Pankaj Kedia is a globally recognized, award-winning AI thought-leader as an early-stage AI investor, chief AI officer, CXO advisor & board member, adjunct MBA professor, and keynote speaker. Previously, Pankaj played pivotal roles incubating and growing a series of new businesses during the Internet, Mobile, and Cloud technology eras across three decades at Intel Corp and Qualcomm.
As the Founder and Managing Partner of 2468 Ventures, Pankaj has directly invested in 150+ early-stage startups and 15+ VC funds across silicon, systems, software, and services. He is now bringing the benefits of AI to society-at-large and is focused on accelerating the AI ecosystem globally. Pankaj has a knack for spotting trends, was an early believer (and investor) in Nvidia and Bitcoin, holds 15+ unicorns in his portfolio, has had 13 exits over the past 13 quarters, and has been an early investor in many of today's high-flying AI start-ups including Anduril, Anthropic, CoreWeave, Figure AI, Groq, OpenAI, Shield AI, and SpaceX. Pankaj has been recognized with the Lifetime AI Innovation Award by TiE, included in the CAIO Innovators Circle by Bloomberg Tech, and inducted in the Global AI150 Hall of Fame by Constellation Research for his contributions as an investor, inventor, and intrapreneur. As a lifelong learner, Pankaj has degrees from Stanford, Wharton, Univ of Michigan, and the Indian Institute of Technology.
Emma Edhem is an Alderman of the City of London Corporation, Professor in Practice at Durham University in the Space Research Centre and the Durham University Law School. Emma was previously Professor in Practice of Economics & Finance at Durham University.
She is Chairman of the OpenUK Space Advisory Board and Defence & Security Advisor to the Strategic Board of Space Aye. From 2023 to 2024, she served as the Lord Mayor’s Aldermanic Envoy for Space Technology and Innovation.
More recently Emma gave evidence at the House of Lords Select Committee for the UK Engagement on Space with a particular look at how the UK can engage on Space internationally and diplomatically in a volatile geopolitical world.
A Master of the Bench at Gray’s Inn as a Distinguished Member, Emma is a geopolitical barrister at No.5 Chambers, where she advises international governments on matters of global importance. She is a Member of the City of London Police Authority Board and serves on both the Economic and Cyber Crime Board and the Professional Standards & Integrity (Police) Committee.
Emma also holds the Presidency of the City Livery Club and the Candlewick Ward Club, and is the Chairman of an international chamber of commerce. She contributes to numerous policy tables, and working groups in Defence & Security including those involving NATO, offering thought leadership.
Emma supports a broad range of charitable initiatives. A committed advocate for strengthening the UK’s international ties, Emma’s diplomatic and geopolitical work sees her regularly deliver keynote addresses on critical and contemporary issues at both national and global forums in the UK and internationally.
Serdar Gürbüz is a leader who has managed technology and data-driven transformation in industries such as aviation, telecommunications, retail, and financial technologies driving technology-based innovations throughout his career. He currently serves as General Manager of Turkish Technology, which develops technology products and services for the aviation sector, primarily for Turkish Airlines and its subsidiaries. He also holds a position as a Board Member at Turkish Airlines Electronic Money and Payment Services.
He is an active member of Turkish Technology Team Foundation (T3 Foundation) and Teknofest Aerospace and Technology Festival, both prominent civil society organizations. Additionally, he serves on the investment committees of venture capital funds at Bilişim Vadisi and the T3 Foundation. He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University.
With 45 years of business and management experience in senior leadership roles, he is the former long-term CEO of Borusan Group, one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates. He began his career in audit (as a Chartered Accountant in England) and banking before joining Borusan.
Currently, he serves on the boards of major Turkish public companies and is an investor in both Turkish and international technology startups. He is also a member of the President Council of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD) and serves on the Board of Trustees of Sabancı University.
