http://www.vtrip.net/

Contact person: Dimitris Tsigos



Skill: Virtual Trip Ltd is a network-centric software development company founded in September 2000 by a team of Computer Engineers and Critical Publics, a consulting firm specialized in relationships management through the Internet. The company currently employees eleven (11) engineers, all with university degrees in Computer Science, while most of them also hold postgraduate degrees. The main company office is located at the Science and Technology Park Crete, Heraklion, Greece, while a branch in Athens has operated since April 2003. Virtual Trip is structured in four (4) main departments, namely “Systems Programming”, “Application Software”, “Research & Development” and “Commercial”. Virtual Trip provides services in the following fields: (1) Computer and Network Security: Penetration testing, secure Intranets design and installation, security training for users and administrators, (2) High Performance Computing: Design and installation of high-performance computing systems for simulations and databases, performance tuning of applications, and (3) Web information Systems: Design and implementation of large web information systems based on open architectures and technologies. Virtual Trip has developed a series of software products, such as VoteSecure™, a platform for secure remote internet voting, WebSecure™, a highly secure web/application server, and AuctionSecure™, a platform for secure internet auctions. Moreover, Virtual Trip has developed Syngramma™, an integrated information system for students administration, and Insurance-Manager™, an application targeted to insurance companies and agencies. Finally, the company participates in a number of Research & development projects in the fields of computer & network security, multi-modal interfaces, and high performance computing. Funding comes both from EU and Hellenic authorities.

Role: Virtual Trip will bring its research and practical expertise to the PLASTIC project in the areas of innovative Internet services, which it will evolve towards services for the mobile users using PLASTIC solutions.

CVs of key persons:

Dimitris Tsigos studied computer science at the University of Crete, Greece. He was member of the Networks and Telecommunications Group at the Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas (ICS/FORTH). His research was on policies for bandwidth allocation policies in enterprise networks. In 1998 he studied at the department of Numerical Analysis and Computing Science, Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden (KTH). At the same time he was a member of the Computational Vision and Active Perception Laboratory. He is Managing Director and co-founder of Virtual Trip. His interests include computer & network security, computer architecture and e-business.

Fotis K. Liotopoulos received his diploma in Computer Engineering from the Univ. of Patras, Greece, in 1988 and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Computer Sciences and Electrical & Computer Engineering dept. of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, in 1991 and 1996, respectively. He worked with the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute (ra-CTI) as a senior research engineer, research-unit manager and consultant for the public and private sector. He has taught graduate(M.Sc.) and undergraduate courses in computer networks and computer architecture as a (Senior) Lecturer at CITY College, an affiliated institution of the Univ. of Sheffield, and currently at the Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki and at the Hellenic Open University. Dr. Liotopoulos is the author or co-author of more than 30 research papers and has served as a reviewer and/or committee member for several international journals, conferences and books. His areas of interest include network architectures and protocols, digital communications, network security, broadband switching and routing, parallel & distributed architectures, multiprocessor/multicomputer systems, parallel processing and performance analysis and optimization. He has participated in several R&D projects within the scope of his expertise. Dr. Liotopoulos is a senior member of IEEE, member of ACM, AMS and SIGMA-XI, member of several IEEE Technical Committees, and member of the Editorial Board of the "Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing" Journal (Wiley and Sons).

Thanassis Parathyras studied computer engineering at the Technical University of Crete, Greece. He was also member of Telecommunications Laboratory at TUC. His research was on dynamic bandwidth reservation schemes. He joined Virtual Trip team in May 2003 and works as technical director of the systems programming department since December 2003. He has been project manager during the design and development of the satellite information processing and archiving system of the Hellenic National Meteorological service. Thanassis Parathyras currently participates in a number of R&D projects, such as iTrust and INNO-UTILITIES. His interests include high performance computing, computer and network security and systems programming.