News Archive

Radiomarathon 2009

Virtual Bus participated in the Radiomarathon 2009 activities at the fair at Kykkos Metochi on the 18th of Oct 2009. By providing Internet access, information on safe Internet and playing games on the Virtual Bus visitors had the opportunity to contribute to children with special needs. The Cyprus Computer Society donated a NetBook which was put on a draw for the purpose of collecting money for the cause. ...

Cyprus Computer Society

Cyprus Computer Society in order to promote the use of computer, internet and certifications of ECDL programs for computer driving license, offered to the scouts the opportunity to use Virtual Bus facilities and technology. Virtual Bus visited the scouds on the 30th of July - 06 of August and 17th of August at their camping sides at Platania and Governos Beach.Scouts had the opportunity to learn how to securely surf the web and get an idea of all the programs that ECDL communicty has to offer.Please find below more pictures from this event ...

EDON FESTIVAL

EDON after 58 years of existence celebrated the EDON 2009 Festival on the 8, 9th,and 10th of July at Pyli Amoxostou in Nicosia. Many well known artists and celebrities attended the event to give their own unique touch. Virtual Bus was there so that participants could participate in the research project and have access to the internet. ...

Games of the Small States of EU

The venue for the mountain bike event was at "Mantra", a forest park. This is the first time in the history of Cyprus were all 3 winners of the mountain bike event were Cypriots.Virtual bus was there for the foreign and local journalist to sent real time the event results and interviews. ...

Protect Children from the Internet

Cyprus biggest ISP, CYTA, celebrated the international day of Telecommunication and information society by organizing an event on Protecting Children from the Internet. At the event, parents and children had the opportunity to learn from specialists the dangers that they face up daily by accessing the internet. Virtual Bus was there to promote a CYTA service named "Safe Internet" which is offered to schools, homes and businesses. ...

ERACON 2009

On the 30th of April to 1st of May there was the ERASMUS Coordinators Conference 2009 and GO-Exchange Educational Fair ERACON 2009. The ERASMUS programme, or European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, is a European student exchange programme. VirtualBus was there to provite internet service in the board room with 10 computers and also at the lobby and cafeteria. ...

e-Inclusion

e-Inclusion best practises workshop , Limassol, Cyprus, 6-Apr-09 As part of the awareness measures to related stakeholders on the benefits of new technologies and e-Inclusion, the Social Welfare Services of the Ministry of Labo u r and Social Insurance of Cyprus organized an e-Inclusion workshop in Cyprus. The scope of the workshop was to disseminate best practices, funding and other issues related to e-Inclusion. Participants to the event included members of the European Commission, representatives of Member States involved in Ministries /Services related to eInclusion, Local Authorities, Social Partners and Academic Research Centers. The workshop, which was held under the auspices of Minister of Labour and Social Insurance Mrs Charalambous Sotiroula took place on Monday 6 April 2009, from 16.00 until 19.00, at a hotel in Limassol, Cyprus. During the workshop projects and activities related to e-inclusion in Cyprus were presented , including the Virtual Bus. ...

Occupational Guidance Dali School

As part of the Innovation and Creativity events of the Ministry of Education, Virtual Bus visited the Idaliou High School. During the visit students had the opportunity to get on the bus and learn about the innovation and services the research unit offers. Presentations from representatives of the partners of the projects took place that covered, new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), career and education in ICT.The visit was under the partners’ initiative towards encouraging students in following a career in ICT. All the expenses for the visit was covered by ORACLE. ...

Euromath 2009

The Cyprus Mathematical Society organized the European Student Conference in Mathematics EUROMATH2009. Students of age 12-18 from European and International schools attended the Conference. The Conference consisted of several workshops/symposiums/sessions covering multiple themes. Students presented work from projects in mathematics. Virtual Bus was there to give the students and all participants at the conference access to computers and internet.05-08/02/2009 ...

e-Inclusion DITS

The Department of Information Technology Services (DITS) of the government of Cyprus has posted the Virtual Bus at the EU best e-Inclusion cases as part of the best cases of e-Inclusion project from Cyprus ( http://www.epractice.eu/cases/virtualbus) Jan 2009 ...

e-Inclusion

The Virtual Bus project was presented as part of the Cyprus initiatives towards e-Inclusion at the e-Inclusion Conference and exhibition 30-Nov-2008 to 2-Dec-2008 in Vienna, organized by the EU Commission. More than 1500 delegates, 150 speakers and 90 exhibitors participated in the event http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/e-inclusion/2008/index_en.htm). The Cyprus kiosk was organized by the Welfare department of the Ministry of Labour and sponsored by the Cyprus Computer Society (www.ccs.org.cy) and ECDL-CyprusNov-2008 to 2-Dec-2008 ...

People. Our Priority

With this slogan, IMH and Dias Publishing House have announced the launching of the communications campaign of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO), its activities and Cyprus obligations as a new member state of EU. Guest speaker in the press conference was Mr. Simon Horner, Head of communication unit of ECHO. Virtual Bus was there to help the students understand what ECHO is all about by reading websites and playing games with the only subject to be Humanitarian Aid. ...

International Childrens Film Festival of Cyprus

The International Childrens Film Festival of Cyprus (ICFFCY) is aimed at giving children the opportunity to view and discuss films, even at an early age and throughout a lifetime, using the school platform as field-work. Virtual Bus was there to help some of the classes and groups to be done, that required computer access with specialized sound software and internet access. ...

Radiomarathon 2008

Virtual Bus participated in the Radiomarathon 2008 activities at the fair at Kykkos Metochi on the 19th of Oct 2008. By providing Internet access, information on safe Internet and playing games on the Virtual Bus visitors had the opportunity to contribute to children with special needs. ...

