HALDUN YILDIZ

Haldun Yıldız received his BS degree from Computer Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University. He worked in various IoT projects at Accenture for 2 years. Since 2017, he has been working as Software Architect at Parabol. He is also cofounder of Parabol. He is mainly responsible for mobility analytics, IoT solutions and client-side technologies.

YAVUZ GÜRCAN

Yavuz received his B.Sc. degree from the Department of Computer Engineering at the Middle East Technical University in 2005 with High-Honors. He started his career in 2003 at the Software Research & Development Center (SRDC) and worked at Siemens for 3 years afterwards. He then worked for more than 6 years at Garanti Teknoloji, where he focused mainly on Application Security, Identity Management and Access Management. Yavuz moved to Germany in 2017 to continue his career as an IAM/IGA Consultant at Omada. In 2022, he co-founded triple-ID, an Identity Security Consulting company based in Europe, and continues to support multiple customers in BeNeLux and DACH as an IAM/IGA Solution Architect.

BURAK GÖYNÜK

Burak Göynük received both his Bachelors and M.Sc. degrees from METU Computer Engineering Department. He studied Information Retrieval, and Search Result Diversification in his thesis work. He started his career as a software engineer in Arcelik R&D center and joined Udemy after 1.5 years. For the first 4 years, he worked in the payments engineering team in different roles such as software engineer, senior software engineer, and tech lead. Now, he is working as Senior Engineering Manager, leading the money collection side of the payments system, namely the Checkout Team. As part of the checkout team's mission, he is trying to help Udemy to achieve globalization goals by having a scalable, available, performant, robust, and flexible payment system operating in ~250 countries with ~30 different currencies, ~50 local payment methods, and ~70 million users.

ERTUĞRUL BARAK

Ertuğrul Barak received his B.Sc. (1998) and M. Sc. (2002) in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University. He started to work in Aselsan in 1998 as a software engineer and worked in different military projects as team member and team leader up to 2014. In 2014, he was commissioned as the manager of the Command Control Software Department in Aselsan. After working 7 years in this department, he has commissioned as the manager of Command Control Product Line Department due to organizational change and he has continued since then. His main expertise is in the fields of software product lines, software architectures, software processes and military command and control.

GÖKÇE ÖZKAN

Gökçe Özkan is a senior systems engineer and product owner at STM working on the field of agent-based simulation software since 2017. She has a Master's Degree from the Industrial Engineering Department of Middle East Technical University where she graduated from in 2014, with a Bachelor's Degree. During her graduate studies between 2014 and 2017, she was employed as a teaching and research assistant focusing on multi-criteria decision making and simulation technologies.

GÜVEN ORKUN TANIK

Güven Orkun Tanık graduated from METU Computer Engineering in 2006, Electrics and Electronics Engineering in 2007. He completed his M.Sc. in computer engineering in 2010, and is still working on his Ph.D. in METU. He started working in Havelsan in 2007. He transferred to Arçelik in 2012 and led Machine Learning and Data Analytics efforts until 2019. He is now Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Manager of TAI.

ZİYA AŞKAR

Graduated from Istanbul Technical University Computer Engineering Department in 1998. Founder of asbross BBS with 300 subscribers during university education. Started professional career in Arçelik as a software developer and business analyst in Consumer Services domain. Managed global rollout team of inhouse developed consumer services software. Visited more than 25 countries and got experience to work with different cultures. Between 2011-2017 served as a Manager role in IT responsible for Sales and Consumer services. Between 2017-2019 was IT Program Leader for Arçelik Omnichannel Digital Transformation program. Recently, Head of Enterprise Architecture and Emerging technologies team in Arçelik Global since March 2021. Innovation mentor in Garage Innovation Hub : https://www.garageinnovationhub.com/en/mentor-detail/ziya-askar Member of German Chamber of Industry Digital Transformation work group (since 2020) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ziyaaskar/

İBRAHİM ARDIÇ

İbrahim Ardıç completed his BS in both Computer, Electrical and Electronics Engineering at EskiÅŸehir Osmangazi University. He completed his M.Sc. in Electrical-Electronics Engineering in 2015 at Hacettepe University with thesis about designing and development of model based software design and development environment. He started working in Turkish Aerospace in 2007. He is now Software Engineering Manager of Turkish Aerospace Industries.

