The Epilogue of TEDxAnogeia — The Beginning of Androidus Project Tank

Great events and bold experiments are the result of teamwork and collective effort. In this spirit, in 2014 a group of friends launched TEDxAnogeia, attempting to explore what the Highlands of the North Sea in Scotland might have in common with Anogeia in the Mediterranean south of Crete.

TEDxAnogeia opened — and closed its curtain — on August 8, 2015, brought to life by people who were different, questioning, and passionate about innovation. They deeply loved their homeland and shared the belief that minds and parachutes — or perhaps villages and people — work best when the former remain open and the latter become outward-looking.

So in 2014 we began, as a group of friends, a bold experiment: a social initiative built around the idea “act locally, think globally.” In this way we arrived at the heart of Mount Psiloritis: the Giorgises, Antonis, Aristea, Vasilis, Kostas, and Phaedra, creating a translocal network and a collaborative team that stretched from Switzerland to Agios Nikolaos, and from Utrecht and the Highlands to Athens and Heraklion.

We built a team of 150 volunteers, who brought TEDx to the Anogeian highlands and the sanctuary of Saint Hyacinth — not as another flag of a multinational brand, but as a wager grounded in a shared belief: “we can — and we can do it well.” That spirit brought to our stage talks and ideas that ranged from Mars and Chile to the worlds of psychopathology, humanism, philosophy, the “anabolic forces” of memory, and digital addiction. What connected all these ideas was a shared sense of reaching the summit — an invitation to light your own path in order to climb it, or perhaps to be transformed by it (Light your way up).

The 2015 event had all the qualities needed to continue and become a permanent marker on the TED map. The temptation was certainly strong. Yet, beginning with our reflective gathering at the pirate refuge of Plakias in September 2015, we chose a different path: to continue with our own identity and rhythm through the Androidus Ideas Lab and the initiative Return to the Mountains of Epimen-ides.