The Future Makers Podcast

In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar sits down with Dr Charis Xinari, Associate Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at the European University Cyprus, to talk about the social scripts that shaped women in Cyprus, leaving and returning, building an academic identity, feminist theory, football and belonging, technology-based gender violence, critical media literacy, and why young people need adaptability more than fixed life plans.Links:The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/

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Annetta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Dr. Charis Xinari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charis-xinari-33bb6118/

In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar speaks with Antonia Stelikou, an agronomist, teacher, doctoral researcher and long-distance runner.

Antonia did not grow up in a sporting family. She started running seriously at 30, and the first reaction around her was that she was already too old. Then she entered her first race, a 10K in Ayia Napa, and won.

What began on a treadmill and moved outside during Covid became a much bigger part of her life: long-distance training, marathon preparation through the Cyprus summer, podium finishes, brand partnerships, and the discipline of fitting running around teaching, doctoral studies and several demanding professional roles.

The conversation also moves into the harder side of running: five-hour nights, limited balance, family expectations, women’s safety when training outside, serious injury, fear, recovery, and the people who helped her find confidence again after she ran nearly 8km with a broken foot.

Links:

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefuturemedia.eu/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forbes-cyprus-the-future-of-fintech-summit/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.future.media

Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Antonia Stelikou: https://www.instagram.com/antwnia_stelikou/

In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar speaks with Iphigenia “Effie” Athanassiou, Founder and CEO of Cyprusays®, the mobile app teaching Kypriaka — Cypriot Greek — digitally.

Raised in Australia in a Greek Cypriot family, Effie grew up hearing Kypriaka at home but learning standard Modern Greek at school. Years later, when she wanted to reconnect more deeply with the language of her family, she was told the only way to learn Kypriaka was to live in Cyprus and pick it up by ear. Coming from advertising, where ideas are built from nothing, she refused to accept that there was no other way.

That question became Cyprusays®: a digital tool built to help people learn, hear, read and reconnect with Kypriaka wherever they are in the world. In this conversation, Effie reflects on her father’s influence, diaspora identity, language shame, entrepreneurship, technology, community, and why preserving the way people speak is also about dignity, belonging and memory.

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Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/ 

Effie Athanassiou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/effie-athanassiou-iphigenia-athanassiou-93764218/

In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar speaks with Anna Prodromou, consultant, researcher and trainer in communication, diversity, equity and inclusion, and responsible AI. Anna is the founder of Anna Prodromou Inc., president of the WICZ+ Foundation, and is currently pursuing a PhD in human-computer interaction, focusing on AI governance, transparency and accountability in organisational settings.

The conversation moves through post-war Cyprus, the women history made visible only through grief, her book Women in Conflict Zones, human rights, language, inclusive communication, DEI in the workplace, AI bias, online spaces, conformity, truthfulness and why saying “no” without apology is a form of respect.

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/
Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Anna Prodromou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaprodromou/

Grief could have stopped her. Instead, it became the reason she built a career around helping cancer patients live with less pain.

In this episode of Future Makers, Annetta Benzar speaks with cancer researcher and biotech entrepreneur Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades about how grief, unemployment and repeated setbacks became the foundation of a life’s mission centred on reducing pain and improving quality of life.

They discuss her decision to leave opportunities in the UK and move to Cyprus, the four years she spent registered as unemployed despite holding four degrees, and the journey to co-founding three biotech companies: Theramir, Promed Bioscience and RSL Revolutionary Labs. Marianna also explains how her work spans cancer therapeutics, medical-grade collagen and supportive skincare for oncology patients, all connected by one purpose: creating solutions that are useful to people when they need them most.

Links: 

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/ 

Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianna-prokopi-demetriades-52436264/

Cancer changes the way we understand life, fear, family, and care. In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar sits down with Dr. Yiola Marcou, Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre, to talk about breast cancer, the human side of oncology, women in medicine, ethics, prevention, and what Cyprus needs to protect and improve in its healthcare system.

Links:

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/
Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Dr. Yiola Marcou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yiola-marcou-91a626206/

Cyprus does not need more people waiting for change. It needs more people willing to do the work.

In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar sits down with Dr. Antigoni Komodiki, CEO of Junior Achievement Cyprus and Chair of the Executive Board of JA Europe, to talk about education, social justice, women’s representation, and why young people need more than knowledge to build the future.

Links:

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/

Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Dr. Antigoni Komodiki: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antigoni-komodiki-4639a6a9/

What if the most important thing you learn early in life is that identity is negotiated, not given?

In this episode, Annetta Benzar sits down with Sophia Papastavrou (World Vision Canada) to talk about power beyond titles, why she doesn’t accept symbolic gestures in place of real change, and what it means to raise a child while trying to end cycles of inherited trauma.

The Future Makers Podcast is a series of in-depth conversations about how future-makers are made, in Cyprus and beyond. Host Annetta Benzar sits down with people who are a leading force in our shared future and looks past the titles. Together, they travel back to the people and moments that shaped them, walk through the choices and challenges they are living through now, and look ahead to the futures they are trying to build.

The first season, Women Building Cyprus, follows women whose lives and decisions are changing what this island can be.

Links:

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/

Annetta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Sophia Papastavrou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophia-papastavrou-phd-66b67a51/

In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar speaks with Sara Gunnervik, Partner at KENDRIS Group and Managing Partner of KENDRIS Cyprus and Luxembourg. Born in Sweden and based in Cyprus for more than 25 years, Sara reflects on feminist upbringing, single motherhood, leadership, ethics, women in senior rooms, building the KENDRIS Cyprus office, and why transparency, kindness and courage guide the way she leads.

The Future Makers Podcast is a series of in-depth conversations about how future-makers are made, in Cyprus and beyond. Host Annetta Benzar speaks with people who are a leading force in our shared future and looks past the titles. Together, they travel back to the people and moments that shaped them, walk through the choices and challenges they are living through now, and look ahead to the futures they are trying to build.

This series, Women Building Cyprus, follows women whose lives and decisions are changing what this island can be. A production of The Future Media.

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/

https://www.instagram.com/thefuturemedia.eu/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/forbes-cyprus-the-future-of-fintech-summit/?viewAsMember=true

Annetta Benzar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Sara Gunnervik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-gunnervik-186a4b2/

Cyprus is full of ideas, but ideas do not survive without people, networks and the courage to build. In this episode of Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Annetta Benzar sits down with Maria Evgeniou, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer at IDEA Innovation Center, to talk about her path from history and archaeology into startups, the pressure placed on women to manage everything quietly, why founders need community, what Cyprus must change in education and entrepreneurship, and why failure should become part of how we learn, build and grow.

The Future Makers Podcast is a series of in-depth conversations about how future-makers are made, in Cyprus and beyond. Host Annetta Benzar sits down with people who are a leading force in our shared future and looks past the titles. Together, they travel back to the people and moments that shaped them, walk through the choices and challenges they are living through now, and look ahead to the futures they are trying to build.

Women Building Cyprus follows women whose lives and decisions are changing what this island can be. 

A production of The Future Media.

Links:

The Future Media: https://thefuturemedia.eu/
Annetta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annetta-benzar-13645710a/

Maria Evgeniou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaevgeniou/