Faruk Eczacıbaşı – Keynote Speaker
Vice-Chairman of Eczacibasi Corporation. President of the Turkish Informatics Foundation.

Born in Istanbul in 1954, Faruk Eczacıbaşı is a graduate of the Istanbul German Lycee and Berlin Technical University’s School of Management, where he earned his undergraduate and MBA degrees.

He served in various positions in the Eczacıbaşı Group and he was instrumental in the Eczacibasi Group’s e-Transformation as head of Eczacıbaşı’s IT company.

Faruk Eczacıbaşı is Chairman of the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV), which he founded in 1995 to assist Turkey make the transformation to an information society. He was influential in establishing jointly with the Turkish Business and Industry Association (TÜSİAD) Turkey’s first and only private sector awards for the public sector, the e-Turkey Awards. He participated in national efforts to align Turkey’s legislation with the EU Acquis Communautaire. He helped to establish Turkey’s first company providing legal and technical infrastructure for secure e-commerce and e-government. He has also led efforts to generate public consensus in favor of EU internet standards.

Dr. Hakan Gürsu – Keynote Speaker
CEO, Designnobis; Instructor, METU Department of Industrial Design; Co-Founder, NOVUSENS Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute

Industrial Designer Dr. Hakan Gürsu, has succeeded as an extraordinary illustrator, designer and intellectual internationally. DESIGNNOBIS Design / Innovation firm that he has founded is selected among Turkey’s Top 40 Entrepreneur Firms. He’s been honored in world’s prestigious design competitions by winning over 90 design awards within 7 years and made Turkey rank second in design field. He contributed to several national and international organizations as a speaker on innovation, creative thinking, design and R&D. Ranging from boats, toys and furniture to electrical devices, his environmentally friendly and visionary projects are introducing unusual solutions to common problems. He continues to train design students at METU.

Necdet Pamir
LecturerBilkent University, Department of International Relations, Faculty of Economics,
Administrative and Social SciencesChairman Energy Commission, Republican People’s Party

• Petroleum Engineer, Chief Engineer, Project Manager, Group Manager, Deputy General Manager; Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO, State Oil Company of Turkey), 26 years of Professional experience (1980 – 2006).
• General Manager, A Private Engineering-Procurement & Construction Company (June 2009 – June 2010)
• Member of the Board, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (1980 – 1995).
• Chairman, General Secretary, Chamber of Petroleum Engineers, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (UCTEA), (1980 – 1995).
• Lecturer at Bilkent University, İstanbul Kültür University and Ankara University
• Member of the Board, World Energy Council - Turkish National Committee (March 2008 – March 2011)

Aydın Gençler
Regional Director, Data Platform Marketing, Microsoft Middle East Africa HQ

Aydin has about 24 years of information technology experience in software development, consulting and marketing.

Aydin started his career as a software developer at ITT World Directories in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1987. He moved into consulting at Hyperion Solutions followed by a consulting role at the Oracle EMEA team. In 2000, he moved to California, USA, Oracle Headquarters as a product manager. In his last role at Oracle, he was heading the product marketing team for Business Intelligence solutions.

In January 2008, Aydin joined Microsoft Middle East and Africa Headquarters based in Istanbul, Turkey. He is responsible for the data platform marketing including Business Intelligence, Big Data and Cloud computing solutions covering eight subsidiaries in Middle East and Africa.

Aydin holds an MBA in marketing and MSc in Computer Engineering.

Server Tanfer
Solutions and IT Architects Manager - IBM Turk

Completed high school education at Galatasaray Lisesi, Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering at Bogazici University.

Partnered in establishment of software houses in the early days of commercial softwares in Turkey. He joined IBM at 1988 and worked as system engineer, project manager and services specialist respectively.

After acquisition Lotus Development Corp. at 1995 and Rational at 2003 by IBM, he worked as country business development manager and established software business for these companies in Turkey as a part of IBM. He was assigned to IBM Software Sales Manager role between 2006 and 2012.

Currenly he works as Industry Solutions and IT Architects Manager in IBM Turk, he is also country leader for IBM's Smart Cities initiative.

Hediye Tüydeş Yaman
Ass. Prof. Dr. METU Department of Civil Engineering; METU BİLTUR Center, Head of Smart Transportation Systems

Dr. Cenk Tezcan
Founder of BeWell, Mobile Health Expert; Lecturer at METU, Graduate School of Informatics; Member of Turkish Futurists Association

Cenk Tezcan has over 25 years of experience in healthcare field. After he graduated from Ankara University Medical faculty, he studied MBA at the same University. He worked at Marquette Hellige, Meteksan System and Intel, focusing on medical equipment, turnkey hospital projects and health informatics respectively. He is running his own consultancy company named BeWell.

He lectures at METU on medical informatics and future studies. Currently he is writing a `mHealth` report for TUSIAD and consulting SGK for a mHealth pilot project.

Dr. Güven Fidan
CEO, ArgeDOR Information Technologies; R&D Director, AGMLab Information Technologies

He received his B.S. and M.S. degree from METU, Department of Computer Engineering and Ph.D degree from METU, Information Systems. As a professional, he has participated and managed numerous commercial projects and R&D projects funded by the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and European Union (EU). He has also given lectures in universities. His current research interests are big data, cloud based systems, information retrieval and extraction, web usage mining, recommender and collaborative systems.

Ekmel Ertan
Founder, Amber Platform

Ekmel Ertan works as artist, curator and educator. Ertan is the founder and artistic director of İstanbul based amberPlatform ( by BIS, Beden-İşlemsel Sanatlar Derneği / Body-Process Arts Association), which is a research and production platform on art and new technologies. Ertan is the curator of the international “amber Art and Technology Festival” in Istanbul since 2007. He curated also international amberPlatform exhibitions and performances. He is the initiator of amber Art and Technology Conference in Turkey. Ertan is also working as the site coordinator and director for several international projects based in Turkey and Europe in the field of art and technology / new media and society. Between 1999 and 2006, he taught multimedia / visual communication design at Istanbul Bilgi University, İstanbul Technical University, and Yıldız Technical University and since 2006 he has been teaching at Sabancı University.

Murat Şahin
President, Futurists Association of Turkey

Ulaş Akın
City Panner and Chief of Foreign Projects, BİMTAŞ

Born in Istanbul, Taksim, 1976. Gained experience in the broader field of urban management with various scales and sectoral focused inter-disciplinary strategy development projects. Contributed the learning processes of graduate students and professionals, and capacity building of managers at local and central governments internationally. Holds BSc and MSc degrees from ITU, and partricipated international diploma program in the Netherlands. Carried out academic research on ICT and urban management. About to complete PhD project on analysing uncertainties in urban decision making and innovative tools on instiutional capacity-learning context. Been to Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Macedonia, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Kazakhstan, Syria, Kenya, Cyprus, Somalia, Ukraine related to the projects.

Derya Bigalı
Manager, Akbank Sanat

Derya Bigalı is working as the Directing Manager of Akbank Arts Center. She has graduated from METU computer engineering and worked as Deputy Manager of Akbank Arts & Culture Department and as a department manager at Integrated Communications in Akbank since 1996. She worked as an engineer in Northern Telecom İstanbul - NETAŞ between 1987 - 1988 and SEL - Alcatel Stuttgart between 1988 - 1995. She has been managing many international art events since 1996.