In 2025, SeriousMind reached an important milestone when Georgios Liapes was recognised in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Greece list in the field of artificial intelligence.
The recognition highlighted our work on AI-powered serious games for personality assessment and ADHD-related behavioural patterns. It also brought wider attention to the idea that a Greek university spin-off could combine artificial intelligence, psychometrics, game design, and human behaviour to create products with international potential.
Articles in Capital.gr, Forbes Greece, and other media presented SeriousMind (spoin off of RealMINT) as a Greek AI spin-off developing tools that aim to understand not only data, but also human behaviour.
That distinction is central to our work.
Artificial intelligence is often discussed in terms of automation, prediction, and efficiency. At RealMINT and SeriousMind, we explore another dimension: how AI can help us understand the way people think, act, collaborate, solve problems, and respond to challenges.
Through immersive digital escape rooms and serious games, users interact with realistic environments while the system analyses behavioural patterns. These experiences support applications in:
The recognition helped us communicate that this is not simply a gaming project. It is a deep-tech effort built at the intersection of research, AI, psychometrics, and human-centred design.
For me, the Forbes recognition represented validation for an idea that began in academic research.
Research in artificial intelligence and psychometrics can produce new models, methods, and prototypes. But the journey does not end with a publication or a laboratory demonstration. The bigger challenge is transforming that knowledge into products that people can use and organisations can trust.
RealMINT was created as a spin-off from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Founded by Professor Ioannis Vlahavas and AI researchers Georgios Liapes and Eleftherios Kouloubris, the company reflects a broader journey from university research to entrepreneurship.
SeriousMind represents the next stage of that journey: developing AI-powered serious games and assessment tools for personality, behaviour, teamwork, and human potential.
Awards and media coverage are not the final measure of a company’s value. However, recognition can create important opportunities.
For RealMINT and SeriousMind, the Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition helped:
Media coverage also helps make complex technology more accessible. A digital escape room, AI model, or psychometric system can sound abstract when described technically. A clear story about people using games to reveal behaviour makes the idea easier to understand.
The recognition also gave us an opportunity to explain our vision for the future of assessment.
Traditional questionnaires and interviews can provide valuable information, but they are not the only way to understand people. Serious games can create structured situations in which users explore, make decisions, solve problems, collaborate, and respond to pressure.
This makes assessment more interactive and can generate behavioural evidence that complements self-report data.
Our aim is not to label people or reduce them to a score. It is to develop tools that are:
The best assessment technology should help people understand themselves and make better decisions—not limit their opportunities through opaque algorithms.
This recognition was never an individual achievement.
It reflects the support of academic mentors, entrepreneurial programmes, colleagues, partners, and the wider innovation ecosystem. Building a university spin-off and a startup requires more than a good idea. It requires guidance, criticism, introductions, persistence, and people who believe in the work before its value is widely recognised.
The journey from AUTH research to RealMINT and SeriousMind has been shaped by collaboration between researchers, developers, mentors, accelerators, and organisations that support Greek innovation.
Recognition may place a founder’s name on a list, but many people stand behind every milestone.
Forbes 30 Under 30 was an important moment, but it was not the destination.
The real work continues: validating our products, improving our behavioural models, building responsible AI systems, working with organisations, and expanding the use of serious games in HR, education, and clinical contexts.
The recognition reminded us that research from Greece can become technology with international relevance. It also reinforced our responsibility to build assessment tools that are not only innovative, but engaging, fair, evidence-based, and genuinely useful.
The journey from university spin-off to startup is still unfolding.
And the next chapter is about turning recognition into impact.
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