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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.