Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: This is the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
Listen to the exciting story of the American community schools of Athens.
Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future.
Here's Champapadakis.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: What happens when a curious mind, a sharp wit and an entrepreneurial spirit come together in a world class education institution?
In this inspiring Allcast episode, we sit down with Dr. Peter Papagiorgio, ACS Athens Class of 93 alum whose path from a passionate IB student to a pioneering medical consultant and entrepreneur unfolds in unexpected ways. With stories of senior skip days in Mykonos and theory of knowledge reflections that later shaped his pitch for multimillion dollar research grants, Peter's journey is anything but ordinary. As ACS Athens celebrates this year its 80th anniversary, this conversation is a powerful testament to the enduring impact of a rigorous and values driven education.
Dr. Papagiorgio talks about his groundbreaking research on blood pressure regulation, the realities of medical entrepreneurship, and how collaboration, creativity and resilience define success in the business of healthcare. But his story goes further beyond the lab and boardroom to initiatives in civil discourse, policy debate and and global alumni engagement. This episode offers a compelling portrait of what it means to be a lifelong learner and change maker. Whether you're a student navigating your future or an alum reconnected with your roots, or even an innovator chasing your Next Big Idea, Dr. Papa Giorgio Reflections will resonate deeply. Tune in and stay with us for an energizing conversation that bridges science, society and and the spirited legacy of ACS Athens.
So Peter, let's start with your time at ACS Athens. You've been a very active alum all these years, but you must have some memories that stand out and they are vivid in your mind as you think back to your school years.
What are some of these memories? When you think of ACS Athens outside your capacity right now, what comes to your mind?
[00:03:06] Speaker A: So I graduated in 1993 and for me I was living in Canada for many years before that.
So for me to come to a new country, it was like a little English oasis in the middle of a Greek storm around me. It was a place where I could connect with people, they could understand me, the mentality.
It was a professional school, it was very good academically and I took the full IB of course, because why not let's go crazy with education.
It was difficult. I'm not saying it was easy, it was very challenging. But through that journey of the two year IB program.
I made personal connections with friends that I still have to today, which we don't have to say how old we are, but, you know, graduated 93.
Do some calculations.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: But yeah, so there was a lot of work, but I remember there was also a lot of fun. We had our senior skip day. We called it the whole school, the whole senior class and the juniors.
We went to Mykonos in one day. No, it was a five day thing, actually.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Five days.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Five day skip day. Yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was great.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: I want to stay a little bit on the ib. You mentioned that, you know, you went crazy with it. What was the, at that time, what was the percentage, the number of students that took IB from the, from the 11th and 12th grade?
[00:04:43] Speaker A: I would say, what, 20, 30 people maybe. That's a lot. Maybe 20.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Really?
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: So. So the mentality of getting the IB was to, to have what, better prospects.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: So the idea back then, it was still in its initial stages. The IB, like the courses and stuff, which I think ACS was one of.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: The first, that 76.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: That's when they brought the IB. So the idea was, okay, do you want to go to the States for higher education or you want to go into Europe? So at that time I said, you know what? I'm probably thinking of Europe, so I'll do the, the IB program. And that was like the, the better for, for entrance exams, if you want to go to the States, you did the advanced placement to the AP courses. But the other thing is that like for the us, the advanced Placements, you could cherry pick what courses you wanted. Oh, you know, I'll just do, you know, math and physics or whatever. But the IB was a wholesome program. You had to take, what was it, seven or eight courses.
Half of them were higher level, the other ones were secondary level. We had to do some extracurricular activities.
What was it called, Cass, or Theory of Knowledge? I can't remember what it was. Yeah, it was both. So we, we, so we were. What did we do? We went to Hadzipaterian, which was a special needs school, and we went and we helped there.
So, so basically ACS provided an avenue for us to experience things that we would, I would have never experienced how, you know, special needs children, what, what their needs are and like that would function.
And yeah, we, we did the, you know, let's, let's plant a tree or whatever. We, we probably definitely did other things too.
But the thing is that we were active, we were proactive. We, we acknowledged the whole community Environment that okay, we are in a secluded ACS school, but there's other things around us. So let's get experiences from that, let's understand that.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: So the idea of having such a diverse educational experience helped you with.
But staying in the, in the school environment. Do you remember any classmates, any teachers or moments that shaped your identity at that point or your decision to go to where you went?
