you will experience a dynamic week where technology, art, and startups will converge. Mornings will be packed with focused energy: inspirational keynotes, deep-dive workshops, and a high-stakes startup pitching competition offering tangible support. As the day unfolds, the festival will spill into the city, featuring curated networking opportunities, engaging discussions, art exhibitions, and immersive social gatherings designed to connect founders, VCs, LPs, and creatives.
While the festival has global ambitions, featuring international speakers discussing global topics, the organizers believe that it’s hosted in Greece will tremendously benefit the ecosystem, inspiring local founders and forging crucial international links.
And that is no surprise as Athens will bring unique ingredients. There’s the high calibre of local talent as Greek education system is on par with the best in the world. There’s the resilience forged from adversity; the recent economic crisis, while difficult, acted as a catalyst. As Rasmussen noted, recalling his own entrepreneurial start during a downturn, “crisis… never let a good crisis go to waste… it helps spur on this new ecosystem.” Add Greece’s renowned hospitality, deep cultural legacy, and strategic location. The crucial element of timing and the ecosystem is primed for growth, which cannot be understated.
What genuinely excites us about Panathēnea is its distinct alchemy of ideas and people. We are especially looking forward to the thoughtfully curated networking opportunities, designed to create bridges among founders, investors, and artists.
Forget simply being another event; Panathēnea intends to be “Europe’s top innovation festival in just a few years,” by making a clear statement. It champions the power of intentional structure—blending competition, connection, and celebration—to actively unearth fresh ideas across tech, art, and startups. For a real-time look at how tomorrow’s defining concepts are identified and nurtured, Athens this coming May 2025 demands attention.