EQUAL Youth

Virtual Bus was involved in a project named EQUAL. With Virtual Bus the Youth Employment Service of Cyprus tried to find young people through out the island and inform them on the employment opportunities in Cyprus. ...

Public Employment Services

Virtual Bus was involved in a project started from Public Employment Services Cyprus. This project target was, through an electronic test, to analyze and result the jobs and professions that a person should do according to personal characteristics. For this project VirtualBus visited some military stations like Kornos, Tseri, Athalassa, Mathiati. Soldiers from this military stations had the opportunity to get in the bus and take the test.Virtual Bus with the network infrastructure and air-conditioning gave soldiers a pleasant place to take the test. ...

International Fair 2008

Virtual Bus was at the International Fair 2008 to promote new Services of Cyta through its technological infrastructure.Virtual Bus and Cyta will introduce a new service called Broadband Telephony.The new service Broadband Telephony from Cyta, is the first among several services aiming at the enrichment of choices and the complete personalization of the customers communication. It offers to the residential customers the possibility to have up to four additional telephone numbers. Basically the customers with a fixed telephone line and a broadband connection could have up to five simultaneous conversations.The four Broadband Telephony conversations could be done through:regular analogue telephone devices including wireless DECT devices,telephones and videotelephones which operate with the protocol IP,WiFi telephones and personal computers (with the uploading of a special software-soft phone, a headset and a camera, which allow the user to listen and to watch the person with whom he/she communicates with).The possibilities offered by the new service, Broadband Telephony, is the attendance to the needs of several users in the same household, enabling them to hold conversations but also to benefit from several facilities which they can manage according to their needs. ...

Cisco Expo 2008

Virtual Bus attended the Cisco Expo 2008 event at Hilton Hotel in Nicosia. Cyta and Cisco promoted in the bus broaband voice over ip (VOIP) by showing live voice and video conversations in the bus but also to any Cyta user. ...

Radiomarathon

Virtual Bus participated in the Radiomarathon 2007 activities at the fair at Kykkos Metochi on the 21st of Oct 2007. By providing Internet access, information on safe Internet and playing games on the Virtual Bus visitors had the opportunity to contribute to children with special needs. ...

Researcher`s Night 2007

Virtual Bus participated on 28th of September in the Research Night 2007 event held at the Olympic Conference Centre and Park in Nicosia. The event was organized by the Cyprus Research Promotion foundation with the association of Cyprus College, Intercollege, Institute of Neurology and Genetics, RUBSI, University of Cyprus and CARDET as part of an EU initiative focusing on new researches.The event included an exhibition of projects in 5 thematic areas, Health, Environment, Social and Humanitarian Sciences and Athletics. Visitors had the opportunity to view demonstrations of innovate solutions in the field and at the same time have fun with games and experiments.The event was the under the auspices of the president of the republic Mr. Tassos Papadopoulos. ...

ORACLE Cyprus

Oracle Cyprus supports the research of the Virtual Bus project by sponsoring a pilot project towards Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) professional orientation for high school children. The mobile internet research and education unit Virtual Bus will be visiting 2-3 high schools presenting new ICT technologies and providing children with the possible types of ICT professions and college and University education they can follow in the future. ...

Ministry of Finance

The Virtual Bus was presented to officials from the Ministry of Finance in June 2007. Possibilities discussed during the presentation have been the use of the unit to promote the e-Government portal (www.cyprus.gov.cy) and the use of the unit as a Citizens mobile service centre for Government services. ...

Green Dot

Virtual Bus was present on the opening day of a recycling unit at the 15th of june by Green Dot. This unit is established at Latsia. The opening was performed from the Minister of Agriculture Mr. Fotis Fotiou. ...

Virtual Bus at the 7th FP informative event of the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation

Virtual Bus took part in the 7th FP informative event organized by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation. The event took place at the Hilton hotel on Wednesday 30 of May 2007 Mr. Janez Potočnik, commissioner of the European committee attended the event. During the event goals, objectives and procedures for preparation of research proposals under the 7th FP were discussed. Virtual Bus was there to provide free internet connectivity to the attendees of the event. Many of them did not lose the opportunity and visited Virtual Bus to see the facilities it can provide.See Photos...here!! ...

Cyprus International Fair

Virtual Bus attended the Cyprus International fair between May 10th and 20th 2007 at the Innovation kiosk of the Cyprus Employers Federation , stand number 16. There people had the opportunity to get familiar with Virtual Bus facilities and understand the objectives and goals of the project.For more photos click here!! ...

Virtual Bus Research Project Description

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have changed our society in the way we learn, do business, communicate and generally have access to information leading towards a knowledge-based economy. As the knowledge-based economy advances, the exclusion from ICT raises the barrier towards economic, employment and scial development and growth.Cyprus, in comparison with other EU countries is lagging behind in terms of ICT infrastructure expenditure, Internet and e-Commerce usage and ICT research and development. Recent research that we have been involved has also shown that the use of the Internet and ICT in general has had a much higher development in the urban areas than in the rural areas creating a knowledge gap between the rural and urban areas. In addition we have observed that levels of ICT competencies and comprehension of citizens varies between different rural areas.Based on these findings Virtual IT, an Information Technology Solutions and Services company and Intercollege, an independent co-educational institution of higher education, have joined forces to build a mobile ICT research lab named the "Virtual Bus".The Virtual Bus project is a research project with the overall objective of identifying and implementing long term methods and techniques to mitigate the digital gap, in particular between the rural and urban areas, eliminating barriers such as lack of ICT infrastructures, awareness, and training opportunities providing an Information Society ...