[00:07:01] Speaker A: So I wanted Europe and for me English was my first language, my mother tongue. So I said okay, let's go to England. At that time England had entered the EU and tuition was a little bit easier to go there, but still you had to get good grades to, to go.
So a couple of my friends were going to Liverpool and I went to Liverpool. That's where the Beatles are from. So it was a party place.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Did that play any role in your decision, you mean?
[00:07:28] Speaker A: No, no, it just happened to be.
But, but it's a good, it was a good university. It was a good university for an undergraduate degree. Because my mentality was, look, an undergraduate degree is an undergraduate degree. It's like the most important afterwards is, is your, is your master's or what you're going to do afterwards, where it's going to help dictate your career.
But of course you want a good one. You don't want to go to university of, you know, no name but no frills brand.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Right, Right. So, so talk to me about the memories from the school. You remember any classmates? Can you name drop or you know, teachers or things that you, you have in your mind.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: So the, the first one is, is Lydia Scabavies which actually is, is here now. She helps with the Athens Global Alumni Program and also works at the school here.
Very knowledgeable and, and her, her superpower is networking. She knows every student by name. A good friend of mine which did not take the IB course was Vasilis Iskos, which is now in Florida.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Keep in touch.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: We keep in touch. Yeah. Sometimes like, you know, a couple of years go by, we haven't spoken and then we pick up the phone and we just continue where we left off as good friends are.
And then like my, my last year here helping out volunteering at acs, I saw many classmates that hadn't seen in a long time that I've. They came to the, the alumni insights where alumni alums come back and they give a talk to the senior class and they talk about their journey, you know, what they did to get to where they are, their challenges in life. Like you know, just to be inspirational to the kids. And there I saw so many people that I hadn't seen. Yeah, no, it was. It was exciting.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: How about teachers?
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Teachers Afustatos, which I just saw five minutes ago.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
Was she your teacher? Your math teacher?
[00:09:29] Speaker A: She. I did math with her at some point. Some point. Yeah. And you know what? It's been such a long time that my. My brain just zonks off.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah. You came after a meeting now, so I can understand.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: But Annie, which is the athletic director, when I first came to acs, she was at my bus stop.
So we. We took the bus together to come to acs.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: How about in your professional career, have you ever came across with alums that are either in your field or in any way you collaborated with?
[00:10:04] Speaker A: I didn't.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Trusting.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm sure there's a lot of people in the medical science field, but I never had, like, I never had anyone, you know, just chatting away and they're like, oh, you know, I went to acs. Oh, me too. No, that never happened.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Really?
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Never. Only here. Only here. When I meet some people, I find a lot, but it's the hub. That's the thing.
But yeah, no, I never. Never by. Not even by accident, no.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Okay, so tell us a little bit about your. Your career. I mean, you are inspired to. From the school to pursue a career in cardiovascular health, and you later transitioned to entrepreneurship and other roles.
Give us. Give us some kind of a path of how did you decide to go towards medicine and you know where you are right now.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah, so I was always interested in the human body, how it works.
And I started doing human physiology and all the life sciences that are related to that, you know, biochemistries. And after, when I went to the University of Toronto, did a master's, and after Liverpool, after Liverpool, I did a master's in science. And then from that I started a little project that actually turned out to be a very big project. And that's how I got into the PhD program.
My committee there said, you know, what do you want to do a PhD? Because this has a lot. This has clinical significance.
So I was Investigating coagulation factor 12, a protein that coagulates the blood. But what was never described in the medical literature was that it raises blood pressure. It's like an inflammatory thing. So it has dual properties. And no one has had ever described it. And we kind of came about it by accident.
So from there, through the Toronto General Hospital, which I was working and doing a PhD, we actually proved that it had clinical significance in patients with chronic renal failure.
So Many, many publications. After they told me if I want to go into academia, I didn't want to. For some reason, I wasn't. Maybe I'm not the academic type. Even though the knowledge interests me and the creative side of investigation, medical investigation, I went and I started doing consulting and I went more into the business side of medicine.
So pharmaceuticals, medical device commercialization, helping institutions like a hospital, how they regulate the patients, the patient's journey to make things more efficient.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Did the work you did on the PhD level help you in some way when you transition to the business?
[00:12:56] Speaker A: So doing a PhD, even though it's a very lonesome career in the sense that when you're in the lab, you're in the lab, when you're writing manuscripts, when you're, you know, investigating, you're alone. Yes, you're with a thousand other people there. But, but it's, but it's a soul journey. And the consulting stuff is the opposite. It's networking and talking to people.
