Dr. George Papagiannakis, is a computer scientist specialised in computer graphics systems, extended reality algorithms and geometric computational models for enhanced human-computer interaction. He is co-founder and CEO/CTO of ORamaVR, a Swiss deep-tech spatial-computing startup with the mission to accelerate the world’s transition to medical XR training. His academic credentials include (currently on Sabbatical leave) serving as Professor of Computer Graphics at the Computer Science department of the University of Crete, Greece, serving as Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) Fellow and deputy Director of the Human Computer Interaction Laboratory of the Institute of Computer Science at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Heraklion, Greece, where he leads the CG Group while honorary serving as visiting Professor of Computer Science at the CUI, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Academic entrepreneurship

ORamaVR is a Swiss, deep-tech spatial-computing company that seeks to transform the landscape of global healthcare. ORamaVR’s mission to accelerate world’s transition to medical XR training is destined to leverage technology to break barriers and enrich lives. ORamaVR is tackling a crucial challenge facing nearly 5 billion people worldwide: the accessibility to affordable surgical care. This issue primarily stems from an outdated medical training system that has stagnated for the past 150 years. But, like pioneering tech startup companies, ORamaVR sees not just problems, but opportunities for revolutionary solutions. The response? Harnessing the transformative power of virtual and extended reality (XR) to reshape medical training. ORamaVR commenced as a spin-off startup from ICS-FORTH and was co-founded by Dr. George Papagianankis, Prof. Eleftherios Tsiridis and Prof. Panos Trahanias, with a massive transformational purpose.

With the most innovative low-code (and soon no-code Generative AI for XR training) MAGES-SDK platform, ORamaVR is democratizing the creation of high-fidelity medical XR simulations, making them more accessible and cost-effective than ever before. The influence of this award-winning platform is already evident, with the adoption by leading institutions worldwide such as USC Keck School of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical School, and the University Hospital of Geneva and Bern, among others. Testament to the remarkable vision and execution, ORamaVR has garnered international recognition, awards and built partnerships with significant industry leaders. In ORamaVR, all scientists, programmers and managers are committed to push the boundaries of what is possible in science, to dare to think different, and to use XR technology as a canvas for realizing even most audacious goals: e.g. generative AI for computational medical XR authoring.The ORamaVR team is reimagining the future of medical training and opening new horizons for global healthcare and applications of spatial computing in education and training.

Academic research & teaching

Dr. George Papagiannakis has more than 130 scientific publications in the field, and he is a member of CGS, IEEE, Eurographics, ACM and SIGGRAPH professional societies. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Career Development from the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency. In 2016 he served as Conference Chair of the Computer Graphics International (CGI’16) annual conference (one of the leading and oldest computer graphics conferences) and in 2020 as programme co-chair. Under the auspices of CGI and CGS he co-founded in 2016 the ENGAGE: Empowering Novel Geometric Algebra for Graphics and Engineering Workshop, running annually ever since. In 2017 he published a Springer-Nature book on Mixed Reality and Gamification which achieved more than 100.000 downloads so far. Since 2020 he contributes in the seminal live reference work of Springer-Nature: Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games.

He enjoys teaching regularly at the Computer Science department of the University of Crete, Greece ranked by THE at 401-500th out of 20.000 Universities worldwide and at 94th in the Young University Rankings list, cutting edge computer science topics such as Computer Programming, Computer Graphics and Advanced Interactive Computer Graphics at under-graduate and post-graduate level. He has supervised/co-supervised 4 post-doc, 20 PhD, 34 MSc and 38 BSc students. He has coordinated and led as Principal Investigator more than 25 externally funded EU and national R&D projects in Switzerland and Greece.

His research and development interests are centered in the fields of high-fidelity interactive computer graphics systems for human computer interaction, featuring embodied presence, psychomotor learning and gamification with simulated virtual humans in extended reality based on geometric algebra computational and neural deep learning models with applications in HCI. Research questions are driven from computational medical XR and virtual heritage to geometric algebra GPU simulation, graphs and generative AI, and from intelligent, neurosymbolic extended reality systems to realistic virtual human simulation for enhanced HCI. His pioneering research has attracted 15+ international awards and distinctions as well as direct contribution of more than €8M EU/Swiss/industrial funding, disseminated in more than 570 invited/keynote talks worldwide, as shown in greater detail here.

Background

His alma mater is University of Geneva, Switzerland where he obtained his PhD (Hons) in Computer Science in 2006. He obtained his M.Sc. (Hons) in Advanced Computing from the University of Bristol, UK and his B.Eng. (Hons) in Computer Systems Engineering, from the University of Manchester, UK. He has served as lecturer, senior researcher and research assistant at MIRALab, University of Geneva under the leadership, mentorship and guidance of Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann. He has also held several positions as lead computer graphics programmer in the industry.

Key achievements

• 130+ Scientific Publications (including a Springer-Nature Book: Mixed Reality and Gamification with 100,000+ downloads so far), 3400+ Citations, h-index: 30
• €8M+ in research funding as PI across 20+ projects including an “NVIDIA Academic Grant (2025) for transformer-based AI in XR” and a Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) Fellowship by the European Research Executive Agency (2011)
• Developed MAGES SDK, the leading XR training platform for medical professionals employed in more than 200 organizations worldwide by 2024.
• Pioneered pyGANDALF, a Python-based system for teaching HCI and CG concepts, receiving the Best Education paper award at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2024
• Co-authored the position paper of Computational Medical XR together with 10 leading institutions worldwide and 15 experts at the intersection of HCI, Medicine, AI and XR
• Co-Created LIFEPLUS VHD++, the first life-size AR character simulation framework for HCI, employed on the site of ancient Pompeii, Italy in 2002
• Established Geometric algebra as an HCI enabling technology for neurosymbolic AI and networked computer graphics simulation in 5G and 6G XR environments
• 15 Awards, including 4 Best paper awards and an Epic-games Mega-grant award
• 70+ invited/keynote talks worldwide
• Supervised/Co-supervised 4 post-doc, 20 PhD, 34 MSc and 38 BSc students
• 6 journals Editor, 6 funding agencies Evaluator, 13+ Conferences/Workshops Co/Chair