Faruk Eczacıbaşı, who completed his higher education at the Technical University of Berlin, began his career in 1980 at the Planning Department of Eczacıbaşı Holding. After serving as a product manager at Eczacıbaşı Pharmaceuticals, he became Deputy General Manager and then General Manager of Padeko Pharmaceuticals in 1987. In 1989, he founded Eczacıbaşı Information and Communication Co. and led the Eczacıbaşı Group’s “e-transformation” process for many years.
Through the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV), established in 1995 with the vision of transforming Turkey into an information society and of which he is still the president, Faruk Eczacıbaşı continues to work on preparing various research reports and shaping policies in this area.
In 1996, he became Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Eczacıbaşı Holding and continues to serve as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Board in Eczacıbaşı Group companies. He has also been serving as the President of Eczacıbaşı Sports Club since 1999. In his book published in 2018, “It’s Just the Beginning”, Faruk Eczacıbaşı explores the opportunities and challenges brought by technological developments, discussing what awaits the world—both good and bad—in the future.
A computer engineer, she began his career in 1994 as an intern engineer at Ford Otosan. Alongside various roles in IT, she also worked as System/Project Deployment Manager in the Ford Trucks Business Unit. In 2012, she was appointed IT Director, and in 2016, became Turkey’s first CDO, serving as the leader responsible for Digital Transformation. As of 2025, she has been appointed as Information Technologies Coordinator & Digital Transformation Leader at Koç Holding. She is responsible for the strategy and coordination of IT and Digital Transformation across all Koç Holding subsidiaries. She is married, with a 25-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son, both of whom want to work in the field of technology.
Cahit Erdoğan earned his Mechanical Engineering degree from Istanbul Technical University and an MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He began his career at Xerox Corporation as a Business Analyst and later joined Accenture Turkey, where he held various leadership roles until 2009.
He then moved to Yapı Kredi, serving as CIO and later as Executive Vice President responsible for IT, Operations, and Analytics (2013–2021). Since August 2021, he has been Executive Vice President of Commercial and SME Banking. Erdoğan also holds board memberships at Yapı Kredi Technology, Yapı Kredi Investment, Yapı Kredi Factoring, Yapı Kredi Leasing, Yapı Kredi Bank Azerbaijan, Yapı Kredi Bank Netherlands, Tanı Marketing, and Yapı Kredi Financial Technologies.
Yang Kan is the Head of the BytePlus Solutions division at ByteDance, where he leads the development of technical solutions for global markets, builds the worldwide technology ecosystem, and implements market strategies. He spearheads a team that systematically distills best practices from ByteDance's internal technologies to build a full-stack AI-native cloud platform. Through innovative technical architecture, this platform supports the development of AI-native applications and creates replicable solutions across multiple industries, providing a core driving force for enterprises' intelligent transformation. His team's vertical AI transformation engine has successfully helped numerous international companies achieve technological leaps.
Prior to his current role, Yang served as the Chief Architect for one of the leading Cloud Service Provider, where he was responsible for designing the region's cloud computing architecture and building its ecosystem. He also previously led the global big data platform for a Fortune 500 company, where he built cross-border data infrastructure capable of processing tens of billions of data points.
Fatma is a senior leader and expert in mobile industry and AI-driven growth strategy, currently heading the top-tier Partnerships team across EMEA at Google. With two decades of experience, her career trajectory is rooted in the mobile sector, spanning critical areas from app development and product management to large-scale monetization strategies across diverse sectors including tech and telco. Building on her eight-year tenure at Google, she leads high-impact teams dedicated to guiding the company's most successful developers and businesses. Her focus is on accelerating their strategic goals and maximizing their revenue through the pioneering application of AI.
