Maintaining a tradition of engaging with the future

Evgenidis Foundation: 50 years of technical and science education

By Mathaios Tsimitakis - Kathimerini

Two years after its refurbishment and now celebrating half a century in operation, the Evgenidis Foundation keeps moving ahead.

Under its president, Leonidas Dimitriadis-Evgenidis, the foundation has been updated and has expanded its educational activities in the fields of science, technology and society. New technologies have been the key to its progress.

In 1956 Marianthis Simou, the sister of Evgenios Evgenidis, who had died in two years earlier, fulfilled the wish expressed in her deceased brother’s will by creating the Evgenidis Foundation.

Its first activity was to publish technical textbooks for students in technical and trade schools. The first title, “Mathematics,” came out in 1957. Since then the foundation has published 400 technical and trade education titles, distributing more than 45 million copies.

The planetarium, which was visited by generations of Greeks and made the foundation widely known, opened in 1966. It was the first planetarium in Greece and for decades was the only one in the Balkans.

The projection system, a Zeiss global projector, was 6 meters high and weighed 2.5 metric tons. It had 29,000 parts and included 150 secondary projectors.

The foundation also opened a lending library in 1966.

Simou was succeeded as president by Nikolaos Vernikos-Evgenidis, who laid the foundations for modernization. He was followed in 2000 by Leonidas Dimitriadis-Evgenidis, the current president.

Since it was refurbished and reopened to the public in 2004, the foundation has received more than 1 million visitors to the planetarium and the conferences and seminars it holds.

The new digital planetarium is the the best-equipped in the world, with space simulators, laser lighting and much more. Housed in an area three times the size of its predecessor, it has facilities for showing films on huge Imax and Omnimax screens.

The exhibition space covers 1,800 square meters on three floors. A new permanent exhibition set up in collaboration with La Villette, a French science museum, will be open to pupils in November. It aims to present the basic laws and principles of science, represent natural phenomena by interactive means and promote the understanding of the technology.

The library has enlarged its collection and has sections related to new technologies. It now takes up three floors, and its reading rooms receive 35,000 visitors year.

The multimedia applications area offers high-speed Internet access and assistance from trained staff.

Introductory lessons on software and fast, easy access to information on the Internet are also available free of charge.