But a PhD, you learn a lot of soft skills that otherwise you wouldn't, you wouldn't learn. For example, So a person that does research, yes, he has to have the knowledge, the medical knowledge, the scientific knowledge, but he's also a creative writer.
When you apply for, you know, I was applying for $100,000 grants, you have to be creative in how you pivot or how you write, how you, how you propose your research is going to be beneficial to the whole clinical community. So you have to write it a certain way.
It has, it's like storytelling and consulting. Then your data management. There's so much data coming through that I put a lot of EDM techno songs so I can sift through all this data and do all the statistical analysis that I feel like a robot.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: I don't have you as an EDM person.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I am.
Because, like doing analysis, you know, with so many data sets and so many permutations of this and that, and you just got to do, keep going, keep going.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: And like, you need the rhythm.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: You need the rhythm because it's, it's, it's mind, like, it's, it's tiring psychologically, but it has to be done. Someone has to do the statistics.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: And it's very important.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: So you said about the writing of it.
Did your experience from ACS help you in such some way? You mentioned your, your English background and your language background. Did that help you in any way when you were writing these proposals or for grants or, or you're even your thesis?
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's different Kinds of writing? Of course, yeah. You know, if you, if you talk to an English literature person, they have their own style of writing.
Medical science has its own style of writing. You know, it's very staccato, very recipe oriented. However, to pitch something, to ask for money from a foundation which I was getting paid from, the Heart and Stroke foundation, which is the main cardiovascular foundation in Canada, you have to tease them a bit. You have to find a creative way of writing, which that helped when I did. What was it? Theory of knowledge, where you have to think outside the box, you have to think a little differently. It's like poetry, you know, there's no right and wrong way of understanding poetry. It's how creative you can get. And sometimes you have to be really creative in how you're going to pitch a very boring biochemical process. But you have to pitch it in such a way that the reviewer says, oh my God, this is like better than sliced bread. We have to give this guy some money to figure it out, you know, and thank God I was good at that.
I got funding for all the years that I was doing my PhD and stuff.
You are listening to the Owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: So you went through this phase in your career that you had to go through that and then you entered the business field and you entered the corporate world.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Let me add before the consulting, another soft skill is basically the networking you do and the relationships you build.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: So like our lab had, you know, five or six different techniques, methodologies that we do, we specialize in, but there's other, like to do a research project, there's more things that one needs.
So you have to collaborate with, with other universities, with other professors, with other people that have other specialties. So how you can't just pick up a phone and say, hi professor, so and so can I send you some blood work? And you do this test that costs you another 50 gr. And so you can do it for free for me, you know, you can't just do that. So, you know, going to conferences, building relationships, getting them on board, that's another soft skill, you know, trying to convince someone else with their money, their funding to do part of your work. Yes, of course you're going to put them on the manuscript, they're a co author, but you have to convince them to give up their funds that they could give somewhere else. So that's another soft skill of trying to convince people and building long lasting relationships. I remember when we were measuring, I don't know, catecholamines it was some guy from Holland that, he did it for us for six years. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of catecholamine analysis. Catecholamine is like adrenaline. Adrenaline that comes from the kid above the adrenal gland. It's like the fight and flight. If I scare you and you gotta run, adrenaline kicks in.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: And he did this for six years for you?
[00:18:05] Speaker A: We would send blood, we would put blood from humans in this gigantic Styrofoam with Dr. Ice. So it's minus how many degrees. So we can, so we can FedEx it to, to Holland there.
And yeah, he, he helped us out six years almost.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: This is invaluable advice because people have a very sterile idea of what the PhD student or research is, is doing. What you're describing is much more into the networking and communication of ideas because you have to have some kind of a result at the end.
So you have your own premise, you have your own goal, but you have to sell it to someone.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: You become a salesman as well.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Exactly.
And then you do the transition. Or you were in that transition mode.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: And then. Yeah. I was asked if I wanted to work as an academic and I said, you know, thank you, but no thank you because I wanted to experience more the business side of medicine and to take my creative skills and the reductionist approach to how to help solve problems in the industry.
I worked with a consulting firm, a boutique consulting firm called Innovera and based in, based in Toronto and also with the affiliation of the Faculty of Medicine, we helped three or four hospitals. Like for example, one hospital needed to increase their revenues in the radiology department.
