There are now more than 60 companies and 30 universities involved in the micro-electronics cluster. Together, they are responsible for more than $260m in exports, according to Makios. The products range from sensor networks and mobile technology to solar energy equipment and micro-chips for studying DNA.
Corallia itself is a non-profit. It leases the building, and rents out spaces to start-ups. It provides these small companies with internet connections, teleconferencing facilities and meeting rooms. There are in-house experts who can give companies advice about filing patents, making business plans, and pitching venture capitalists.
"I call it a facilitator for the high-tech sector," says Costas Meimitis, CEO of a small start-up called Antcor, which licences wi-fi software for the chip industry. Antcor only has 12 employees, and Meimitis says that if they had to deal with IP attorneys, accountants and auditors they wouldn't have to time to work on their technology.
"Corallia's help puts me in the right mind-set," he says.
‘Death warrant’
It is people like Meimitis – along with help from universities and Corallia - that Makios believes can “change Greece”.
"Yes, Greece is in a difficult situation right now, a real mess, but I'm confident that we can come out of this mess because of these technology prospects," he says.
"This cluster," Makios emphasizes, "will create a small, but positive, Silicon Valley in Greece."
For now, the promise of a "Silicon Valley for Greece" might be stretching it a bit. Economist and venture capitalist Aristos Doxiadis does, on balance, think that tech can be a viable sector in the new Greek economy, but he says that he doesn't "see a huge number of jobs being created," at least in the short term.
"The fundamentals, and by that I mean the people, are here," Doxiadis says. "But the bureaucratic obstacles are still immense." Add to that, Doxiadis tells me, that a whole generation of Greeks is still coming to terms with the fact the decades-old system of steady, government jobs with inflated wages and generous pensions is crumbling.
"There is no free lunch anymore," Doxiadis says. "We have to figure out how to be productive."
And that, says Vassilios Makios, is exactly the message he's giving to Greek students coming out of university these days.
"I tell them this: 'If at the age of 25, you want to become a civil servant, they already have a coffin ready for you. You're dead.'"
It was a message that resonated strongly with Constalex's Efstratios Kehayas. "Personally, I decided that I wanted to build things, that I wanted to mingle with top researchers and entrepreneurs. I wanted the rush. If you put me in an office, and made me do the same thing over and over for 25 years, that would kill me."
Constelex got its first sales, and its first patent, last year and the company is now working on a way to modify its technology to better treat cancer.
As for Corallia, it has started two new clusters, one for start-ups working on technologies related to space, and the other in gaming. There is no reason, Vassilios Makios says, that the same idea can't apply to other industries such as bio-engineering, or even to Greek wine-makers.
"We can brand it all 'made in Greece,'" he says, beaming. "And make it a standard around the world."
