The 38th MINDS Conference is held in Athens on Thursday and Friday, April 24-25, with 25 of the largest international news agencies attending. More than 100 senior news agency staff will meet to exchange innovative ideas, experience and know-how with the aim of exploring common ground for collaboration and business models.
The conference will be organised and hosted by the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) and address important issues, such as Artificial Intelligence, the safety of journalists and cybersecurity challenges, newsrooms under cost pressure and generating revenues through the use of new technology.
In addition to MINDS executive staff, guest speakers will include Lisa Gibbs, the President and CEO of the Pulitzer Center, Yannis Mastrogeorgiou, Foresight and AI advisor to the Greek Prime Minister, Michael Bletsas, Director at MIT MediaLab and Head of the Greek Cybersecurity Authority, Nikos Panagiotou, Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Media Communications at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Jonathan Lockwood, board vice-president of Getty Images.
The important and special symbolism for the ANA-MPA of conducting the MINDS Conference in Athens was stressed by ANA-MPA Chairman Aimilios Perdikaris in a message welcoming the delegates to Athens.
"Our goal is not only to follow the developments but to be an active part of them. To rise up to the next level, through interaction and cooperation with the international MINDS network and all the technological agencies which participate in it," he said, adding: "In an era of artificial intelligence, the challenges, both for journalists and for news agencies, are steadily increasing and Greece sped to respond to the developments, having promptly gained access to world knowhow that can deal with these challenges."
He also underlined the unique conjunction, that the discussion on AI and Democracy should take place this year, within the MINDS framework, in Athens, the birthplace of the concept of democracy.