Constantine Stephanidis#

Constantine Stephanidis, Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Crete, is the Director of the Institute of Computer Science, and member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas. He is the Head of the Human - Computer Interaction Laboratory, and of the Centre for Universal Access and Assistive Technologies, and Head of the Ambient Intelligence Programme of ICS-FORTH. He is also faculty of the Interdepartmental Graduate Programme in the BRAIN and MIND sciences of the University of Crete, and the President of the Board of Directors of the Science and Technology Park of Crete.

Over the past 25 years, Prof. Stephanidis has been engaged as the Scientific Responsible in more than 40 European Commission and nationally funded projects in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Universal Access and Assistive Technologies. In the beginning of the '90s he introduced the concept and principles of Design for All in Human-Computer Interaction and for Universal Access to the evolving Information Society Technologies. He has published more than 350 technical papers in scientific archival journals, proceedings of international conferences and workshops related to his fields of expertise. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Springer international journal "Universal Access in the Information Society". He is the Editor and (co-)author of many chapters of the book "User Interfaces for All - concepts, methods and tools" published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (2001), and of “The Universal Access Handbook” published by Taylor & Francis (2009). During the period 1995 - 2006, he was the Founding Chair of the ERCIM Working Group "User Interfaces for All" and General Chair of its nine international Workshops. During the period 1997 - 2000, he was the Founding Chair of the International Scientific Forum "Towards an Information Society for All", in the context of which he edited two White Papers concerning the roadmap and R&D agenda. Since 2001 he is the Founding Chair of the International Conference ‘Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction’ and since 2007 the General Chair of the HCI International Conference series.

Since the late 80s, Prof. Stephanidis has been actively involved in activities contributing to the European Commission R&D Policy on Information Society. More recently, he was member of the FP6 Information Society Technologies Management Committee (2002-2006), member of the eAccessibility Expert Group (2002 – 2005), and since 2006 he is member of the eInclusion Group of the i2010 Initiative and member of the Management Board of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), having worked unwearyingly for the hosting of the European Agency in Heraklion since 2002. He is also member of the National Council for Research and Technology (Hellenic Ministry of Development), National representative (General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Hellenic Ministry of Development) in the Specific Configuration Programme Committee of FP7Co-founder, in 2004, of the European Design for All e-Accessibility Network (EDeAN) and founder of the GR-DeAN the corresponding National Network. Senior editor of the EDeAN White Paper, outlining a roadmap for future European initiatives in Design for All, e-Accessibility and e-Inclusion, published in 2006.