January 23, 2005
Traveling in my life
All my life I have been lucky to have different chances to travel. Traveling is, therefore, an integral part of who I am. As a child I grew up moving between Europe and the United States. I visit my home to Greece during the summer. My winter breaks were spent with my grandparents in Switzerland. At the age of 12, my family lived for a year in Paris.
During my higher-level education location was an important factor, therefore, my undergraduate university was in Los Angeles at UCLA, because LA was very different from Boston. After UCLA, Europe was in my sights, and I went to study in Milan Italy at Domus Academy for my masters. In 2004, after roughly 12 years out side of the US, I returned to one of the world’s most dynamic cities, New York, to pursue another masters, this time from ITP at NYU.
My work has played a strong role in my travels. While in university, work-travel started with a summer job working in Japan. Later upon graduation from Domus Academy, I remained and worked in Italy, where my job was with a Sardinian entrepreneur; this allowed me continual travel experience through out Europe to as Fareast as Saudi Arabia. A few years later when 2B1 was founded traveling was deeply woven into the job description, leading me to spend a lot of time in Africa, traveling to many countries on western and eastern coasts of Africa. During this time my base of operations was still Italy. A few years later, it became obvious that my time in italy was coming to an end. I was given the opportunity to move to India and work with children and rural development, something I loved during my previous period with 2B1. I jumped at the chance. The experience was about a year and a half during which time I started to build a personal interest in a 2B1 project in Cambodia. 2B1 after a while saw that my work was not that valuable in India and my resources would be better used in Cambodia. After a year and half in the jungles of Cambodia, I returned to the US to pursue my education.
Posted by dimitri at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
New Resume
Education
UCLA
1989-1993 B.A. from Design department with an emphasis on industrial design.
Domus Academy
1993-1994 M.A. in industrial design thesis project: interactive play park for children with multiple perception base concepts
ITP at NYU
2003-2005 M.P.S. Information technology for future development projects. Thesis proposal Physical blogging interface for infants.
Work
Disney Imagineering, USA
1990 Design and model building of rides for the various theme parks around the world. Projects ranged from Splash Mountain, Florida’s external design to splash mountain Tokyo’ internal model. As well as the Alien Encounter’s audio seat.
ASCII Corp, Japan
1991 Game development team for San Rio’s Tabu game. Research of the future of virtual reality games. and development of multimedia magazine
Mozart, Italy
1994-1995 Graphic design and User Interface development for CD-ROMs
Matrix, Italy
1995-2001 Consultant for web development. User needs and interface for Virgilio, Italy’s first and primary search engine. Conducted preliminary brainstorm sessions for website development for various clients.
Video on line, Italy
1995-1996 Help develop the first public ISP in Italy. Working directly with the owner, bring him up to speed on various technologies. In the middle of 1996 the company was bought by Telecom Italia Net, and me contract was carried over.
Telecom Italia Net, Italy
1996-1997 I was a concept designer for online projects. My job was to come up with new ideas for the company each week and purpose them each week. Projects were evaluated and some were developed. Most notable at the time were: HOW, an online help system, and C6 the Italian version of iCQ.
2B1, USA
1996-1998 The 2B1 Foundation was created by a group of professors at MIT MediaLab and myself, with $1M of funding from two Japanese benefactors. The mission is to bring computers and the Internet to children in the poorest and most remote parts of the world. In the early stages I looked at feasibility in African countries including Mali, Kenya and Senegal.
Jr. Summit, USA
1998 As a joint project 2B1 sent an MIT undergraduate student along with myself to install computers in 12 countries in Africa, for a Summit to be held later that year.
First Thought, Italy
1998-2001 This was a start-up in video game development founded by me, with my father’s financial backing. The companies primary goal was to design and build game development platform, that would allow game development across platforms, easily and rapidly without loosing valuable assets built over time. We also worked on game titles. The company folded under the pressure of financing.
12net, Greece
2000-present A Greek ISP, the first wireless ISP in Europe, today the largest per capita wireless usage (bandwidth), from a remote place, in the world. I work on wireless hardware deployment. Recently we developed and are using a floating wireless AP and created a 15 miles wireless connection from one island to another. This connection allows a small school to have Internet access as well as a marine biology lab. The lab will now do real-time underwater dives show video to high schools around the country. 12Net is also supported in part by 2B1
2B1(revisited)
MediaLab Asia, 2001-2002 I went as an employee of 2B1 through the MIT MediaLab to help work on rural development in India. In the end I spent a great deal of time evaluating projects and visiting sites. I spent a large portion of my time in the main office as the acting as a sort CIO.
Cambodia, 2001-2003 Cambodia is an on-going project which sums up the true focus of the 2B1 mission statement. It is based around a school is rural Cambodia. The school has a satellite connection that gives a connection to 20 laptops on a wireless LAN. The computers are used for learning English, Computing, and facts via the Web. Recently we added a 2-mile wireless link through jungle, to a second school that is area’s only upper level education and set up another local wireless LAN connecting another 20 laptops. The villagers have no electricity and the schools provide the power to charge the computers. At night the children take the computers home with them and have a chance to use them most have the chance to connect via the few hotspots that are set up.
