Core Team

Aggelina Mila

Managing Director

She recently graduated with a Business Administration diploma. As a student, she was involved in several organizations and projects and traveled a lot around the world. Her most life-changing experience took place in India, where she created exchange programs for students.

Aggelina is passionate about education & long-life learning, as they offer the tools to unlock everyone’s potential. She has worked in the HR field for a multinational company. What inspires her the most is the transformational change that education can generate.

AbdalRahman Hamami

Head of Education

AbdalRahman(aka Abed), is a Technology enthusiast and is passionate about Software development, AI, and Tech Education. He is mainly responsible to maintain the quality of the students’ educational experience, their progress and that the Hard-skills training is up to date and relevant.
Abed, is a graduate of our Bootcamp himself, and has quite a lot of experience as a volunteer instructor previously as well.

Yonatan Kulessa

Business Development and Partnerships Manager

Yonatan has studied Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting and Economics in the United States. He had more than 2 years of experience in administration and volunteering in the US, Germany, Turkey. He enjoys supporting social responsibility and making an impact through taking on administrative roles, particularly regarding financial and organizational matters.

He is passionate about knowledge and being part of new adventures.

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.

Tiana Milville

Business Development Coordinator

Tiana has studied sustainable development and graduated from Dauphine University in Paris. She dedicated her professional career to the non-profit sector as she has worked in different NGO as a business developer. She is passionate about helping a project grow and foster its impact through fundraising.

She recently joined Social Hackers Academy to coordinate the NGO’s response to European Funds and to create new partnerships with potential donors.

Suraiya Mann

Graphic Designer

Suraiya is a 3rd-year design student from the UK. She is currently helping with the design and branding of the company with the support of an Erasmus internship.

She is passionate about volunteer projects and all things digital design.

Founders

Damianos Vavanos

Co-Founder & Executive Director

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.

Volunteer Instructors

Paulin de Naurois

Full-Stack Developer

Paulin is a senior Full-Stack developer working remotely for France. He used to give volunteer code classes back in Paris so after arriving in Athens he joined Social Hackers Academy straight away to continue teaching.

Nikos Kleidis

Front End Developer

Nikos believes that knowledge should be shared like the open-source code. This is the reason he joined the Social Hackers Academy’s cause. Seeing his students learning and accomplishing things is what drives him. He lives in Heraklio and works as a front-end developer for Athens. He loves dev communities as he is a part of Devstaff and GreeceJS.

Aspasia Gkotsi

Career Counselors/Main Soft Skill Trainer

Aspasia has graduated from the Department of Management Science and Technology and she is an IT Recruitment Consultant since then. She is a passionate volunteer who has been part of many organizations. She loves helping people grow and reach their potential. Since a little girl, she liked to live her values, smile and dance around the people she loves the most! Her motto: “Only the one who is fighting the darkness inside him, will have a chance in the sun tomorrow”.

Giannis Syntelis

Career Counselors/Main Soft Skill Trainer

Giannis is an Organisational psychologist with a passion for talent acquisition. In a world of record-breaking low unemployment, he leverages his understanding of organizations and recruitment trends to help companies find, attract and retain talent. His goal is to help the new generations of talent realize their power and use it to find the best role in the market. In his free time, you will catch him listening to a podcast, study Python or read comics.

Bliss Perry

Full Stack Instructor & Workshop Designer

Bliss is currently a double major candidate in computer science and classical literature at Harvard University (’21). After designing and leading coding bootcamps for college students in the USA, he was inspired to contribute his love of teaching to the mission of SHA while studying in Athens. He looks forward to teaching his impressive and dedicated students remotely and to expanding SHA’s curricular offerings to include algorithms, cloud computing, and general entrepreneurship skills.