AAlchemy Growth Lab

Why did we bring Founder Institute to Cyprus?

In this clip from the AAlchemy Growth Lab Demo Day, FI Cyprus director, Andrey Kostyuk shares the vision behind launching the Cyprus chapter of Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator.

Founder Institute helps ambitious founders validate ideas, build investor-ready businesses, and join a global network spanning hundreds of cities worldwide.

Today, as we approach the Demo Day of our first Cyprus cohort and prepare for the next chapter, it's exciting to see founders turning ideas into ventures and becoming part of a global entrepreneurial community.

Founder Institute and AAlchemy Growth Lab serve different stages of the startup journey:
🔹 Founder Institute supports founders at the earliest stages of company building.
🔹 AAlchemy Growth Lab helps more advanced startups accelerate growth, expand internationally, and prepare for scaling.

Applications for autumn cohort of Founder Institute Cyprus https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wgHm80

We start tomorrow.

As coaches and mentors, we spend a lot of time helping others reflect, grow, and make progress.

But how often do we step back and look at our own practice?

Where do you keep your notes?
How do you track progress?
How do you prepare for supervision?
If a client asked for a summary of their progress over the last six months, how easily could you provide it?

Tomorrow, we'll explore these questions together in a practical workshop designed for coaches and mentors.

Hosted by Andrey Kostyuk, founder of Mentormatic and AAlchemy Ventures, this interactive session will focus on real challenges, real workflows, and practical ways to create a more organized and effective practice.

📅 24 June 2026
🕕 18:00 EEST
📍 Online

There is still time to join us.

Many founders see regulation as a barrier to growth.

Mr. Skourides offered a different perspective during the AAlchemy Growth Lab Demo Day.

One of the observations from Cyprus' AI ecosystem is that companies scaling internationally tend to prepare for compliance much earlier than others. In particular, readiness for the EU AI Act appears to go hand in hand with global growth ambitions.

While compliance may seem like a lengthy process, preparing early can reduce risk, improve market readiness, and make expansion into new markets smoother.

For startups building AI products, compliance is not just a regulatory exercise. It can become a competitive advantage.

🎥 Watch the full AAlchemy Growth Lab Demo Day recording available on our YouTube channel. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wgBbF0

Our Autumn 2025 cohort (Project: Supstructures/0125/0001) is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU through the Research and Innovation Foundation.

How much of your coaching or mentoring work actually makes it into supervision?

Think about the last three months.

The breakthrough moments.
The difficult conversations.
The resistance you noticed.
The patterns that kept repeating.
The questions you wished you had handled differently.

Most practitioners try to bring all of that into a supervision session from memory, notes, and intuition alone.

But what if you could review your sessions more systematically?

What if you had a structured way to capture observations, reflect on your practice, and identify development opportunities before supervision even begins?

This is exactly what we'll explore in our upcoming workshop.

We'll walk through a real example, discuss reflective practice, and demonstrate how AI can support coaches and mentors without replacing professional judgment.

We'll also introduce a new research initiative exploring the role of AI in practitioner self-reflection.

📅 June 24, 2026, 18:00 EEST | Online

If you're a coach, mentor, supervisor, or program manager looking to strengthen your reflective practice, we'd love to have you join us.

👉 Register here: https://pages.aalchemy.eu/mentormatic-webinar

How many AI startups do you think are operating from Cyprus?

During the AAlchemy Growth Lab Demo Day, Chief Scientist of Cyprus, Mr. Skourides, shared an interesting insight:
Most people in the room didn't believe Cyprus already had AI companies operating globally.

The reality?

A recent mapping of the local AI ecosystem identified more than 300 companies and startups developing AI products and solutions. Of the companies surveyed, Cyprus is showing strong momentum and compares favorably with much larger European ecosystems.

More importantly, some Cyprus-based AI startups are already building and operating globally.

The conversation is no longer whether Cyprus can become an innovation hub.

The conversation is how we help more founders build globally from Cyprus.

🎥 Watch the full video of the AAlchemy Growth Lab Demo Day discussion between Mr. Skourides and Panis Pieri on our YouTube channel https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wgPvN0

Our Autumn 2025 cohort (Project: Supstructures/0125/0001) is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU through the Research and Innovation Foundation.

As AI becomes more integrated into coaching and mentoring, one question matters more than ever:

How do we protect the people behind the data?

Coaches, mentors, and programme managers work with highly sensitive information every day. Notes, assessments, reflections, goals, personal challenges, and professional development journeys all require a high level of trust.

This was one of the topics discussed during the Mediterranean Leadership & Coaching Summit, where the conversation moved beyond what AI can do and focused on how AI should be governed.

The European Union's AI Act is raising the bar for accountability, transparency, and risk management across AI-powered systems. While this creates additional responsibilities for technology providers, it also creates something important for users:

Confidence.

At Mentormatic, we believe AI should support practitioners, not replace them.

That's why responsible development, data protection, transparency, and human oversight remain core principles as we continue to build AI-supported features for mentors, coaches, and organisations.

Innovation matters.

But trust, ethics, and accountability matter just as much.

Because AI should remain a tool that helps humans make better decisions, not a system that makes decisions for humans.