Hande Ocak Başev is an AI-focused business strategist with over 25 years of experience in management consulting and digital transformation. She has completed advanced AI programs at MIT and Oxford, serves on WSI’s Global AI Leadership Board, and designs CPD-accredited AI training programs for executives worldwide. As a Forbes Turkey AI consultant and writer, she advises boards and leaders on integrating AI into strategy and governance. She has also been recognized as an MSN Top 10 Entrepreneur, a WSI Top Contributor, and a Global Recognition Awards 2025 winner.
With over 20 years of experience in the environmental sector, Dr. Dinçbaş has held various expert and managerial positions across public institutions. Since 2022, she has served as Deputy Director at Directorate of Climate Change, where she is responsible for coordinating Türkiye’s mid- and long-term climate policy documents, strategies, and international negotiations. Holding degrees in engineering, business administration, and technology management, Dr. Dinçbaş specializes in policy and strategy development, project management, training, and consultancy, with a focus on change management, strategic and investment planning, sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, national and local environmental policies, cleaner production, climate and energy modeling, and clean technology management. She also teaches graduate-level courses on climate change and has authored several books and scientific publications in the field.
Neşen Sürmeli Anaç has over 15 years of experience leading complex, cross-sectoral initiatives in sustainability, governance, and climate change. Her work spans strategic advisory across corporates, SMEs, utilities, and municipalities, often in collaboration with international development programmes and financing institutions.
She advises governments and global organisations on energy and resource efficiency, with a particular focus on decarbonisation pathways and innovative low-carbon technologies. Her expertise includes policy and market analysis, technical modelling, and the development of national climate strategies. Neşen has overseen the creation of digital platforms for knowledge sharing and automated assessment tools, and has led transformational change programmes that help corporates navigate innovation management and adopt emerging technologies. Her work brings together diverse stakeholders around measurable impact pathways and governance structures.
Rukiye Aydın Türktaş graduated from the Department of Geomatics Engineering at Yıldız Technical University in 2006 and started working at the Geographic Information Systems Directorate of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in the same year. She currently holds the position of Head of the Information Technology Department at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
Shum has been advising on mergers and acquisitions for over 25 years in tech related industries whilst employed in both New York and London. Shum is an investor and non-executive director of Heroic Labs Ltd, Torpor Games UG, and Pretty Soon SA. He is also an early stage investor in Dream Payments, Inc., Scriptic Limited and Bark Games. He was also a seed stage investor in Hutch Games Limited (exited to MTG for $375 million), Innova Intellectual Properties SARL (exited to Enad Global 7 for €110 million) and Sviper GmbH (exited to the Sandbox). Shum is a frequent speaker at global tech conferences.
After completing his undergraduate studies in Electronical Engineering, Turan pursued his graduate studies in Business. In 2000, he became a founding member of Infomag Yayıncılık. In 2005, he took part in the forming of Businessweek Türkiye. Turan, who also took part in the forming of Harvard Business Review Türkiye, has been the chief editor for Harvard Business Review Türkiye since 2012.
Aslan Doğan is the co-founder and CEO of Etiya. In addition to managing all operations, Doğan has in-depth expertise in business, product development, strategic planning, and ecosystem management, with more than 20 years of experience in the software industry. While significantly improving Etiya's infrastructure and diversifying the products offered, he has also preserved its strong culture of innovation. Between 2004 and 2015, he served at Etiya as Vice President responsible for global sales and marketing activities.
Aslan Doğan completed his undergraduate education in the Department of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University.
With over 20 years of senior management experience in multinational companies across the technology, gaming, HR, and investment sectors, he has played a pivotal role in shaping several high-impact ventures. He led the exit of Joygame, marking Türkiye’s first gaming exit through equity and an IPO on Nasdaq.
As the former Chairman of Netmarble EMEA, he managed a budget exceeding $100 million over a span of nine years and played an active role in mergers and acquisitions. He also served as Executive Vice President at Netmarble Korea during its landmark $12 billion IPO on KOSPI. As a co-founder of Startershub VC, he contributed to multiple successful exits—achieving a 6x return—including one unicorn within five years. He currently serves as a Board Member at the Turkish Informatics Foundation and TÜBİSAD, and is the Co-Chair of the TUSIAD Entrepreneurship Working Group.
