On Tuesday 31 March 2026, we hosted the Business Model Canvas Bootcamp for Researchers at NCSR “DEMOKRITOS”​.

Together with egg – enter grow go and The American College of Greece, our DEMOKRITOS Innovation brought researchers, founders, and experts nto the same room — not just to learn, but to interact, challenge, and co-create.

In research, excellence often means precision, validation, and completeness.

In business, however, progress comes from iteration, experimentation, and learning along the way — embracing a “fail fast” mindset, as Efthymis Georgakopoulos highlighted, and recognizing that, as Maria Pallidou noted, “in business, you need to take risks sometimes.”

At the same time, as Varvara Vasilaki pointed out, innovation doesn’t always mean complexity. Often, thinking outside the box can be simple — and in many cases, simplicity is far more effective than trying to reinvent the wheel. Leveraging what is already available, such as accessible data, can sometimes create more value than building entirely new hardware solutions.

This shift in mindset is exactly what participants experienced throughout the workshop:
🔹 Translating research into clear value propositions
🔹 Understanding customers and market needs
🔹 Building and testing their Business Model Canvas
🔹 Learning by doing — not just through theory

Most importantly, teams came together, exchanged perspectives, and began shaping ideas into something actionable.

This is how we strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem:
by creating spaces where research meets real-world application

A big thank you to all partners, mentors, and participants who made this possible — and to everyone ready to rethink how innovation moves forward.