You know, they had MRIs, which an MRI cost, let's say, five or six million dollars. In the basement they had three of them. And you know, from, from 11:00 o' clock at night till 6:00am they were just sitting there doing nothing. And then in the morning, nine o' clock, you know, they were running all going crazy with the radiologist. They were idle. So I said, you know what, why not do a 24 hour sometimes? It's a simple idea. Yeah, so they can make more money too and also be more efficient. Because if you call and you say you want to do an MRI, it could say, okay, it'll take a month, two months, but if you're willing to come at 3 o' clock, we could see you tomorrow.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: You know, they'll save money. The government saves money. Because in Canada it's government based.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: And the staff, they become more efficient. You know, you could see More people, more quickly. And if I'm going in to do an mri and I think, you know, knock on wood, I have cancer, I rather have it three months early, my diagnosis, than to wait so I can start chemotherapy and radiology.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: So these are interesting ideas that people have to have in order to do the extra step. And as you said, the simplest idea could solve complicated issues.
And in your field it could be life and death situations.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: So you come back, you are here in Athens and you are also doing a lot of different things. You're also involved with organizations that have nothing to do with medicine, as far as I can understand. Maybe there is some kind of a connection which I don't see. But you are involved with organizations that are more political, I would say. Can you talk a little bit about this?
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Right. So you know, everyone has hobbies and everyone has interests.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: You know, you have very interesting hobbies, Peter.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: So it's the thing that says, you know, yeah, you go to work, but still you have other interests. So one of my interests and I, and I was never good at it when I was in high school, I never liked maybe history or politics in general. I know it was that, but. But then afterwards I started liking it.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: You got in perspective differently. Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: You know, the news you see differently, you can peer review it a little bit better.
Now I'm not, I'm not going to go out, wear a T shirt and you know, you know, you know, vote for so and so. I'm not fanatical, but I like geopolitics. It interests me.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: And do you read the newspapers or do you do it online?
[00:22:17] Speaker A: I actually read and I'm not getting any money from spons. The Cathy Marini, the English version. Yeah, it's very professional.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: The, the biggest English one.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: I. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah. I like geopolitics and this and that and a friend of mine, we were starting a non for profit doing debates and the idea of a debate like Oxford style debate where you have, you know, somebody pro and some, someone against a topic.
And the thing that I like about it is that you don't just sit in a studio and argue like you know, they do for TikTok views and this and that. You have to sit and you have to think as a pure debater and have, you know, factual things to convince the audience that what you believe is to be correct and that's the way it should be. And yeah, we do bring politicians, but we also bring academics.
We've had one about woke culture.
We've had one about should art have limits or not.
We've had another one about the US Debates, when the US debates happened.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: So debate on the debate.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Debate on the debates, yeah.
And another one which was very interesting. Femicide. Should it become its own law or should it just be homicide? And that was very interesting because we had legal experts that were women, legal experts that were mental.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: What's the name of the organization?
[00:23:44] Speaker A: It's a debate house.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: The debate house.
And the people who do debates are any particular group, like young people, professionals. I mean, who's doing the debate? Who are the invitees?
[00:23:57] Speaker A: So the debate could be a specialist in an area.
So, like, you know, if it's a legal topic, we bring legal experts, we bring lawyers or constitutionalists.
Anyone can come. We don't discriminate on political party. We're nonpartisan because. And I say government and parties because the governments are us. We are who the parties are.
We are the democracy, we are the citizens that vote. So we should have an opinion and it should be, I believe it should be an educated opinion. So to educate us. That's why you get the experts to battle it out, to see and then try and convince us, the citizens of, you know, what are the issues should be, or what should be my idea about a certain issue, a topic.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: So what is the issue in your mind that definitely needs a debate nowadays, not in general.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Well, our next debate, hopefully in a couple of months time, is going to be at the Parthenon sculptures, which needs to have a debate, but hopefully it doesn't because it's. For me, it's a simple.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: So the angle is what the pro and con.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Pro and against. Yeah.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Of returning the.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Returning the sculptures. And Britain, for example, has taken a legalistic approach that they're trying to define what a museum is nowadays.
They're trying to say that the sculptures were legally purchased by Sir Elgin and therefore they should be at the museum in England. And also that the museum in England, the British Museum, is such a big institution that it's not a British British Museum, it's a global museum. So they should have artifacts from all over the world so everyone can visit. But I'm in disagreement with that because, yes, Britain, how, how it acquired these, all these museum pieces was not through.
Please give it to us. It was back in the day. It was through war, through conquering, through their empire or through whatever.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: So. So I think it's a moral for me, it's a moral thing.