SÜLEYMAN ÖZARSLAN

Dr. Suleyman Ozarslan holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems from METU. He is a co-founder of Picus Security, the pioneer of Breach and Attack Simulation. Dr. Ozarslan has 20 years of experience in IT security with a particular focus on cyber threats, malware analysis, penetration testing, application security, and security controls. Since 2002, he has trained security experts from numerous countries as part of NATO Advanced Cyber Defence Training Courses, published academic papers, and provided consultancy services to many governmental and industrial organizations.

OSMAN NURİ OSMANLI

Osman Nuri Osmanlı received his BS degree (2007) from Bilkent University and MSc degree (2010) from METU in Computer Engineering. He worked in different technical & engineering management roles at MilSOFT, TAI and Peak Games for 12 years. Since 2019, he has been working as the Director of Engineering at Picus Security.

ÇAĞLA ÇIĞ KARAMAN

Çağla Çığ Karaman received her B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University in 2008 and her M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Utrecht University's Game and Media Technology Master's programme in 2010. She conducted her master's thesis studies on realistic emotional gaze and head behavior generation for robots at MIRALab, Geneva. After returning back to Turkey, she joined Koç University's Intelligent User Interfaces Lab where she acquired her Ph.D. degree on gaze-based activity prediction and gaze-based behavioral biometrics. Currently, she is the AI Research Manager at sahibinden.com where she applies her expertise on machine learning, predictive analytics, and human-computer interaction to industry challenges related to e-commerce.

MELTEM TURHAN YÖNDEM

Meltem Turhan Yöndem completed her BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University. She was an instructor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University between 2000-2008, the Project manager of the Semantic Web Ontology Generation EU Project at AGMLab between 2008-2010, the Project coordinator of the MODAP EU Project at Sabancı University between 2010-2012 and an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering in the Department of Computer Engineering at Okan University between 2011-2020. Currently she is a senior research advisor at Setur AR-GE and the owner of Kartezyen Danismanlik and Coaching.

EMRAH ŞAMDAN

Emrah Şamdan received his B.Sc (2011) and M.Sc. (2014) degrees in Computer Engineering from METU. Following 6+ years working as a software engineer in several companies in the industry, he transitioned into a product management role. He's very into cloud application development particularly in serverless. He's working as Senior Product Manager at Serverless, the leading IaC platform for serverless application development. He's a public speaker in various conferences on product management, serverless and DevOps, and also the co-organizer of AWS Community Day, ServerlessDays, DevOpsDays Turkey, and ServerlessDays Virtual. He's recognized as an AWS Serverless Hero for his efforts leading the serverless community globally.

SERDAR AK

Serdar Ak was born in 1961, in Kayseri. He graduated from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering in 1982. He has got his master’s degree on Digital Signal Processing from University of Pittsburgh, USA, where he went on Ministry of National Education scholarship, in 1987. After completing his military service, he worked at Datasel A.Ş. as software engineer for 2.5 years until 1991. He joined NETCAD Yazılım A.Ş. as a partner in 1991, and he acted as the Technical Manager until 2006, as the General Manager 2006-2012, and the CTO between 2012 and September 2014. He is still a Member of the Board and partner. He established DECE Software Inc. at October 2014 and continues to work as General Manager.

GÖKÇE YILDIRIM KALKAN

Dr. Gökçe Yıldırım Kalkan received her B.Sc. degree from the Department of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 2002 To pursue her passion in Computer Graphics, she did her M.Sc. and PhD. graduate studies on this subject at the same department in 2005 and 2014, respectively. She worked in Meteksan Systems between 2002 and 2006. Since 2002, she has taken key roles in many large scale simulation projects. In 2006, she co-founded Simsoft Computer Technologies and since then, she has been the general manager. In Simsoft, she conveys her academic knowledge and industrial experience to the simulation projects as well as the management of the company. Her research interests include visualization of large datasets, physically-based animation and image generators.

GÖKDENİZ KARADAĞ

Gökdeniz has B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees, from METU Computer Engineering Department. His research interests were on computer security and high dynamic range imaging. He worked as a System Administrator and Teaching Assistant at METU CENG, before joining Google Site Reliability Engineering(SRE) team. As part of SRE's mission of making distributed systems available, performant and robust; he is currently focusing on deployment automation. He is an amateur Bass player, and a proponent of Free Software Movement.

TOLGA ÇEKİÇ

Tolga ÇEKİÇ has received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Bilkent University at 2012. Since 2016 he is working at Yapı Kredi Teknoloji's Natural Language Processing (NLP) department as an Expert R&D Engineer. His main areas of experties are NLP and machine learning.

