Welcome to The SPARK: A New Chapter in Sharing Ideas That Matter

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been navigating the space where research meets real-world impact through startups, innovation ecosystems, mentoring programs, and health tech collaborations. I’ve worked with founders, helped commercialize ideas born in labs, led a spinoff, and met brilliant mentors and changemakers who have shaped the journey so far.

I’m still learning (a lot), but one thing keeps showing up:

💡Real impact often starts with a spark.

A question that challenges what we know.

A shift in mindset that opens new possibilities.

A "what if" that refuses to stay quiet.

A connection, unexpected but powerful, that ignites the journey forward.

Why The SPARK?

I’m launching The SPARK as a space to explore these moments and to share the lessons, conversations, and reflections that come with building things that matter.

This won’t be a “how-to” guide. It’s a space of curiosity centered on themes I care about, and voices I believe deserve to be heard.

I’m still early in this journey, which is exactly why I want to document it. To share what I’m learning, questioning, and discovering through the incredible people I get to meet and work with.

What to Expect

• Reflections on research commercialization and entrepreneurship

• Insights from the worlds of digital health, biotech, medtech, and beyond.

• Personal stories on navigating change, identity, and how we lead ourselves (and others)

• Collaborations and conversations with people I admire, researchers, founders, policy leaders, innovation builders (and many more who surprise me along the way!)

I’ll be alternating between solo reflections and co-authored editions, a mix of introspection and shared wisdom.

(Spoiler alert: kicking off The SPARK with Alessandro Mazzetti, and it’s a powerful one.)

Where It All Started

To kick things off, I’m resharing the blog that sparked this newsletter, my first-ever post, written last October. 👉 Is Research Commercialization for You?

In it, I talk about the shift from research to entrepreneurship and what it means to move from insight to impact.

It was an experiment, a quiet beginning, built on more curiosity than certainty. Even before The SPARK had a name, I was already speaking its language without knowing it.

A small spark — the kind that catches you off guard, flickering at the edge of fear and possibility. That's all it takes. You just have to stay open enough to let it in.

Maybe I still don’t have it all figured out, but that’s the beauty of it.

Every journey worth taking starts before we feel fully ready.

Thanks for being here. For reading. For being curious.

Let’s build something meaningful and keep the sparks flying.

✨ Stay tuned for the next edition of The SPARK — coming in May

⚠️ Disclaimer: “The SPARK” is an independent personal newsletter created by Evangelia Athanasiou. It is not affiliated with any other programs or initiatives that share the same name, including but not limited to SNSF SPARK, SPARK Global, or SPARK Western Switzerland..