They should, they should give it back. No questions. No, no. Little fine Print.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Right. So this is the topic of the next debate that is being planned in.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: The next couple of months.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you evaded my question though. You told me about the planned. What is the issue that you believe it's really, really worth a debate?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: See, my, my job in the debate house is not, is not to come up with the content.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: No, no, no. This is, this is for our part here, I don't want to disbate with you. I'm just trying to.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: There's no specific issue.
It's more that people don't talk to each other when they have completely, completely different views about something.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: But that has always been the case. People had always had their own view.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Having your own view and to be able to sit down and discuss it in a very intellectual, academic way so one can understand where the other person's coming from.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: That doesn't happen nowadays, and especially in the form where it's structured. Because the debate is a structured discussion. Correct?
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. A Debate has its 15 minutes per person.
You could object and say something, you could interrupt for a short time. It's a very structured thing. But nowadays because news and media are so fast and people don't sit, they don't tend to sit down and listen to a two hour lecture or a talk. They want five minutes, they want a little snapshot. Oh, am I, I'm against vanilla chocolate. Oh, I'm for chocolate. Whatever. You know, so quick.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: But things are not black and white. There's a lot of gray when it comes to society, when it comes to anything. Politics, economy, you know, family structure, structure, anything.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Well, I would, I would probably attribute it to social media because it's the instant gratification that you want from everything in your life. So I'm going to hold you to that question for later. You're still trying to evade, but I'm not evading.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: This is not a journalist thing. I just can't think of anything. I don't know.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: That's okay. I just wanted to let you know that there is an open invitation. If you want to do a debate on the air, if you want to arrange something, we can do it here in the studio so that, that would be something to, for our community especially to see how that is done. Although there are some shows. There is a Greek debate show on the national TV and it's being done, I think. Institution.
I'm going to send you the link because it's in Greek. It's in Greek.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: That's fine. We do things in English and in Greek. Yeah, but, but Let me interrupt you.
We can't do it in the studio because the whole idea is to have a debate, but to have people present after the debate.
So before the debate people electronically vote on what, what they think the topic is like I'm for this or against this. And then after the debate they vote again. So we can see if the, the, the, the people that have come to do the debate, if they changed the, the people's mind.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: I see, okay.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: And then we open the discussion to people that have a specific question to a specific lecture there.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: They could ask anything. So we have basically an active democracy.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: That is interesting.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: You know, so it's not only, well, Asparticus Coliseum, let Jim battle John with knives, with the tongue. No, it's, it's a community.
So yes, you guys are the professionals or the specialists, but let me the layman, just the pure voter that has nothing to do with it. Let me ask you a question about so and so.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: So forget about the formal debate process.
Maybe when you do the debate about the marbles, we meet up afterwards and talk about the results.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that. We could do an analysis. We could do an analysis for sure.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: There's an invitation for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, finally. And I want to go bring it back to the school because as you said before, you're, you're an alum of ACS and you're involved in the ACS Athens global activity, you know, group of activities, especially in the entrepreneurship group. You, you had that group along with other people and you've managed to bring a lot of different individuals to, to, to help and network on the entrepreneurship idea. Can you talk a little bit about this? What is the scope of, what do you see? What's your vision for such activities?
[00:30:56] Speaker A: So another hobby of mine, let's say is entrepreneurism. But when we say entrepreneurism is an umbrella that could mean a thousand different things.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: What does it mean to you?
[00:31:06] Speaker A: For me, I like creating something that solves a problem.
And because of my background, I like medical devices.
So we had, we had done a startup, we had gotten seed money, $2 million to create a non invasive. So something that doesn't go underneath your skin. Something that wear. At the time it was everything with a craze was wearables. Wearables that measure your heart rate, measure, measure this, measure that.
And we, and the problem in the medical field, one of the, the billion dollar question is to have a wearable that measures blood pressure non invasively.
Now you have a cuff that has to be at a specific, you know, level near your heart and you have to inflate it.
But there's no watch that does it without you doing anything automatically.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: There's no such a thing.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: There's no such thing. So all these, all these watches that exist that have the light, if you turn your phone over, that's ppg, it's phosphor, something, I don't know, I can never remember that gigantic name. But what it does, it could measure your heart rate, it measures the electrical impulses and it measures it 100%, 99.9% accurate than a, you know, $10 million electrocardiogram that you have to go and do.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: They do also oxygen, I think, and.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: They do oxygen pulsimeter, which is, yeah, that's easy too. And they could measure your temperature and let's see your breathing, you could measure your breathing as well.
