At an official ceremony held at the premises of The Cyprus Institute on Tuesday, October 3, 2017, The Cyprus Institute (CyI) and the Productivity Center (KEPA), signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the collaboration between the two Institutions, especially with regards to the utilization of the virtual reality equipment owned by KEPA, acquired within the framework of the program for modernization of technical training, and co-financed by the Government of Switzerland.

CyI is a leader in the area of exploiting Virtual Reality technologies, and works with one of the world's leading research teams, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who are also the forerunners and creators of this technology.

CyI through its professors, students and technicians, will work with KEPA on the best possible uses of its virtual reality equipment that will be used both for KEPA's engineering training programs, as well as in various CyI research projects, including future joint projects developed within the context of the CyI-KEPA cooperation framework.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the President of The Cyprus Institute, Professor Costas Papanicolas, and the Director General of KEPA, Mr Dinos Kathijotis. In his address, the President of The Cyprus Institute, Professor Costas N. Papanicolas, said that cooperation with government agencies is of paramount importance to CyI, and the signing of the current agreement follows recent agreements with other government departments. He noted that, "the equipment owned by KEPA and CyI, combined with the know-how shared by the two organizations, is a guarantee for our successful cooperation."

In a brief greeting, the Director General of KEPA, Mr Dinos Kathijotis, said that he was looking forward to working with CyI, an institution with tremendous research achievements, and added that "cooperation between our two institutions is totally synergistic, as it focuses on an area of mutual interest and exploits the potential of each side in the best possible way.”