The charismatic and inspirational young Australian Hellene Fotios Tsiouklas, walked into the 3XY Radio Hellas studio, last week for the very first time, as a guest
on the Hellenic Drive show.
He has accepted to come on board regularly, so as to voice his thoughts and feelings about the issues and challenges young people experience.
I was very impressed with this 18 year old who speaks humbly about himself and shows the genuine generosity to give so as much tas he can to Greek Australian society.
Fotios has recently produced an app named after the greek word Metropolis which gives learners of Greek to engage with the Greek language even more so.
He recently presented, for the first time, his new app‘Metropolis’ at an event which was held at Mel-bourne’s Greek Centre on Saturday 9 February – that is on the Interna-tional Day for Greek Language. The event was hosted by Cr Mike Zafiropoulos (AM) for the Speak Greek in March campaign.
Being present at the event myself, on behalf the Greek Media Group, I was very moved when where Fotios demonstrated his new app which was applauded by the people and media present together with the empowering speeches by the Greek Consul General in Mel-bourne Mr Dimitrios Michalopoulos and the Greek Consulate Edu-cation Coordinator Dr Georgina Ni-kolaidou. I was also very moved
Last Thursday when Foti came on board the show I asked him the following:
Emily-It all starts with a passion, doesn’t it? And we all have a passion on Hellenic drive to bring in the young people..to bring in the young people with innovative ideas and with inspirations. So they can inspire us and we can inspire them…we can bring it out there to the broader Australian community because the Greek Australian community is not only our focus. Our focus is the broader Australian community and we are trying to do that through the Hellenic drive. We are moving slowly but with a lot of very good responses at the moment. That is why I have asked you to come here today to be part of the show whenever you can.
Foti- Yes that is a very important part of connecting everyone and celebrating Greek achievement and achievement in general in our community. The best way to inspire change in others is to pursue something different.
And I think the world is heading towards something different. Entre-preneurship and innovation I think is going to be more valued with years to come. I would love to see more of that in our community and I think the best way to bring that out with our people is to make examples of those who have persued an alternative pathway and a pathway, I believe is really amazing.
Emily- So when did you start getting into the technology of applications and trying to create these applications that would entertain and what else?
Foti- I was always liked creating things and inevitably you are always moving forward and moving up.I started at a very young age 12, 13 with e-commerce and ebay and selling things on lineand building shops and doing stuff like that. As I got older, I pursued new ventures, new things ang I got into app development. I saw it as a huge opportunity. I always wanted a mobile app and I loved playing games and I decided to develop my own games. I thought it would be awesome. I also saw that application development was something that everyone wanted but no one could really get. Because there was a limited supply of app developers, even in Mel-bourne. These people that develop apps charge ridiculous amounts of money because of lack of supply.
So I saw this as an opportunity to come in and to use my creativity. And the best way to bring our creativity is through entrepreneurship and through creating something. I loved doing it. I loved the experience and I did a lot of things in the Greek community, involving social media and apps through the years. Now we have Alpha Club we shall talk about later. It’s been a great journey and I would like to share it.
Emily- Can I ask you…. who triggered this inspiration? Who was that person who inspired you? Was it the one person or were there a few people that inspired you to get into this pathway in creating and in being inspired to becoming an entrepreneur? And inspiring other entrepreneurs, because that is what you are doing!
Foti- I don’t know…I cannot really say….obviously my environment had something to do with it! The way I was raised and stuff.. I cannot actually pinpoint the specific moment or specific person that did inspire me.
I do however believe that entrepreneurs are born. I think people are born with a certain thing in their brain that makes them creative, and I think we need to bring these people out more in the world.
Because those people that are creative are often ridiculed. They are often held down and suppressed
