NVIDIA and Microsoft take a Nicosia stage on 9 September

If you have been following the argument about whether Cyprus can turn a good tech ecosystem into real investment, Tuesday is the day the people who decide that sit in one room.

The EY Cyprus Future Realized Forum 2026 runs on 9 September in Nicosia, under the theme "Bridge. Accelerate. Grow." and the auspices of Invest Cyprus. President Nikos Christodoulides delivers the opening address.

Why it is worth your attention this year

Two international tech executives have just been added to the programme:

• John Josephakis, Global VP for HPC, AI & Supercomputing at NVIDIA
• Constantinos Kattirdjis, Director, Enterprise Partner Lead at Microsoft

That is not decoration. The Forum's framing is that access to compute, AI infrastructure and digital capability is becoming a primary factor in where money goes - which is the same question behind every "why should a startup stay in Cyprus" conversation on the island.

The rest of the room

Jan Peter Balkenende (former Prime Minister of the Netherlands), Bruno Maçães (former Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs), Energy, Commerce and Industry Minister Michael Damianos, Deputy Minister to the President Irene Piki, OEB President Giorgos Pantelides, Bank of Cyprus Executive Director Finance Eliza Livadiotou, and Invest Cyprus CEO Marios Tannousis.

The data bit

A core segment is the EY Cyprus Attractiveness Survey, which tracks what is actually moving foreign direct investment into Europe and into Cyprus. Two panels follow it: one on FDI attractiveness under technological and geopolitical change, one on where the survey puts Cyprus right now.

Previous editions have drawn more than 600 participants. Organiser: EY Cyprus. Coordinator: IMH. Registration and full programme are on the event site.

Not a hackathon - but if you build in Cyprus, the money and policy signals coming out of this room tend to show up in next year's calls, grants and prize pools.

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