Damian Vavanos

General Manager and
Head of Business Development

Damian is passionate about all things that has to do with building relationships, supporting people reach their potential and all aspects of entrepreneurial mindset.

His background is in Marketing and Operations although his favourite aspect of his pre-NPO life was that he was a digital nomad.

As Head of Business Development he makes sure that our fundraising, partnerships and company’s strategy is  being implemented while making sure to build long lasting relationships with our stakeholders.

Sami Ben Chaalia

Web Developer

Detail-oriented, organized, fast learner and meticulous Web developer, able to work at fast pace to meet tight deadlines. Enthusiastic team player with an engineering degree specializing in Computer Engineering from Sesame University.

Meryem R. Yurtçiçek

Business Development Associate

Meryem is an MIS Student, trying to find her ikigai by trying all sorts of experiences in various fields.

She’s been juggling challenges that taught me Time Management, Self-love, Leadership Skills, and Teamwork on this journey.

She has experiences on Graphic Design, UI/UX, Digital Marketing, Social Media Management, Business Development & Sales.

She believes that we learn by doing so you can always see her working on new projects. She has self-taught herself how to draw, two languages various design programs.

Challenge is the key for growth and she’s an individual looking for the next challenge!

Melih Kaan Batibay

Business Development Associate

Melih started his career as an Advisor and Graphic designer on a blockchain project.
After working on this project for 3 years, he joined AIESEC. He came to the position of Business Development Vice President at AIESEC Turkey at his local.

After his 1-year assignment, he started his alumni life and continued his way as a graphic designer for a while.

Then he met with Social Hackers Academy, and he is working as a Business Development Associate.

Valentina Pasinato

Junior Project Manager

Originally from Brazil, Valentina comes from an International Relations background. She has always been interested on how the global and the local dynamics interact.

Having worked in Community Development Projects both in Brazil and Europe, she believes that real changes start with local actions and the empowerment of its community.

She is interested in International Development and the creation of sustainable projects and policies, designed for positive social impacts on the lives of Refugees and other minorities, specially aiming to help them overcoming their traumatic experiences and reintegrating society.

Slim Kasraoui

Lead Technical Instructor

Slim has worked in banking, physiotherapy, customer service, full-stack developer instructor, or entrepreneur. He has been switching his career, and it took him 34 years to find out his passion for development, especially hacking the formal education system. Now he is part of the education team of SHA.

Based now in Tunisia, he lived in Athens for three years. Nowadays, he prefers being called learn-teacher or learn-structor rather than teacher or instructor. He loves learning and trying new stuff.

Halim Boussada

Technical Instructor

Halim is a graduated Full Stack JavaScript developer from RBK with a Bachelor Degree from ISET Djerba in Electrical Engineering. This experience has helped him to reach a dexterity in communication, negotiation, autonomous learning, and leadership. Moreover, he is skilled at mentoring and delivering information to the upcoming generations as he is very passionate about education and, consequently, improving our education system. Working as an Instructor at RBK has allowed him to put his passion into practice as he guided students to become the best versions of themselves by helping them with their daily sprints and projects, and now he hopes that he will do the same in SHA.

Yasmeen Othman

Technical Instructor

From Palestine, She has a degree in telecommunication engineering and technology.
She worked as a project coordinator for one year and a half in the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. Then in 2019, she joined a coding Bootcamp in Jordan to become a full-stack developer. Spending five months away from everything except writing code, learning new techniques and stuff in different aspects of life made her passionate to be a part of changing others’ life and passing knowledge to someone else as what others did with her.

The journey started in 2020, as she worked for one year as an Instructor in RBK-Jordan coding Bootcamp which helped her improve her technical, teaching, and management skills. And now is the time to start a new chapter of this journey with another great community in SHA.

Hanan Majali

Employability Manager 

Comes from an Engineering background ‘Telecommunication Engineer’.
So passionate about platforms and places that impart life change experiences, believes in the most valuable assets in this accelerated life, and enriches the base of diversity, collaborative learning environment, leverage up skills.

Worked as Educational Lead at Jordanian Bootcamp and primarily was responsible for ensuring students have developed the soft skills necessary for a successful job search and career in the software industry.

Joined SHA as Employability Manager where she would expand her experience and looking forward to advancing the mission and promoting elite standards of excellence.

Zainab Laham

Employment Officer

She came from Syria in 2012 to start her journey in Jordan. She has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business administration.

A highly ambitious, self-motivated, and energetic person with excellent communication skills. She has 2 years of experience in marketing and 4 years of experience in human resources. Then she worked for RBK as admissions lead for Jordan and Iraq, also as a student-facing class coordinator.

Her goal is to help the refugees get a better life and have the same rights as anyone in the world to pursue their dreams.

Laura Azorin

Fundraising Manager

Laura Azorín’s journey begins with the degree of Business Administration and Management at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). She fell in love with a subject called Social Economic Entities Management. Thanks to that subject and some other experiences in social enterprises and associations, she knew she wanted to focus on something related to social impact, working for integration, equality, justice and change.

