Information technology (IT) and telecommunications companies face the same problem all Greek businesses have, says Nicholas Afxentiadis, Chairman of IT company Syntax : namely, the country’s small market limits them. The only solution is to turn outward, he believes. Greek IT and telecommunications companies are doing just this by investing in the Acropolis Technology Park project.

They plan to consolidate themselves geographically in order to work better and catch international investors’ eyes. The park will also allow them to avoid rental and parking woes in Athens’ increasingly expensive centre.

This high-tech dream began to materialise in earnest two years ago when the Acropolis Technology Park public limited company was formed, made of 100 initial investors. Afxentiadis, who is on the organisation’s nine-member board, says the park may be ready in 2007, the earliest. A 450,000m2 piece of real estate has been selected 25 km north of Athens, in Kiourka (also Afidnes).

Sales details are being hammered out by the park’s 139 corporate shareholders and landowner cement giant Aget Heracles. The tract in question is located off the Athens-Lamia National Road and is an estimated half-hour drive from Eleftherios Venizelos Airport and –on a good day – central Athens. It boasts a view of Marathon Lake and is shrouded in Parnitha Mountain’s trees.

Before construction begins, however, the new owners must acquire the rights to develop the region, currently considered agricultural and residential. Support from the ministry of development and recent changes to forest law will probably make the task easier. The park must first be listed as an Industrial and Business Region (BEPE) for land development to begin.

A vision in green
With a range of US and European technology and corporate parks – including Silicon Valley – as models, the Acropolis Technology Park aims to offer a peaceful working environment shrouded in greenery. The project – to build office, research and recreational space for high-tech companies – will have “zero environmental impact” Afxentiadis vows. The buildings will be low and new trees will be planted. Apart from offices, there will be banks, restaurants, cafes, a day-care centre, a post office, gymnasium and beauty salon. There aren’t any architectural blueprints yet (there will be an international architectural bid), but premises will most likely include a conference centre, guest hostel and various educational and informational IT display spaces.

A preliminary figure sets the park’s cost at 130,000,000 euros. An estimated 5,000 people will work at the site on a daily basis in 120,000m2 of office space.

The environment is intended to encourage informal business interactions. While the Internet and various virtual meetings are becoming more common, there’s no replacing human contact, the park’s founders believe. The busy CEO may not have time to surf the Internet, or answer all his or her e-mails, but a trip to the gym or hairdresser’s frequented by like-minded businesspeople may lead to a valuable transaction.

The park will also, of course, be a space for plenty of formal scientific and business contact too. It will encourage research and development projects, hopefully some EU-supported. Educational programmes in IT and other high-tech fields will be encouraged, with a possible onsite post-graduate programme.

Companies from the following fields will be based at the park: IT, telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet services, digital audiovisual technology, multimedia technology, tele-medicine, biomedicine, distance learning and other emerging areas. Among the more prominent shareholders to date are Intracom, OTE, Vodafone and Germanos. Smaller players stand to benefit from the technology park’s economy of scale. Research and development branches of companies, but not manufacturing sectors, are invited.

Regional satellite
The park is no longer accepting new shareholders. Shareholders will take up 60% of the final office space, according to their varying investments. The remaining 40% of the building space will be rented out to practical services as well as other high-tech companies. The park is making a point of inviting multinationals, such as IBM and Nokia, to rent spaces.

Greek companies hope that the park will be a kind of information technology gateway to the broader region of the Balkans and the Middle East. Afxentiadis points out that it would be similar to how US multinational IT companies set up offices at UK technology parks in the 1990s, in order to leap into the European market. Two areas in which the park could play a leading role in the region, Afxentiadis believes, are programme management of major IT and telecommunications projects and software distribution.

The government could use the opportunity to support Greece’s high-tech sector, says Afxentiadis, pointing to both ministry of development and ministry of the environment backing. The project will be advertised to the high-tech world at the World Congress on Information Technology to be held in 2004 at the Athens Concert Hall’s brand new conference centre, currently under construction.