With over 20 years of experience in strategic operations, communication, and emerging technologies—particularly in blockchain—she brings a multidisciplinary approach to innovation and leadership. She is an assistant professor and the head of the "Entrepreneurship in Technology and Innovation" department at İstanbul Bilgi University. As the founder of Durugörü Consulting, she advises on strategic transformation and technology adoption. She also serves as a board member of Istanbul Blockchain Women and Yeniden Biz, actively advocating for women’s empowerment. She holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and is pursuing doctoral studies in Communications.
Betül is an organizational psychologist, change catalyst, and entrepreneur and prospect impact investor with 20 years of experience spanning corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, and venture capital. After a decade in organizations such as Adecco, Turkcell, Yapı Kredi, and Allianz TR & Germany, she founded IF Consultancy in 2015 to help companies transform through culture, leadership, and strategy. Since then, she has led award-winning projects with Fortune 500s, governments, and international organizations, including the UN, EU, and U.S. Embassy.
Today, she serves as General Partner at the Greenwise Impact Fund (Boğaziçi Ventures), investing in climate tech and green technologies through a gender lens and AI-powered impact analytics. She also co-founded IF Nexus, a collaboration between IF Consultancy and Boğaziçi Ventures, where leadership science, human-centered AI, and entrepreneurial thinking converge to drive systemic transformation, emphasizing that people, not technology alone, create lasting change.
Recognized as a UN International Change Champion and a jury member for the Stevie Awards and Brandon Hall Excellence Awards, Betül continues to bridge psychology, venture capital, and climate innovation, with a mission to create inclusive, scalable, and human-centered impact.
Ayşen has been leading, developing, and managing sustainability and green and just transition projects for over 20 years, spanning the United Nations, World Bank, private sector, and civil society organizations. Her work covers diverse thematic areas, including industrial decarbonization, agribusiness, waste management, and clean technologies, while collaborating with multicultural and multidisciplinary teams.
As General Partner of the GreenWise Impact Investment Fund, Ayşen shapes the fund’s strategic vision, sources investment pipeline development, and drives partnerships that align with the fund’s mission to scale high-impact ventures in green technologies, circular economy, and climate innovation. Building on this foundation, she established a dedicated platform under the fund that develops and executes innovative projects. This platform enables the design of bespoke initiatives, fosters collaborations with public and private stakeholders, and leverages a broad network of sectoral and policy experts, ensuring that both investments and projects reinforce each other’s impact.
Graduated from Koç University Industrial Engineering and completed his Masters in International Management in Koç University. Haluk took the role of Investment and Legal Affairs Manager in StartersHub, an early-stage technology investment fund based in İstanbul. In order to add seller-side experience and empower his entrepreneurial side, Haluk worked as Director of Strategy and Finance in Thread in Motion, an industrial IOT company focusing on developing smart wearables. Haluk is currently the General Manager of Inveo Ventures, a growth-stage technology investment fund. He is passionate about startups, growth, new technologies and venture deals. 10+ years of experience in the Startup and VC Ecosystem having both executive roles in buy-side and sell-side.
Can Bakır, CEO of Yapay Zeka Fabrikası, has nearly 25 years of experience at the intersection of technology, investment, and entrepreneurship. Throughout his career spanning from the United States to Turkey, he has taken on roles in product development, marketing, sales, investment management, and new business creation, generating millions of dollars in commercial and strategic value.
As Director of New Business Development at Arçelik, he established the Venture Studio structure, developed innovative business models in areas such as FinTech, health technologies, and sustainability, and spearheaded the creation of venture investments and capital mechanisms.
Previously, he held leadership roles at technology companies such as Peak Games, Mynet, and Euro.message. Bakır is a graduate of Koç High School and Brown University, completed the Koç University eMBA program, and continues to teach digital marketing at Bahçeşehir University.
