Piraeus welcomes the world’s largest educational robotics event – 2024-09-25 11:11:02

The municipality of Piraeus is preparing to host in the coming days the largest global educational robotics event. As the official announcement of the municipality states, the necessary procedures for the conference are being carried out with great pleasure.

The ‘FIRST GLOBAL CHALLENGE 2024’ is set to take place at the Peace and Friendship Stadium from 27 to 29 September 2024.

The announcement of the Municipality of Piraeus

It is with great pleasure that the city of Piraeus is preparing to host the largest global educational robotics event in the coming days.

The “FIRST GLOBAL CHALLENGE 2024” will be held from September 27 – 29, 2024, at the Peace and Friendship Stadium and the Municipality of Piraeus will once again be present and support this unique educational competition, in which more than 190 national teams from around the world, 150 important personalities, large technological companies, foreign and Greek universities and over 500 volunteers.

FIRST GLOBAL is a competition that promotes innovation, creativity and collaboration among young people. Students through FIRST GLOBAL have the opportunity to engage in solving important global problems and demonstrate their engineering, programming and technology skills, but also to share with the public their culture and the unique character of each nation.

The theme of this year’s competition is “Feeding the Future”! An innovation challenge, in which participants research and develop their own innovative solutions to create a more resilient and equitable food system, highlighting how the application of technologies benefits economic, social and environmental sustainability, while building a robot for the competition track that simulates problems that the global community must solve immediately for a sustainable future.

Visitors to the “FIRST GLOBAL Challenge 2024” will have the opportunity to visit the stands of the National Teams in the SEF area, to get to know robotic science up close, and also to watch the work of the competitors on the stadium’s playing field.

The opening ceremony of the “FIRST GLOBAL Challenge 2024” will take place on Thursday, 26/09, at 19:00, at the Panathenaic Stadium, while the competitive proceedings will start on the 27th and will last until September 29, from 10:00 to at 17:30.

The Municipality of Piraeus supports this great event, through the Departments of Planning and Sustainable Development and Outreach, Tourism and European Programs, with the co-organization of MellonLab and the Ministry of Digital Governance,

The Mayor of Piraeus, Yiannis Moralis, said:

“The organization of the World Competition “FIRST GLOBAL Challenge 2024”, at the Stadium of Peace and Friendship, is a special honor for our city.

It is a leading international event, which takes place for the first time in our country, with Piraeus being at the center of this great robotics celebration for three days.

I am particularly pleased that we will welcome at least 2,500 young people aged 14-18 from 190 countries. This is because, especially in Piraeus, robotics has evolved to a great extent with students from our city having distinguished themselves in this field, with important awards.

The Municipality of Piraeus is ready to meet the demands of this great event and I am sure that the children with their enviable skills will present creative, innovative and pioneering projects”.

The Deputy Mayor of Outreach, Tourism and European Programs Adriana Zarakeli, noted:

“We are extremely proud that the city of Piraeus welcomes such an important global event as the FIRST GLOBAL Challenge 2024. This event not only promotes innovation and educational robotics, but is also a unique opportunity to highlight Piraeus as a center of creation and innovation. Hosting the FIRST GLOBAL Challenge strengthens the extroversion of our city, tourism and our participation in important international initiatives. We welcome the participants and visitors and invite them to get to know the history and culture of Piraeus”.

The Deputy Mayor of Planning and Sustainable Development, Dimitris Karydis, said:

“In the last 3 years, through targeted actions and events, the Municipality of Piraeus has managed to become an educational technology hub. In collaboration with local agencies, we have developed and carry out educational activities both for teachers of all levels, as well as for the students of our schools, following the most modern global educational trends. Technology, engineering, programming are combined with projects for the Blue & Circular Economy, AI, 3D Printing. The results of these actions make us proud and optimistic about the future of the country’s largest port.”

The actions of the Municipality of Piraeus in Robotics

• The Municipality of Piraeus has responded immediately to the requests for the support of the teams coming from Piraeus for their participation in the global events of robotics, science, innovation and technology (providing space for training with the robots, purchasing equipment, financial support, hosting events ).
• At the “Sea Days” celebration for the third consecutive time, the Municipality co-organized the 3rd Educational Robotics Festival in collaboration with MellonLab.
• In the framework of the European project ΒluAct (2021-2022), educational robotics actions were organized during school hours, as part of the Skills Workshops in many schools of our city, primary and secondary schools. The implementation of the program offered opportunities to students through educational robotics in the fields of knowledge, entrepreneurship, blue economy and the environment.
• Utilizing the Municipality’s laboratories, Blue lab and Makerspace circular economy center and in collaboration with MellonLAB, the robot “Themistocles” was built, which can refer to the history of Piraeus and converse by answering simple questions.
• Soon, in collaboration with the national institute Demokritos for Digital Europe 2021-2027, technological applications for educational purposes of AI research, technology and innovation will be introduced in the special schools of the Municipality of Piraeus.