Laura found Social Hackers Academy thanks to an international internship, and she has been with them since then, working on the Fundraising team as a Project Manager. She defines herself as a passionate and hard worker who aims to contribute to making the world a better place.

Alex Garcia

Project Manager 

Alex has graduated in naval engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalunya and recently obtained a joint master’s degree in the same field in Belgium and Germany. After some years focusing on science, he is willing to add the social dimension to it since technological progress is senseless if the human part is left behind.

In the last years, he has been combining his studies with international activities and projects based on non-formal education. He is a member of an NGO in Barcelona which deals with cultural and artistic issues (one of its passions) and is currently developing an international project using art as a method of expression and dealing with socially vulnerable groups.

Maro Samara

Proposal Writer

Maro is passionate about science and writing since she can remember. She managed to combine these two through studying physics and writing articles in online newspapers, blogs and magazines. She is also involved with arts, sports, traveling and languages and uses the experience gained to improve in any aspect. In SHA, she is a member of the fundraising team as a proposal writer.

She joined the organization because she believes SHA is the place where she can combine her love for STEM with writing and, as a result, produce something that has a social impact. Motivation moto: Even on your worst day, you can make better another’s day.

Ainoa Prieto

Project Manager & Fundraiser

Ainoa is a human rights advocate specialized in migration, women’s rights and vulnerable groups. After completing her Master’s Degree in International Affairs, she worked for the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva and collaborated with different humanitarian and human rights organizations internationally.

She is undoubtedly passionate about building a better society by helping other people thrive. After studying and working abroad for some years, she moved to Greece to support SHA’s Team as a Project Manager and Fundraiser.

Nil Muge Felekten

Marketing Manager & Designer

Nil studied Graphic Arts in Turkey, as she couldn’t stop drawing since childhood. After her graduation, she worked in Istanbul in different industries like publishing, tech, academy, and advertising. After gaining significant experience, she decided to study Master’s Degree in Graphic Arts and started freelancing as a designer.

During her studies, she had the chance to work in Spain and in Greece as an Erasmus+ intern. That was when she met with SHA and she feels lucky to be part of this team that drives her to learn more every day.

Ioanna Kosta

Social Media Marketer

Ioanna studied Computer Engineering and Informatics but Digital Marketing and Content Creation won her interest. She worked as a Digital Media Executive for paid advertising and volunteered in different NGOs for making content.

As a long-term volunteer, she wanted to work in a place where there is a social purpose, to offer for the greater good. In SHA, her dream came true and she feels blessful to be a part of this team.

Marta Inacio

Digital Marketing Assistant

Marta studied Marketing Management in her home country, Portugal. Since little, she has been an active voice in her local community and has been involved with different non-profit organizations.

After working for one year in a Multinational company, Marta understood that she needed more purpose in her future career. She believes that working in human rights, it’s her next step in life.

By joining SHA, she hopes to help this organization achieving its mission and make the world a better place.

Dimitar Todorovski

Social Media Marketing Assistant

The ship that sailing through whatever may be. Studied Tourism and Management,
then Digital Marketing, Dimitar found himself in a world full of creatives, solutions,
and ideas. As he improved in Digital Marketing he was lucky to find SHA as his
harbor, where he can push his knowledge and skills way beyond, and with that help,
this organization achieves the objective of its existence; transfer the knowledge to
the people willing to learn.

As his love for nature got stronger every day, he understands that like nature,
people must have a wider specter of aspects in order to develop their own strategy.

Damianos Vavanos

Co-Founder

Damianos’ background is in Digital Marketing and Operations and has taken the role of Director. He’s worked in different NGOs all his life and recently he was working with Solidarity Mission as a Digital Marketing Consultant.

Right before embarking on the Social Hackers Academy project he was travelling the world while building his businesses.

Chris Owen

Co-Founder

Chris’s background is in Computer Science with several years professional experience working for start-ups, international companies and freelancing. Most recently he was working for The Guardian as part of their engineering team. Chris has taken on the role of CTO and deals more with the day to day running of the school.

Michael Thomas

Co-Founder & Investor

Michael is a US based entrepreneur and journalist who originally laid the groundwork that the organisation is built on. Having spent times in refugee camps as a journalist he gained vital knowledge for the project and developed the first concept for the code school as it exists today. In the past, Thomas has worked in San Francisco working on his own start-up. As a successful journalist and storyteller, Michael has written for Fast Company and The Atlantic.

Panos Papadopoulos

Panos Papadopoulos is a partner at Marathon VC, an Athens based venture capital investing in tech startups. Prior to joining the finance world, he was a co-founder and CEO at BugSense, a mobile analytics company that was acquired by Splunk Inc. He has invested in more than 20 startups and loves crypto-currencies, IoT and open source infrastructure. He is passionate about change and breaking down existing thinking models.

Chris Jones

Chris grew up between Australia and New Zealand but in 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, moved to Europe. Feeling strongly for those that are most vulnerable and dismayed by what he saw as a lack of opportunity for refugees in Greece, he decided to seek out a partner in helping refugees achieve their full potential.