Athanasios Kotzakolios
Founder and CEO of YLISENSE
Athanasios Kotzakolios is a Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineer with a PhD in composite materials in Aeronautics. He has an extensive background in research and development, having participated in and coordinated approximately 30 EU, national, and privately funded projects focused on materials and structures. From 2017 to 2023, he shared his expertise by teaching Damage Tolerance Design in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics at the University of Patras.
In 2023, Athanasios co-founded YLISENSE with the ambitious goal of enhancing product circularity and reducing environmental footprints. YLISENSE achieves this by merging Materials Informatics and the Internet of Things (IoT). As CEO, Athanasios currently focuses on providing Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) services and digital tools for lifecycle and circularity assessment.
YLISENSE’s innovative approach has already gained recognition. In 2025, the company was selected as an incubatee by ESA BIC Greece for its solution that utilizes Edge AI to significantly reduce the manufacturing energy and time required for composite materials.