This is the official site of the Research & Technological Development Department of Virtual Trip Ltd, member of Virtual Trip Group. The R&TD Department works on research projects exploiting the experience and scientific education of its members in order to bring up innovative ideas.

R&TD Department Team:

• Dr. Fotis Liotopoulos, Director R&TD Department
  Ph.D (Elec.Comp.Eng.), M.Sc. (Comp. Sci.), Dipl. Eng. (Comp. Eng. & Informatics)

• Dr. Xaris Manifavas, Project Manager - Security Engineer
  Ph.D (Comp. Sci.), M.Sc. (Elec. Sci.), B. Sc (Comp. Sci.)
  

• Mr. Kostas Millis
  M.Sc. (Soft. Eng.), B.Sc. (Comp. Sci.)

• Mr. Panagiotis Toulis, Mobile Applications
  B.Sc. (Elec. Eng.)

• Mr. Nikos Papadopoulos
  M.Sc. (Info. Sys. & e-Comm.), B.Sc (Comp. Sci.)

• Mr. Konstantinos Xinidis
  M.Sc. (Syst. & Security), B.Sc. (Comp. Sci.)

• Mr. Georgios Sapountzis
  M.Sc. (Comp. Sci.), B.Sc (Comp. Sci.)

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Post Address:

Technological Park of Thessaloniki
Virtual Trip Ltd.
6ο Kllm. Charilaou-Thermis
T.C. 60328
57001 Thermi, Thessaloniki

Phone.: +302310 498200

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Dr. Fotis K. Liotopoulos received his diploma in Computer Engineering from the Univ. of Patras, Greece, in 1988 and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Computer Sciences and Electrical & Computer Engineering dept. of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, in 1991 and 1996, respectively.

He has worked with the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute (RACTI) as a senior research engineer, research-unit manager and consultant for several public and private sector projects. He has also served as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer for CITY College, a private higher education institution, affiliated with the Univ. of Sheffield, where he taught graduate (M.Sc.) and undergraduate courses in Computer Networks and Computer Architecture. Dr. Liotopoulos has taught Computer Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as a PD407 adjunct lecturer and he has been a part-time teaching associate with the Hellenic Open University for the past 6 years, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Computer Architecture, Digital Systems and Computer Networks.

Currently, Dr. Liotopoulos is the Director of the R&TD dept. of Virtual Trip, Ltd., supervising a research group of 8 people and managing more than 15 ongoing R&TD projects (national and EU). During the past 20 years, he has managed or participated in several dozens of ICT R&TD projects in his areas of expertise.

Dr. Liotopoulos is the author or co-author of more than 30 research papers and has served as a reviewer and/or committee member for several international journals, conferences and books. He has been awarded a "best-paper award" (PARLE conf.), Vilas and Bodosakis fellowships and a number of distinctions and awards for research and academic performance. His areas of interest include computer and network architectures and protocols, digital communications, broadband switching and routing, parallel & distributed architectures, multiprocessor / multicomputer systems, parallel processing and performance analysis & optimization.

Dr. Liotopoulos is a senior member of IEEE and member of ACM. He has also been a member of the British Computing Society, the Sigma-Chi Engineering Society, member of several IEEE Technical Committees TCCSR, TCCA, TCSA, and member of the Editorial Board of the "Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing" Journal (Wiley & Sons). [top]

Dr. Harry Manifavas received his Ph.D. in Computer and Communications Security from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2002, his M.Sc. in Communication Systems Engineering from the University of Kent, UK, in 1994 and his B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Crete, Greece, in 1993.

From 1995 to 1998 he worked as a Research Assistant in the Computer Lab, University of Cambridge, UK, on electronic payment protocols, digital certification infrastructures and copyright protection. From 2000 to 2003 he worked as a security engineer for an investment bank in London responsible for the productionization of several security technologies like PKI, IDS, identity management, virus management, active content protection, secure instant messaging and other. From 2004 to present he has been lecturing, as visiting professor, on Information Systems Security, at the University of Crete and the Technological Educational Institute of Crete. Currently, he is a security consultant with Virtual Trip, Ltd. for public and private sector projects involving security aspects.

