This morning we started our day as usual at our hotel with some breakfast. We departed on the bus to our first company visit. After going to 4 companies yesterday we would continue going to companies that we actually researched today. Our first stop was Vassiliko.
When we arrived at Vassiliko we listened to the lectures they had prepared for us by both Vassiliko and their child company (not exactly sure what it’s called but Vassiliko is the parent company) the presentations were very interesting and each presenter displayed the information in a logical way answering each question very well. One thing I found interesting is that they don’t really stop production. If they need to make repairs or something along those lines they will (most of the time) continue production while the issue is fixed. In the lecture they also went over the process in which their factory operates and I really liked the level of death of explanation showing us preheating processes, the main burner (or clinker) and everything else that went into this intricate process. We were also able to visit on site to the factory and see everything we just learned about (or the buildings at least) we entered a monitoring section where they showed us the many cameras and other surveillance screens. This whole visit to Vassiliko was awesome and it was really cool to see their company.
Along with Vassiliko we were able to learn about their child company VTTV who talked to us in the lecture about what they do. I think the most interesting thing they talked about I. The lecture was when they were talking about the pipelines and how they are used and connected to transfer material from one location to another. Pipelines are a mode of transportation that are much less talked about when compared to other modes of transport like airplane, ship, and car so it was much more interesting to hear about this niche mode of transport. We also visited the port of VTTV where we were able to ask more questions about the area and learn more about the processes at the port. He briefly talked about their infrequent closure and how they will only be closed for about a week or so a year which is crazy to me and super interesting.
After those two visits we went out to lunch and had a seafood mezeh. This was honestly probably my favorite meal in Cyprus so far. I got to try a bunch of new different seafood like cuddlefish. It was all pretty good and I really enjoyed the mezeh as a whole.
After lunch we went to our final company visit of the day CMMI or the Cyprus Marine & Maritime Institute. Here we learned about many of their projects they were working on to help benefit human and marine life. A lot of their projects were sustainability focused and it was really awesome to hear all of the different things they had already accomplished and things in the works. Something I found really interesting from this visit was ZEST or Zero Emmission Sea Transporter, this was the project many of the employees noted as their favorite and I think it is by far the most beneficial to our world. I loved hearing from a vast amount of employees here and definitely made the presentation more interesting than just the same person talking away for an extended period of time. I walked away from this site visit with alot more knowledge on the up coming marine tech that’s in the works here. It was awesome to see a company with such an advanced production plan as they were actively using simulations and ai to further support their projects.
All in all today was another very interesting day of company visits and getting to see how each business operates and what benefits they can provide to society. I’m very excited for our last full day in Limassol tomorrow although I will be sad we are leaving here as it is definitely one of my favorite places I’ve ever been.