The conference is taking place in Athens, which is the largest city and capital of Greece. It is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to the economic, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. The urban area of Athens (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) has a population of approximately 4 million over an area of 412 km 2 . It is well connected as there are direct flights from many European cities.

The venue will be the Technopolis of Athens, located in the center of the city. This was formerly the Athens gasworks, which powered the city from the mid-19th century and ground to a halt in the 1980s. Today, Technopolis is one of Athens' largest and most vibrant cultural venues, attracting more than 900.000 visitors each year.