Dr. Manifavas is the author or co-author of 7 research papers and a book in the area of information security. His areas of interest include security protocols, PKIs, e-commerce payment mechanisms and business models, digital copyright, software security, security policies, digital forensics and information security management. [top]

Mr. Konstantinos Milis received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science (2001) and his M.Sc. degree in Software Engineering & Telecommunications (2005) from the Univ. of Sheffield, UK (at CITY Liberal Studies, Thessaloniki, Greece). He also possesses two certificates in Computer and Office Equipment Electronics (1998) and as Information Applications Specialist (2000) from the Greek IEK.

He started working in IT industry in 1997 as computer technician and programmer. From 1997 to 2001 he worked as IT consultant for various SMEs. During the period 2003-2006 he taught Computer Science courses (networking, programming languages, operating systems, network security) for private educational institutions (IEK) “KORELKO” and “KOREL PLUS”, reaching more than 2400 teaching hours.

Since 2006, Mr. Milis has been with Virtual Trip, where he is involved in various R&D projects of the R&TD dept.

He research interests include communication networks, network security, simulations (networking, physical phenomena), software development and the computerization of daily life operations. [top]

Mr. Panos Toulis received his Diploma in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2005. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD degree at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the area of Activity Recognition and Ambient Intelligence.

As an undergraduate student and during his diploma dissertation, Mr. Toulis participated and ranked 1^st in the 6^th annual Trading Agent Competition in August of 2005 during the IJCAI International Artificial Intelligence Conference in Scotland. In May 2006, in Japan, he presented the related work on Intelligent Agents technology, in the AAMAS Conference and was nominated for best student paper award.

Between 2000-2001, he worked for the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as a software developer that led to the creation of an integration platform of Multi Agent Systems and Data Mining technology, which is currently hosted under “sourceforge.net”.

Currently he works at the R&TD dept. of Virtual Trip Ltd., participating in European research projects and developing software applications. [top]

Mr. Nikos Papadopoulos received his B.Sc. degree (1999) and M.Sc. degree (2001, Information Systems and Parallel & Distributed Systems), both in Computer Science from the Computer Science Dept. of the University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece.

From 1998 to 1999 he was an undergraduate trainee at the Parallel & Distributed Systems Laboratory of ICS/FORTH (Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research & Technology Hellas). After he received his diploma he worked as a specialized demonstrator at the same laboratory.

From 1999 to 2007 he was a postgraduate researcher and software developer at the Information Systems Laboratory of ICS/FORTH, participating in several national and EU R&D projects, for which he designed and developed various specialized information systems. In 2004 he participated in the design and implementation team of the Hostmaster [.gr] system (Registry of .gr Domain Names). From 2005 to 2006 he co-worked with the group of banks of the Panhellenic Bank of Greece, on a project involving the design and development of the information system for their inter-group exchanges.

Currently, Mr. Papadopoulos works at the R&TD dept. of Virtual Trip, participating in various national and EU R&D projects. He has one publication in the area of recommendation systems. [top]

Mr. Konstantinos Xinidis received his Diploma and M.Sc. degree, both in Computer Science from the Univeristy of Crete, Greece, in 2002 and 2004, respectively.

He has worked with the Institute of Computer Science (ICS), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Greece and with the Systems and Security Dept. (SSD) of the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), in Singapore, as a network systems engineer.

Currently, Mr. Xinidis is a member of the R&TD dept. of Virtual Trip, working on various national and EU R&D projects.

Mr. Xinidis is the author or co-author of 4 research papers. He has been awarded an "Ericsson Award for Excellence in Telecommunications" for his under-graduate thesis, fellowships from the ICS-FORTH and a number of distinctions and awards for academic performance.

His main research interests include wireless networks, scalable storage systems, network monitoring, intrusion detection, and network processors. During the past 4 years, he has participated in several R&D projects in his areas of expertise. [top]

Mr. Georgios Sapountzis received his B.Sc Degree (1999) and his M.Sc. Degree (2003) both in Computer Science from the Univ. of Crete, Greece.

He has worked at the Institute of Computer Science (ICS), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Greece on scalable switching fabrics and FPGA prototypes for network subsystems. Mr. Sapountzis is a member of the R&TD dept. of Virtual Trip, working on various national and EU R&D projects. Mr. Sapountzis is the author or co-author of 3 research papers and has received several fellowships from the Greek National Scholarships Foundation for repeatedly ranking top of his class. [top]