published data is not reproducible, and that translates into a $28 billion loss on these results every year, as pharmaceutical companies cannot use the data and, therefore, as researchers, we're not helping the healthcare industry as much as we can. This needs to change.

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Kyriakou is a man on a mission to end valuable scientific knowledge loss, through the AMGEL (Automation of Everyday Benchwork in Life-Science Research) robot. "I decided to initiate this endeavour with my partners in order to offer a robotic automation solution against human inconsistencies", he enthuses. "So instead of having a person produce the results, mix the reagents and so on - which is tedious and problematic work, as you may introduce handling errors - we can do that with a robotic system. We're not eliminating the human factor; the researcher still needs to be there in order to program and load the robot and analyze the results after the end of the automated process". 

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EFEVRE TECH is currently collaborating with distributors in Greece, Germany and Austria as well as with Research Institutes in Cyprus and abroad. The market in Cyprus is limited but, says Kyriakou, "I have seen in the last one and a half years that it is growing when it comes to automation. However, we still have a lot of competition and that means that we need to look outside Cyprus". 

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On the same subject, he notes: "To be honest, we don't have much in the form of government grants helping us, other than a limited budget for trade conferences and funding from the Research and Innovation Foundation in Cyprus. I dare say that Invest Cyprus could try and promote innovation companies like ours, enhancing cooperation with international bodies, attracting funds and investments as well as strengthening Cyprus as a technological hub," he says in what sounds like a passionate plea.

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Kyriakou then shares news of two significant developments in the robotics sector. Firstly, COVID-19 has been an extremely valuable accelerator - it created a personnel short age and automation seemed like the perfect answer - and, secondly, people have started to realize that robotics will become less expensive as time goes on. "We are competing with huge companies that have spent a lot of money developing expensive robotics, and working with smaller ones that manufacture robotics, which means that the customer who needs automation can finally buy it. Until now, automation was for the rich, not for the average; now it's getting cheaper for everyone."

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When discussing the mentality surrounding small innovative companies such as EFEVRE TECH, Kyriakou is impassioned in his views: "Cyprus has a lot of small companies like mine but, unfortunately, we don't have the culture of acknowledging the efforts of small companies before they become big. That's a sociopolitical issue, which is also reflected in the efforts of the Government to push funding and grants towards other sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and real estate - they are, without a doubt, important players but we can also be so much more than that. We have the capacity, the education and the potential; Cypriots are good software and mechanical engineers so why are we not getting the funding that we need? That's a social and political issue". 

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Wendell Philips famously said that revolutions never go backwards and the same surely goes for technology and innovation. It's still not going to be an easy ride for the innovative startup ecosystem in Cyprus but it would appear that the immense sociopolitical transformation unleashed by the staggering amount of data now available is going to boost the chances of success for startups like EFEVRE TECH.