On Tuesday 21 November 2000 at the Pallas Athina Mansion the event of the Eurobank Forum which dealt with "The New Technologies in Education and Culture" took place. Within the framework of the event Mr Dimitris Efraimoglou made the presentation of the programme of the Foundation of the Hellenic World "Hellenic History on the Internet", a web site under the exclusive sponsorship of the EFG Eurobank Ergasias Bank which is held by Latsis family interests.

The Minister of Development Mr Nikos Hristodoulakis, the Managing Director of EFG Eurobank Ergasias Mr Nikolaos Nanopoulos, as well as the President of the Foundation of Hellenic World Mr Lazaros Efraimoglou saluted the event. Then the proposals of the invited speakers followed, first by Professor Mr George Babiniotis, Rector of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, who in his speech entitled "The Role of New Technologies for a Quality Education" said: "In the future years, education that will not possess all the benefits of information technology, will be a provocative anachronism. The development of technologies in the field of education could result in an educational software, of the highest quality for the teaching and support of three areas of education: our cultural identity or in other words cultural or national lessons (language, history, religion, tradition, literature), the aesthetic cultivation (music, plastic arts, theater) and the ãíùóôéêþí ìáèÞóåùí (applied sciences lessons, foreign languages, other fields of knowledge)". Then he referred to the role of the teacher, in the necessity of existence of reliable and significant educational programmes and closed his speech with the ascertainment: "education without new technologies will be something inconceivable the following years".

Then, the Professor Mr Mihalis Dertouzos, Director of the Information Laboratory of MIT, who in his speech entitled "The Incomplete Information Revolution" referred to the new systems of information -"man centered" as he called them- which will be oriented towards the szervice of human needs and objectives, in the possibilities of these systems and their consequences to man. Speaking about the situation today, he said: "The information revolution is still in the beginning. Computers and the global Internet do not serve us, so much as we serve them. Difficulties in the use and low productivity characterise today's machines, which "demand" from us to get down to their base mechanic level, in order to be able to use them. Now is the time for a radical change, which will allow us to utilise the possibilities of information for all mankind".

Third speaker was professor Mr George Mitakidis, Director of Basic Technologies and Infrastructures of the Information Society in the General Directorate "Information Society" of the European Committte, who dealt with the relation between history and technology ending up: "the same technologies that push today's media and mass culture can help in saving, preserving and propagating basic unchanging human values. The contribution and close cooperation of representatives both from the field of technology and history or in general both from the applied and the classical sciences, who believe in the cooperation of technology - history/culture is a necessary prerequisite in order to achieve this aim".

The event came to an end with a speech by Mr Dimitris Efraimoglou, Managing Director of FHW, who presented the programme "Hellenic History on the Internet". Mr Efraimoglou pointed out in his presentation that more than 60 specialised archaeologists, historians, information analysts, programmers, interactive programmes designers, 3D graphic designers have worked in this programme for three years. It is the first time that the whole spectrum of Greek history is presented in electronic form in two languages, Greek and English. Then he referred to the 30.000 web pages that constitute "Hellenic History on Internet" and provide the visitor with the opportunity to approach scientific information of high quality, but also a vast number of pictures. concluding his speech he said characteristically: "Internet is a living, developing art, open to new stimuli. It continously creates new frontiers, offers new choices and new challenges. The educational world changes fast and the Foundation of the Hellenic World is determined to be at the forefront of developments".