Yiannis Laouris

Laouris pioneered in the application of the science of structured dialogic design in the Cyprus and Middle East peace movement and in many pan-European networks such as the COST219ter, COST 298, Insafe, UCYVROK and CARDIAC. He is credited for the discovery of the Law of Requisite Action (see also Axiom of Engagement in Hasan Özbekhan)as formulated in the context of the science of structured dialogic design. The Hellenic Society for Systemic Studies recognized his contributions in systems science honoring him with The Hellenic Society for Systemic Studies Award in 2008,. He works closely with Aleco Christakis father of the science and other scientists across the world, serves in the Board of the Institute for 21st Century Agoras and is network member of the Wisdom Research Network of the University of Chicago

Laouris was also founder of the Cyprus Safer Internet Cyprus Safer Internet Center, Hotline and Helpline in 2005, which collaborate with Insafe and Inhope to promote the safer use of internet across Europe. He is member of the Steering Group of Commonwealth's Cyber Crime Initiative. He participates in the "Onlife Project: Concept Reengineering" chaired by Luciano Floridi and also in the "Core Foresight Workshops", two initiatives of Digital Futures Task Force of the European Commission, which aim to explore the extent to which the digital transition impacts societal expectations towards EU policy making.

In the nineties, Laouris was a founding member of the Cyprus Conflict Resolution Trainers Group and the Technology for peace initiative. His team envisioned, designed and implemented almost a dozen of peace projects in Cyprus with the most recent civil society dialogue project aiming to re-engage peace builders from both communities following the negative outcome of the Annan Plan. Students from universities across the world conduct internships and complete Masters and PhD theses with his group in order to learn about the combined application of conflict resolution, structured dialogic design and information technologies in the service of peace and positive social transformation. His social entrepreneurial work has been recognized in 1998 with the prestigious award for creativity of the Employers and Industrialists Association, in 2008 with the awarding of the first prize for social cohesion of the Cyprus civil society awards and in 2011 with the Euro-Med Award for the Dialogue between Cultures (Honorable Mention -second place) of the Anna Lindh Foundation.

Laouris devoted a decade of his life to a vision he called CYBER KIDS,. The project involved the development of an innovative, team-project-based, award-winning curriculum that was grounded on the concept of KnowledgePacket to construct a lesson plan that always required collaboration and included multiple other dimensions such as the value of the specific lesson for real life, mental development, creativity, etc. Between 1992-1999 CYBER KIDS reached 15,000 children in Cyprus, i.e., 20% of the country’s youth population (ages 6–15) and contributed against brain drain by employing almost 200 young scientists.

Laouris has published more than 40 papers and chapters in journals such as the Experimental Brain Research, Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and World Futures, and has presented more than 250 papers in conferences worldwide. In 1991, he founded the Cyprus Neuroscience and Technology Institute.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, Laouris applied Digital signal processing in time and frequency domains to single-unit recordings from experimental animals to study transmission properties and fatique of cat motor neurons, muscle afferents and Renshaw cells. He published with cyberneticians/systems physiologists Peter Schwartze, Uwe Windhorst, Roger M. Enoka and Douglas G. Stuart.

He published a book in which he invites readers into discovering and breaking of stereotypes in a society in conflict based on his 20 years of experiences in peace movements. Laouris invented the 1980s board game Glasnost The Game, in which the winner is the player who manages to disarm. Ironically, this can only be achieved after one conquers most territories on the planet.

Yiannis Laouris (Greek: Γιάννης Λαούρης ; born 1958) is a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur, neurophysiologist, and systems scientist. Trained in the U.S. and Germany, he has become known for his socially responsible work and scientific contributions in the fields of peace and development through the application of modern technology and the science of structured dialogic design.

Laouris was born in Paphos in 1958, the son of teacher Christodoulos Laouris. He attended various schools, including The English School, Nicosia, the Pancyprian Gymnasium, and the Acropolis Gymnasium. He served in the Cypriot National Guard as the first Cypriot senior cryptographer after the 1974 Cypriot coup d'état and 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.