Petar is the Chief AI Officer at Eleven Ventures where he is helping a portfolio of 70 startups Implement AI in every possible way to stay competitive. He is also the co-founder of AI company BigBongo that helps companies optimize employee workflows. He studied finance and neuropsychology at City University of New York, which sparked his interest in natural and later artificial intelligence. Petar published his first book “AI: Soul and Silicon” in Bulgarian to reach the general public and present AI and the impact on society in an easy and non-technical language. Petar consults companies on how to adopt AI in their organization with a smooth and holistic manner. He regularly speaks at conferences and events as a motivational or educational speaker.
Gulay Ozkan is a global voice and founder of the award-winning GEDS Strategic Design Consultancy, bridging exponential technologies with real human context. A Singularity University GSP13 alum at NASA Ames, she has been recognized among Fast Company’s Top 100 Female Founders and honored with Microsoft’s 2020 Woman Leader Award. Author of Design Leadership: Past, Present, and Future, she also serves as a curator and SXSW Advisory Board member, shaping AI, 2050, space, and design tracks since 2019.
He graduated from the Department of Philosophy at METU in 1999. After completing his Master’s studies at the same university, he pursued further Master’s and Doctoral studies in the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Since 2013, he has been teaching courses on Logic, Philosophy of Science, and Formal Ontology at the Department of Philosophy at METU. In 2014, within ODTÜ TSK-MODSİMMER, he founded the Computational Ontology Laboratory, where he and a team of 15 people have conducted research on various applications of Artificial Intelligence.
Hüseyin Sayın, a graduate of the Economics Department at Dokuz Eylül University, completed his master’s degree in Strategic Marketing and Brand Management at Bahçeşehir University. He has management experience across six different sectors on both national and international scales, having taken on active leadership roles not only in Turkey but also in regions such as North Africa and the CIS.
Sayın has carried his expertise in marketing and communications beyond corporate projects into academia, teaching at various universities for many years and playing an active role in industry–academia collaborations. He currently continues his professional career as Marketing and Communications Director at PCME Group, while also serving as Head of Marketing and Digital Experience at Klein Entertainment. In addition, he is the curator of Colors of Marketing, a creative platform that fosters sectoral knowledge sharing, and also acts as Executive Board Chairman of the Imagination Awards.
Beyond his projects, Sayın sustains his expertise through regular content production; for over 15 years, he has contributed to industry publications and authored blogs and articles. He is a CMAS-certified professional diver and a licensed billiards player. He has also published three books.
Dr. R. Erdem Erkul is a prominent technology entrepreneur and co-founder of Cerebrum Tech. He currently serves as Honorary Consul of the Republic of Korea in Sivas (appointed May 2024), and is also a Galatasaray Congress Member. He held key roles at Microsoft Türkiye and the MEA Region for several years, and worked as Director and Spokesperson at Samsung (2014–2018).
Dr. Erkul is Vice President of CEPIS (Council of European Professional Informatics Societies), Board Member at Türkiye Bilişim Vakfı (TBV) and GEN Türkiye, and also Chairperson of DEIK’s Digital Technologies Business Council. He serves on DEIK’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee, and joined the Forbes Technology Council in 2023. He is recognized for his pioneering work in e-government, smart cities, AI, metaverse, Web 3.0, and entrepreneurship. Holding national and international degrees in public administration, innovation, and business, Dr. Erkul is also passionate about Turkish folk music and plays the kopuz and bağlama.
Bringing over 35 years of global experience in the technology, cloud, and software industries, he has held leadership roles at top-tier companies such as Microsoft and Siemens. He led an IT services organization of 2,000 people, serving both local and international clients, and has extensive expertise in building and managing regional partner networks. As COO and CMO of Microsoft Türkiye, he was responsible for driving growth, strategy, and B2B marketing. Additionally, he played a key role in establishing a thriving technology vendor startup ecosystem with over 1,000 members.