NUR KURAK

Dr. Nur Öztin Kurak obtained her BS and MS degrees from the Department of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University. She obtained her Master of Business degree from the University of Waterloo. She had multiple roles at Visa Europe between 2000-2016, most recently the Head of Sector Development. She has been a lecturer at the Centre for Entrepreneurship at University of Toronto since September 2020.

TOLGA ÇEVİK

Tolga Çevik graduated from Hacettepe University Computer Engineering at 2002. He worked in various firms in the defence industry. He has worked in distributed systems, near real-time systems, modeling and simulation, and computer vision throughout his software engineer career so far. He currently works at Space And Sensing Directorate of Esen System Integration.

YUSUF ALTUNEL

Yusuf Altunel received his BS & MSc degrees from Computer Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University, and PhD from İstanbul University Department of Computer Engineering. He worked in various projects at Turkish organizations including SİMKO (Later Siemens) for 10 years. He worked as instructor and acting chair at Department of Computer Engineering and Vocational School of Computer Programming of Cyprus International University. Later he worked as full-time instructor at Istanbul Kultur University Department of Computer Engineering, and as a part-time instructor at İstanbul University Department of Computer Engineering and School of Air Forces. He worked as a Project Manager for 8 years at LC Waikiki. Currently he is working as IT R&D Manager at LC Waikiki and part-time lecturer at Istanbul Kultur University Department of Computer Engineering.

FATİH DÜZGÜN

Fatih Düzgün received his B.S. (2003) and M.S. (2016) degrees in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from METU. After working 8 years for FİBA Group companies and managing network infrastructure of Finansbank Turkey and Credit Europe Bank Russia, he started a new career at TÜBİTAK. While re-building corporate IT frameworks of essential institutes in accordance with universally recognized data security standards, risk management methodologies, virtualization best practices, and DevOps mindset, he has the honor of managing "Safir Bulut" project at Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Laboratory (B3Lab @ BİLGEM BTE).

MEHMET YİĞİT

B.Sc. degree from Computer Engineering ODTU/METU . Worked in Telecommunication sector most . Spent 16 years in Turkcell since it’s first subscriber registration . Took various roles in Network planning & operation, IT & Billing, Value Added Services, Strategy and Business development, M&A and International expansion and C-suite roles in Turkcell’s domestic/international subsidiaries . After Turkcell, worked in Hong Kong based startup in telco business, established and lead its Turkey liaison Office . Worked in Public sector as an advisor to the Mayor in Antalya for Smart City, Smart Transportation projects For now working as an advisor and mentor for Startups in various Incubation centers : ITU Cekirdek, İsBank-Workup, Hackquarters and İstanbul Chamber of Commerce .

OKAN EMİR

Okan Emir received his B.Sc. (1987) degree in Computer Engineering and MBA (1992) in METU. He holds a Managerial Leadership Program Certificate (2018) from Emory University, Atlanta. He worked as a software developer, database designer and Excel expert. Okan Emir is the founder and manager of Vega Bilgisayar Hiz. Ltd. (1994) Istanbul, working on banking software and Vega USA Consulting Inc. (2016) Atlanta, working for Coca-Cola.

ERKAN SAİP DUMAN

TURGAY ÇELİK

Turgay Çelik received his BS (2003), MSc (2005), and Ph.D. (2013) degrees in Computer Engineering from Hacettepe University, Turkey. From 2003 to 2005 he was a research assistant at Hacettepe University. He worked in different technical & managerial roles at MilSOFT, Aselsan, and Opsgenie for more than 15 years. He has 10+ years of professional experience and special interest in forming and mentoring Agile Software teams. He is currently a member of the strategy team at BİTES working on growth, Agile/Digital transformation, and innovation. In addition to his industrial experience, he also published 7 journal papers, 2 book chapters, and 9 conference papers about software design optimization, distributed systems, infrastructure and middleware technologies, modeling and simulation, software architecture modeling, model-driven engineering, microservices, and IoT. He is also an instructor at the Udemy platform and has ~800 students.

BERİVAN ARSLAN KAVGAOĞLU

Berivan Arslan Kavgaoğlu received her B.Sc. degree from Department of Computer Engineering at Çankaya University in 2002 and M.Sc. degree from Department of Computer Engineering at Atılım University in 2005 with High-Honors. She has 20+ plus years of experience in software and product development, R&D projects with particular focus on cyber security, cutting-edge solutions & technologies. She joined May Cyber Technology as project manager in 2012, she was software development manager between 2012-2015, R&D coordinator between 2015-2018 and she has been the CTO since 2018.

CAN YELGÜN