Bager Akbay was born in Istanbul in 1976. He has a bachelor’s degree in Communication Design from Yildiz Technical University and in Interface Cultures from University of Art and Design, Linz. After working as an actor and puppeteer at Kara Tiyatro in Istanbul, he continues lecturing in his area of expertise in several universities and lives an experimentalist life between art and science. Apart from his life as an instructor, he works an advisor for the firms in design sector and continues doing art work in a studio named Iskele47.
Duygu Sar was born in Kars in 1983 and Bilgehan Celik was born in Konya in 1982. When their paths came across in 2012, they have both come a long way in their carriers. Bilge was a manager in a company for 7 years and Duygu was a freelance art project coordinator. They have created a bucket list to complete before their life comes to an end. After not being able to accomplish the wishes in the list as they desired, they have started questioning their life. Later realizing the life they have built wasn’t close to what they have imagined, at the end of two years of uncertainty, they have decided to start everything from scratch. They both resigned from their jobs and founded the website BizEvdeYokuz.com . Their website is now visited by hundreds and thousands of people that search for ideas and used as a source of unusual adventures and activities.
They have experimented many formulas to find a balance between their work and their dreams. Even though they faced many problems after leaving their life in order, they have finally collected the fruits of their hard work.
He is a professor in Boğaziçi University's Department of Computer Engineering since 1992. He worked on the limits of the artificial intelligence technique of qualitative simulation, and Turkish natural language understanding. His recent areas of interest are the natural limitations of Artificial Intelligence, quantum computation, and theoretical computer science.
He is a writer, musician, and product manager. Patrick grew up in Chattanooga, TN and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2010. In his professional life, he has spent time composing, performing, teaching, analyzing social networks at startups, and helping to provide strategic vision for technology at national nonprofits. He identified the musical phenomenon called the Millennial Whoop—an idea that has since gone viral. Living in Beacon, New York, he works at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is a contributor at Quartz, and writes regularly on his own blog, ThePatterning.com.
Professor Mengüç has completed his BS and M.S. degrees at the Middle East Technical University (METU), in Ankara, Türkiye. He has received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University, Indiana, USA in 1985. He joined the faculty at the University of Kentucky the same year, and was promoted to the ranks of associate and full professor in 1988 and 1993, respectively. Prof. Dr. Mengüç authored/coauthored more than 120 refereed journal articles and more than 170 conference papers, and two books. He has four assigned and three pending patents, and has guided more than 50 MS and Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows. He is one of the three Editors-in-Chief of Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer published by Elsevier. Since early 2009, Dr. Mengüç is at Ozyegin University in Istanbul as the Founding Head of Mechanical Engineering Program and the Director of Center for Energy, Environment, and Economy.
After graduating from business school, he took part as project manager in 1st Black Sea Games and in similar grand projects. He started working on Cittaslow and several projects with Seferihisar Municipality in 2009. Seferihisar being Türkiye’s first Cittaslow, he became the Technical Coordinator of Türkiye for Cittaslow network. He developed some projects in accordance with slow philosophy in Seferihisar and supported multiple cities to spread this successful model in Türkiye and in TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). Kostem is the President of Yavaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği which works on the topics such as: preservation of the nature and excessive consumerism. In his leisure time, he likes to fix his 85 model car and does carpentry work. Along with being a college senior in Sociology, he is the coordinator at Akademi Karşıyaka which aims to develop the connection between civil society, universities and municipalities.
He graduated from ITU Space Engineering in 2014 and right now works in KOC University Mechanical Engineering department as a research assistant. His main research subjects are Mars mission optimization, rocket launch systems and small satellites. Apart from these subjects he works on system engineering and space neuroscience. In 2012 he was elected for International Astronautical Congress (IAC) and became the first Turkish delegate to achieve this. Since 2012 he has represented Türkiye in IAC. He is also a member of a United Nations supported organization Space Generation Congress (SGAC). He is the only Turkish delegate who attended American Institute of Aeronautics (AIAA) in 2014 –an organization held by SGAC- and he works actively in AIAA system engineering, small satellites and young professional technical committees.