One of the most influential investors and startup mentors in the ecosystem, Kenan Çolpan is an entrepreneur, serial investor, and senior executive with over 25 years of experience in early-stage investments and the technology sector.
He serves as a Board Member in various technology companies and has contributed to multiple successful exits in the region. With his extensive investment and mentorship experience, he continues to shape the growth of the startup ecosystem.
Zeynep Özgür Çağlayan earned her Bachelor’s (2007) and Master’s (2009) degrees in Economics from Bilkent University and began her professional career in the Treasury team at Turkcell. She went on to hold strategic roles at TEB Treasury-ALM and Odeabank, gaining deep expertise in investment product management, market research, and client relations.
She holds Capital Markets Board (SPK) Level 3 and Derivatives licenses and is fluent in English.
Since April 2024, Sercan Çelebi has been serving as the CEO of Enocta and is among the alumni of McKinsey & Company. He has led management consulting projects for multinational corporations and public institutions across different continents.
He has worked in various fields such as agriculture, national energy investments, social media, and big data analytics, and has gained extensive leadership experience in diverse industries through his senior management consulting work in New York.
Mehmet Uvez was appointed to the position of Associate Director, Head of Ankara, Deputy Head of Turkey effective from January 2022 at EBRD. Mr. Uvez is based in Ankara, Turkey and reports directly to Managing Director for Turkey. Mehmet Uvez has been with EBRD since 2015. Prior to his appointment as the Head of Ankara RO, he was the Lead of the Gender and Economic Inclusion Department within the Economics, Policy and Governance Department of the Bank. He reported to the Director for Gender and Economic Inclusion, delivering the country strategy and policy initiatives for young people, women, people living in less developed regions of Turkey for a wide variety of sectors including agribusiness, infrastructure, energy and natural resources sectors.
Mr. Uvez has over 20 years of experience working with Turkish Government, International Organizations and Financial Institutions. Before joining EBRD, Mehmet served as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Treasury Controllers at the Turkish Treasury and Deputy Head of Audit Authority responsible from the oversight of EU-Turkey Financial Cooperation under the Instrument for Pre-Accession.
Tolga Tunç is a marketing and business development professional with more than 20 years of experience in the consumer products and software industries. He graduated from the Department of Economics at Hacettepe University and has built his career across product management, category management, supply chain, channel sales, and marketing roles. Currently, he serves as Vice President of Business Development and Product Marketing at Cerebrum Tech. Prior to this role, he worked as Marketing Director and Category Manager at Umur Kırtasiye/Ofmark, and earlier in his career, he held positions as Product Manager and Channel Sales Manager at Rem Dış Ticaret. Tunç has expertise in strategic marketing, brand management, digital and traditional campaigns, and channel partnerships.
Burak Ertaş graduated from Middle East Technical University, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and received his Master of Business Administration degree from Koç University. He started his professional career as a founding partner at Odak Software during his university years, worked as AGM/EVP at Telsoft and Telenity, as EVP responsible for Turkcell Mapco Service Management and Business Development, and as Product and Service Management Division Head at Turkcell, respectively.
Mr. Ertaş is also serving as the Chairman of the Board at Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Turkey and as a member of the Foreign Economic Relations Board / Digital Technologies Executive Committee.
Batuhan Ozcan is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Syntonym. He bears responsibility for the The development of Syntonym's technology, in addition to the company's operations in their entirety, is of paramount importance. He holds an MSc from Imperial College London.
Syntonym Lossless Anonymization for Visual Data Unlike traditional anonymization methods such as blurring, Syntonym’s lossless anonymization tech retains the full utility of visual data, ensuring that physical AI systems, which rely on real-time visual understanding, can function optimally. This is crucial for maintaining seamless human-to-machine interaction, safety and privacy.