Mitsotakis for Elevate Greece: "Greece on the map of world technology"

"We are creating the infrastructure, the stage. But the actors, those who will play the show are different, it is all of you. And you, in the end, are the ones who will stand out and you will finally be able to push Greece with your own momentum, with your own strength, in this new, big leap that Greece wants to make in the future ", added Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The Prime Minister pointed out that with the creation of Elevate Greece, another pre-election commitment is being realized, as the state offers support to start-ups and innovative companies, and congratulated the team that worked with the support of Deputy Minister of Development Christos Dimas and the ministry leadership.

He also stressed that supporting the start-up ecosystem sends a very important message to young people who immigrated abroad during the crisis.

"They are starting to think for the first time that they can return to their homeland. Because their homeland has the potential to create new jobs and meet their professional concerns. "Not only their financial ambitions but mainly their willingness to work in a business environment that will reward cooperation, ingenuity, will reward new ideas," said the prime minister.

Adonis Georgiadis
The transfer of the General Secretariat for Research & Technology (GSRT) to the Ministry of Development and Investment marked the connection of Research and Innovation with the productive fabric of the country. Within the framework, the institution of the National Register of Start-ups was developed, through the electronic platform Elevate Greece, in order to highlight the start-ups, based on a transparent and reliable evaluation system. The new portal aims to promote the networking of start-ups among themselves and the possibility of enhancing extroversion and international promotion. The criteria and the evaluation process were designed in collaboration with ESETEK, in order to form for the first time in our country a comprehensive framework for the mapping of the ecosystem of start-ups.

At the same time, start-ups will be able to participate in the National Start-up Awards and have access to benefits and sponsorships from the Official Supporters of Elevate Greece.

The platform will include companies that meet two key characteristics: Innovation and scalability, while they will be judged by reputable evaluators in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Elevate Greece is "the gateway, where all companies that have innovation, that do research, can be registered and become the subject of government policy," said Minister of Development and Investment Adonis Georgiadis.

He noted that with the help of this new tool Greece will be able to take advantage of its comparative advantages, the "brilliant minds who have stayed here and we must fight for them to stay here, with good jobs in Greece, and the brilliant minds that left and we are fighting to get them back ".

"Today the state does not know how many start-ups there are, in which sector they operate, how many employees they have, what turnover they make. With Elevate Greece these questions will now have an answer and the State will be able to plan cut and sewn measures, according to the needs of the ecosystem ", noted Christos Dimas, Deputy Minister of Development, responsible for Research and Technology.

The purpose of Elevate Greece is "to highlight a strong system of innovation which, while it exists, in recent years we had not highlighted and there was not this required extroversion," he added.