But they can't measure blood pressure and blood pressure.
It's one of the most biggest indications for you know, having pathology, having a disease in the future.
And you can't measure it non invasively like leave it alone and you know, yeah, let it do its thing and you know, give you all this data to your doctor so you can make a. Because blood pressure changes second to second and how it does it and all these little intricacies, it's indication of a pathology, it could really tell you a lot of information and a non invasive device doesn't exist.
And so you took this idea and we took this idea and we looked how we can build it and where on the body it should be located. So for example, as a watch, we couldn't do it there because young people have very good veins and arteries. So the measurements you get on the wrist are very good because they sell wrist blood pressure devices.
But when you're, when you're reaching 40, 50, 60 or more, you have a little bit of atherosclerosis. The reading that you get on your wrist is not a good value. It's, it's incorrect. So you can't make any judgment. So that's why if you buy a blood pressure thing, never buy it on the wrist. Always have it on your, on your arm.
So we looked at other places in the body and what we discovered was inside the ear there's capillaries, there's blood vessels that come directly. So from your heart it goes to your carotids, from your, in your neck and it goes directly up in your brain.
So those blood vessels measure direct blood pressure from your heart. So it was accurate, but we couldn't miniaturize all the machinery to do it.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: To fit in the air.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we, I worked on that for, I don't know, I can't remember two, three years and stuff with, you know, with all these engineers and it has to be wireless and, you know, so it didn't work out. I'm sure at some point somebody will come up with it, but the technology is not there yet.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: So that shows that you have the entrepreneurship spirit. You're trying to bring it in to AC Southens Global.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: So let's bring it.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: So the ACS Athens Global, it's a community of alums, and there's alums in all disciplines throughout the world. And we're going to try and target people that have an inclination towards entrepreneurism or business in general.
And we want to showcase how their journey was so we can better understand how people go on their roads to become entrepreneurs and their failures and their successes, but also to educate students as well on, you know, how to, like, simple thing, how to start up a company. How does one go start up a company? What are patents? Should I, should I bring a lawyer? Do I need to protect my idea?
And I want to build it, how do I, where do I build it? How about manufacturing? These are all, all things that an entrepreneur in a startup has to think about. And we don't, you know, we don't know. You have to do it by trial and basis. You have a company that fails, you do another one.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: So what's a common thread with our alums? What is something that is unique about ACS Athens alums that you feel that that particular group can either grow or maybe do something different? I mean, there are so many entrepreneurship hubs and incubators and everything. Why do you think this is an important hub?
[00:36:04] Speaker A: So one, to bring the community together, to bring the global alumni community together, which is needed because universities have been doing it for years. And I think our high school should do this as well. And because whoever has left ACS is a professional that we know the rigorous academic and the morality and this and that, it's a good school.
And so just by saying, oh, I finished acs, we recognize them of who they are as a person.
And to be able to, if we can tap into that, to utilize them, to bring back to the students, I think is a good thing.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: And you've done your more than fair share in promoting that. I mean, you're a pioneer on this. I want to close this little discussion that we have with the most cliche question in June.
It's the 80th anniversary of the school and it's commencement in two weeks, less than two weeks.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: I just got my invitation.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: So you got your invitation. So what is your advice to the class of 25, which is the 80th anniversary from your end, from your. Either it's life experience, professional experience. What is an advice that you can bestow on them?
[00:37:24] Speaker A: So, first of all, I'm happy that ACS is turning 80 because it means that it survived economic crises in the country and this and that, and it keeps its academic rigor and it's. The institution will. I know that it will always remain here, which I'm happy about that to the graduating class, I can say that.
Don't be afraid to fail.
Learn from the mistake. Learn from. You know, why did something fail? Could what? And then. And then keep on going. Get on that horse and just keep on doing it. Have grit, what they call grit. You know, when I was doing my PhD, 50% of all the experiments just failed.
It could have been this, it could have been that. It could have been a billion things. You know, it could have been the Earth's rotation and something didn't work. You don't know. But if you're able to learn the smallest of little things from that failure and then work on it for your next project, that's a win.
That's a win.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Dr. Peter Papagiorgio, class of 93, thank you so much for being with us.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: We'll be seeing you around the campus.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Okay, take care. Thanks. Bye.
You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the Owlcast on Google Podcasts, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the ACS Athens Media Studio.