Honouring Excellence: PeopleCert's Award Ceremony under the "Honouring our Teachers from Constantinople" Programme

The PeopleCert Group of Companies was proud to hold the Scholarship Award Ceremony for the "Honouring our Teachers from Constantinople" Scholarship initiative. The ceremony took place at the Zografeion Lyceum in Istanbul on Thursday, 8 June 2023.

The "Honouring our Teachers from Constantinople" Scholarship Programme aims to support postgraduate and PhD candidates that are first- or second-generation Greek from Istanbul, Imvros, and Tenedos. The programme is implemented in collaboration with the Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans (OI.OM.KO.), in memory of three, distinguished teachers of the Diaspora, Dimitris Fragopoulos, Dimitris Nicolaides and Alexandros Alexandridis, who served as role models for their students, demonstrating unwavering dedication to their profession.

In addition, the special award "Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew" was presented by the Patriarch himself to Honorary Professor Georgios Stefanopoulos for his significant, timeless, and selfless contribution to the Hellenism of Constantinople.

The selection of the student scholars was conducted by a five-member evaluation committee, consisting of:

• President: George Doukidis, Professor of the Athens University of Economics and Business
• Member: Nikolaos Ouzounoglou, Professor Emeritus of the National Technical University of Athens and President of OI.OM.KO.
• Member: Andreas Robopoulos, Journalist and Publisher of the newspaper Iho tis Polis
• Member: Seraphim Konstantinidis, Journalist
• Member: Eleni Nicolaides, Director of Corporate Responsibility PeopleCert

Mr. Doukidis referred to the high quality of applicants who attend top universities, with the majority of them being doctoral candidates in important scientific disciplines.

The student scholars distinguished for their outstanding academic performance and dedication to the scientific subject of their studies were:

1. Kostas Karanikolas, PhD candidate at the Physics Department of Yildiz Polytechnic University 
2. Lazaros Yofoglou, PhD candidate at the Medical Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
3. Eleni Hadjivassiliou, postgraduate student at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens

In addition, two more postgraduate students were honored with Honorable Mentions for their remarkable performance, along with cash prizes. The recipients were:

• Anastasios Papadopoulos, a postgraduate student in the Department of Mathematical Physics at the University of TUBINGEN
• George Chionas, PhD candidate in the field of Algorithms and Mechanisms for Blockchain Technology at the University of Liverpool

We are proud to celebrate the accomplishments of the scholarship recipients and we express our deepest gratitude to the Constantinopolitan teachers who have had a lasting impact on their students and the entire Diaspora community.