INTERVIEW WITH MS. LINA KIRIAKOU
When I met Ms. Lina Kiriakou for the interview, she was in the process of changing her career. For a year, she was working as the Head of Agency Sales at Think Digital, and now, she has shifted from the commercial sector and has taken over the position of CEO at 2B3D. This company's offerings consist of full body scanning 3D printing, virtual reality, augmented reality and other related technologies. The vision and the target of this company is allowing our digital selves to interact with services of the real world, which is the opposite of what is happening today. Precisely, they aim to create a “digital self”, which they will place in realistic experiences.
Ms. Kiriakou was a student of the Lab from 1996–2000, and she talked to me about her memories from this period. It was her first choice to study at the department of Media Communication and Culture, because she was interested in communication and advertising. But, as she mentioned, when she entered the university, she did not fully understand the difference between marketing and advertising. She stated that advertising was always something that brought her enthusiasm:
“I was one of those children that never let anyone change the channel on the television when the commercials would come on. Since I was ten years old, we would play games based on the commercials. For example, we would try to guess the product that was being advertised”.
She was a student of the lab during its first years of existence, around 5–6 years after it was introduced, with the enthusiasm and guidance of the late Dimitris Potamianos, whose vision was to create the lab. She reassured me that, even though she took part in its first years, it was extremely innovative and ahead of its time, especially because of the real life projects that were assigned, and because of the experienced guest speakers that were part of the teaching process. Even though the projects were interesting and realistic, they were always quite demanding. She still remembers some of her friends studying in other universities saying “We’re only going to show up for the exams”, and it seemed unbelievable to her!
A lot of the students, Miss Kiriakou also mentioned, had the opportunity to slowly begin a career before graduating. She herself had started working as a trainee in parallel to her studies, with the help of the mentor of the lab, miss Betty Tsakarestou, at an advertising agency that is no longer in the Greek market called Scholz & Friends. Her work there was greatly appreciated as she was doing very well, therefore the company wanted to continue working with her, but she did not proceed with this, as her priority was to finish her studies first.
She remembers all of the projects that she had worked on during the lab, but one thing she still remembers after all these years, is a misfortune of the last minute. During her last year, and last semester, the group she was part of (which consisted of six to seven people), had to split up due to miscommunication. Because of this, they split up into two groups, and she finally paired up with only one friend. The two of them worked by themselves on their final project, and it actually went pretty well.
For some time now, Ms. Kiriakou has returned to the Lab, taking over a completely different role, that of a mentor. She is responsible of offering guidance to third year students, for the strategic class called “Strategy Lab”.