Talks and Teaching
Domus Academy
1994 I was invited to work as a TA on a class on user interface in product design.
Domus Academy / Interval Comp.
1995 Coordinated students on projects and idea for the Interval research project Competition
Milano Lawyers Consortium
1996 I was invited by a group on lawyers to come and speak about creating presence on the web, and how to network ones self-using the Internet.
DA/MediaLab Wearables Comp
1997As the MIT MediaLab liaison for an international competition on wearable computers, I ran workshops and helps student prepare projects.
D-Link keynote
2000 Invited as the keynote speaker, the focus was on products of the future and how wireless is their goal.
IIT Kanpur
2001 Guest lecture on wireless layout, trick and realities on design and deployment.
Microsoft Design Expo
2004 With a team three other students, from NYU’s ITP, we designed a concept product, AWAIRE, which won best project at our school and continued on to Microsoft where it was recognized as the top project of all participating schools.
Posted by dimitri at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2004
Education
UCLA
1989-1993 B.A. from Design department with an emphasis on industrial design.
Domus Academy (DA)
1993-1994 M.A. in industrial design thesis project: interactive play park for children with multiple perception base concepts.
ITP at NYU
2003-2005 M.P.S. Information technology for future development projects. Thesis proposal Physical blogging interface for babies to children.
Posted by dimitri at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
Work
Disney Imagineering, USA
1990 Design and models of rides for the various theme parks around the world. Projects ranged from Splash Mountain Florida’s external design to splash mountain Tokyo’ internal model. A swell as the Alien Encounter’s audio seat.
ASCII Corp, Japan
1991 Game development team for San Rio’s Tabu game. Research of the future of virtual reality games. and development of multimedia magazine.
Mozart, Italy
1994-1995 Graphic design and User Interface development for CD-ROMs
Matrix, Italy
1995-2001 Consultant for web development. User needs and interface for Virgilio, Italy’s first and primary search engine. Conducted preliminary brainstorm sessions for website development for various clients.
Video On Line, Italy
1995-1996 Help develop the first public ISP in Italy. Working directly with the owner, bring him up to speed on various technologies. In the middle of 1996 the company was bought by Telecom Italia Net, and me contract was carried over.
Telecom Italia Net, Italy
1996-1997 I was a concept designer for online projects. My job was to come up with new ideas for the company each week and purpose them each week. Projects were evaluated and some were developed. Most notable at the time were: HOW, an online help system, and C6 the Italian version of iCQ.
2B1, USA
1996-1998 The foundation was founded by a group of professors at MIT MediaLab and myself. The mission is to get computers and Internet to children in developing areas of the world. In the early stages I looked at feasibility in African countries looking at Mali, Kenya, and other countries on the eastern coast.
Jr. Summit, USA
1998 As a joint project 2B1 send an MIT UROP student along with myself to install computers in 12 countries in Africa.
First Thought, Italy
1998-2001 This was a venture in video game development. The companies primary goal was to develop a game development platform, which would make game development for cross platforms easier and faster without loosing valuable assets built over time. We also worked on game titles.
12net, Greece
2000-present A Greek ISP, the first wireless ISP in Europe, today the largest per capita wireless usage in the world. I work on wireless hardware deployment. Recently we developed and are using a floating wireless AP and created a 15 miles wireless connection from one island to another. This connection allows a small school to have Internet access as well as a marine biology lab. The lab will now do real-time underwater dives show video to high schools around the country. 12Net is also supported in part by 2B1
2B1(revisited)
MediaLab Asia, 2001-2002 I went as an employee of 2B1 through the MIT MediaLab to help work on rural development in India. In the end I spent a lot of time evaluating project and visiting sites. I spent a large portion of my time in the main office as the acting as a sort CTO.
Cambodia, 2001-2003 Cambodia is an on going project which sums up the true focus of the 2B1 mission statement. It is based around a school is rural Cambodia. The school has a satellite connection that gives a connection to 20 laptops on a wireless LAN. The computers are used for learning English Computing, and facts via the Web. Recently we added a 2-mile wireless link through jungle, to a second school that is area’s only upper level education and set up another local wireless LAN connecting another 20 laptops. The villagers have little electricity and the schools provide the power to charge the computers. At night the children take the computers home with them and have a chance to use them most have the chance to connect via the few hotspots that are set up.
Posted by dimitri at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
Talks and Teachings
DA
1994 I was invited to work as a TA on a class on user interface in product design.
DA/Interval Comp.
1995 Coordinated students on projects and idea for the Interval research project Competition
Milano Lawyers Consortium
1996 I was invited by a group on lawyers to come and speak about creating presence on the web, and how to network ones self-using the Internet.
DA/MediaLab Wearables Comp.
1997 As the MIT MediaLab liaison for an international competition on wearable computers, I ran workshops and helps student prepare projects.
D-Link keynote
2000 Invited as the keynote speaker, the focus was on products of the future and how wireless is their goal.
IIT Kanpur
2001 Guest lecture on wireless layout, trick and realities on design and deployment.
Posted by dimitri at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)