AIT Optical Lab                                                                                                                                Prof. Gregory Yovanof

The Olympia Summer School on Science and ICT is an international program lead by preeminent academics at the ancient sanctuary of Olympia and in Athens, aiming to broaden the perspective of post-graduate science students through seminars in philosophy of science, ethics, history, and business and communication skills.

The program provides post-graduate science students throughout the world a unique opportunity for multi-disciplinary exploration and cultural enrichment through intense sessions with Stanley Wasserman (Indiana University Bloomington), Theodosis Tasios (National Technical University of Athens), David Goldberg (University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne) and other widely respected industry leaders, decision makers and academics.
AIT’s Summer School combines world-class academics with cultural and social activities designed to expose participants to fascinating aspects of Ancient and Modern Greek culture. Participants will live, learn and challenge themselves at ancient Olympia and Athens, two unique places where at one time philosophy, science and engineering did not have distinct borders.

This year the program will focus on two emerging multi-disciplinary fields:

Smart Management of the Human Environment (Part of SmartEN ITN project activities)- where information and communication technologies meet Civil Engineering, and
Social Networking - where sociology meets information and communication technologies

Starting in 2012, the Summer School will feature a sailing module in the Aegean Sea.

Smart Management of the Human Environment
(Part of SmartEN ITN project activities)

There are increasing concerns with regards to the environmental impact of human actions, the use of the environment and climate changes. These are coupled with ageing infrastructure systems, continuously growing and changing demands on the built and natural environments as well as limited financial and depleting natural resources.

Information and communication technologies have recently emerged as a tool to combat the aforementioned problems through non-destructive testing and evaluation of the built and natural environment with the use of technologies like wireless sensor networks and the Internet of things. These developments open up a completely novel area of multidisciplinary research towards the ‘smart’ management of sustainable environment.

However, until now, research in the relevant but seemingly diverse fields of civil, construction, electrical and computer engineering has been segmented and independent. The European Union, acknowledging the emergence of a multi-disciplinary field that can drive growth in the future, and the importance of integrating ICT solutions in environmental and structural monitoring, has supported the formation of a pan-european consortium for training future leaders in research, academia and industry of smart management of the human environment.

International and local postgraduate students are encouraged to be part of this elite group, by participating in the smart management of the human environment summer school at Ancient Olympia and Athens, which is one of the key training activities of the pan-european consortium, attracting top experts from academia and industry in the fields of

• Non-destructive testing
• Non-destructive evaluation
• Smart proactive management
• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Science
• Philosophy
• Ethics
• History of engineering
• Business
• Communication Skills

Seminars on technical fields and training laboratories will be held at AIT’s state-of-the-art facilities in Athens. Seminars on philosophy, ethics, history, business and communication skills, will take place at the inspiring site of Ancient Olympia.

Social Networking
Social Networks have become the means of communicating in the 21st century. Their proliferation has involved a number of diverse fields in computer science and is the focus of research in many sociology departments. We have invited top experts in the field from academia and industry to address some key aspects of social networking, including:

• Sociological perspective of ICT
• Security and privacy dilemmas in social networks
• Social networking games
• Scientific applications of social networking

Since social networking has such a large impact on human communications and actions, we aim to broaden the perspective of the typical computer science seminar. It is highly recommended that participants of Social Networks Summer School also benefit by attending the 2nd week, where highly relevant topics in ethics, history, communication and business are covered.

The Program

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3