Kastellorizo Riddle Festival

Kastellorizo Riddle Festival

A major scientific event

Kastellorizo Riddle Festival is a major scientific event, born from the heart of this remote island and addressed to its inhabitants. It is a volunteer initiative of national importance, an event of high scientific calibre and above all a great celebration of science, of offering new knowledge and joy to the island's audience — of every age and level of knowledge — and beyond. So what is a puzzle? It is anything that sharpens our thinking and inspires us to become creative.

But why a Puzzle Festival? Because of the Puzzle Museum on the island. Its founder and owner is the mathematician Pantazis Choulis, former professor at the University of Western Australia, now a collaborator of the University of Crete, and co-founder of a company producing educational puzzles. The Museum holds one of the largest puzzle collections in the world (many of which are his own inventions and constructions).

The idea belongs to Eleni Grammatikopoulou, well known for her work to date in science communication. She takes part in organising major scientific events across Greece (science festivals, Researchers' Night, etc.) always with particular success. She has been awarded for this important work.

He has collaborated with Eleni Grammatikopoulou on two festivals in Athens, and he accepted with great enthusiasm her proposal to organise this particular festival at Kastellorizo. He himself feels great honour and joy that such a major event — on an international scale — will take shape in his birthplace. Both believe that Greece is not only Athens, Thessaloniki and the other big cities, but also the remote regions that we owe it to support and give hope to.

The educational activities, guided tours, talks, theatre games, original performances, interactive experiments and more from distinguished scientists of various research bodies across the country, we believe will enthuse the audience of every age who will attend and above all take an active part.

The theme of the PF will focus mainly on the fields:

Machine Learning | AI | Digital Transformation | Robotics | STEM Education

|Health | Environment | Art

The whole organisation is carried out by the Megisti Puzzle Museum, which "is the main activity of the EN.I.G.MA association" (Union of Ideas, Puzzles, Mathematics). It is held under the auspices of the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation of the Ministry of Development and Investments, while there is clear interest from the Municipality of Megisti and the Region of the South Aegean. In addition, the participation of the University of Crete, the Hellenic Pasteur Institute, the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, the Eugenides Foundation and other scientific/educational bodies has been secured. The choice of date is no coincidence either. It was set for late September (24-26/9), when schools will be back in session and locals will no longer be busy with tourism. That way, children and adults will enjoy it and above all take an active part in it.

The 50-plus participants in the PF are driven by a single motive: their love for science communication and their wish to offer knowledge to the inhabitants — of every age — of this remote island.