The agora of the shipping world

"The business of publications and conferences is basically the same thing: bringing people together, like an ancient agora," says Themistocles Vokos, one of the main forces behind the biennial Posidonia exhibition that opens on Monday at the Athens Metropolitan Expo center.

From a time when captains and shipowners knew the price of a sack of lentils, to the age of IPOs, big data and smart ships, Posidonia has grown into a major event in the global shipping calendar. As Vokos proudly notes, it is an exhibition that serves as a forum of communication between foreign delegations, regardless of their interest in doing business with Greeks.

How did it all start? "In 1957 my father started a newspaper on shipping called Naftiliaki-Naftergatiki, and in 1964 he and then shipping minister Stavros Biris, a close friend, decided to launch a conference that would showcase Greek...