Feyzi Celik

Feyzi Çelik is the founder of OnePIN®, an industry visionary and an inventor at heart. His innovations include CallerXchange®, a mobile service which allows subscribers to manage their phonebooks; MessageXpress™, a “quick message” mobile service for subscribers to quickly send a personalized message with 1-click after missed calls; ZeroX™, a zero balance call back and funds transfer enabler; AdXecutive™, a mobile phonebook advertising service for Enterprises; SurveyXpert™, an after-call survey service for Enterprises; SocialLinX™, an after call social media invitations service; MaXapp™, a mobile application marketing and promotions service; BoosterX™, a universal top-up and up-sell service; NetMetriX™, a network analytics service; LocaXion™, a location based marketing service; and AuthenXicator™, a single sign-on mobile service for the Mobile Operators. Çelik holds twenty global patents related to OnePIN technologies.

Under Çelik’s direction, OnePIN is working with leading telecommunications firms to bring OnePIN’s cutting-edge technologies to the mobile phones of subscribers worldwide. OnePIN is now servicing 30 mobile operators including Vodafone, Orange, MTS, MTN, Etisalat, NetOne, Cable & Wireless, GlobaCom, and BaikalWestCom. Its customer base spans the globe and includes more than 240 million mobile subscribers.

Çelik raised over $26 million in funding for OnePIN from four Venture Capital firms: Stage 1 Ventures, FA Technology Fund, Egan Managed Capital and Greycroft Partners. Prior to founding OnePIN, Çelik served as president and CEO of the North American division of Koc Group, a $25 billion Fortune Global 500 company based in Istanbul.

Çelik holds a master’s degree in business administration with high distinction from the Babson College Graduate School of Business, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Middle East Technical University (METU) College of Engineering.

Çelik is the recipient of the Babson College W.F. Glavin Center Global Entrepreneur Award.

Çelik holds twenty global patents related to OnePIN technologies. Çelik is also the main inventor on a number of patents currently in the pending stage both nationally and internationally.

Erdogan Cesmeli

Erdogan Cesmeli, PhD, MBA, is Executive Director of Catalyst at GE Ventures, which aims to establish collaborations with scientific entrepreneurs to generate world-changing outcomes, indirectly shaping the future of GE.

In 1999, he started his GE career as a scientist at the Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY, USA. After having several GEHC (healthcare) marketing positions in Milwaukee, WI, USA, in 2007, Erdogan moved to Paris, France, to be the GEHC International Marketing Director for Cardiology. He was then promoted to be the Chief Marketing Officer for GEHC Interventional Systems. In 2011, Erdogan moved to Istanbul, Turkey, and became Chief Marketing Officer, MENAT. 

He established marketing function, initiated leadership programs, & created a pipeline of $10B opportunities via new markets. Between April 1, 2013 & March 1, 2016, he managed $900M investment aiming infrastructure, localization and innovation development, enabling the creation of more than 2500 jobs.During this role, he created an innovation ecosystem that generated 140+ startups, 150+ internal coaches and a new platform called OKYAY connecting Turkish Venture Capitals and entrepreneurs with those of USA. Consequently, he was offered a newly created role in GE Ventures & relocated to Boston, MA as an Executive Director of Catalyst program.

Erdogan is married to Tulin. Their favorite activity is to teach and learn from their 14 years old daughter, Erin Alaz, and 10 years old son, Artun Berk. He also enjoys world history, etymology, jazz & classical music, and tennis & cycling.

Osman Duman

Osman Duman is the COO and VP of product development, management and all operations in Ezuce, a Boston-based telecommunications company. Duman has held executive positions in both Turkey (Karel, 2009-2014, VP and COO) and in the United States (1985-2009, various companies in telecommunications).

Duman has joined Ulticom in 2002 as CMO and VP of marketing and sales, where he has been instrumental in taking the company to the #1 spot in the world for the signaling industry. He has led the softswitch/VoATM group of Lucent Technologies following their acquisition of MassMedia Communications, in which he has been a founder and vice president. He has held various engineering and executive positions in Motorola, GTE, Alcatel and NewNet between 1985 and 1997.

Duman has received his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, and his Master of Science in computer science -- both from Middle East Technical University. He is also an alum of the MIT Sloan Executive Education program.

Omer Er

Omer Er is the Founder and Managing Partner of MiddleBridgePartners, a boutique investment firm investing in early stage companies of the new economy in the US with a diverse industry focus. Omer started his career at world's now largest law firm Dentons as a corporate attorney. He provided legal, public policy and corporate strategic advice to several multinational corporations such as LehmanBrothers, Newscorp (FOX, Myspace), Turner Broadcasting (CNN-TNT), Shell, Nokia in complex cross-border M&A transactions and foreign direct investments in different jurisdictions. With a special interest in a global free market economy Omer has published articles and editorial works on foreign direct investments. Omer holds bachelor of law degree from Istanbul Bilgi University with full scholarship and two master of law degrees from Istanbul Bilgi University and Georgetown University in Washington DC.  He is an active participant of civic and social organizations and a frequent speaker of the panel discussions on doing business in different geographies. He is a member of Atlantic Council, Milken Institute, Young Businessmen Association (GYIAD), board member and chair of Americas of World Turkish Business Council (DTIK), a board member of Independent Businessmen and Industrialists Association of USA, and a member of the Istanbul Bar. Omer is also selected as one of the 40 under 40 Influential Turkish Americans and the Young Society Leader by the American Turkish Society.  

Sinan Erzurumlu

Sinan Erzurumlu is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Babson College. Prior to joining Babson, he has worked as a project-based consultant for Dell on service operations and as a research engineer for Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in Management Science and Information Systems from McCombs School of Business and M.S. in Operations Research/Industrial Engineering from Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a B.S. in electrical and electronics engineering with distinction from Bogazici University in Turkey.

As a researcher, Sinan’s academic interests include operations strategy and management of innovation in supply chains and entrepreneurial firms. Through collaborations with practitioners, he participates in applied research projects on how to improve innovation performance, mitigate survival/growth risks, and enhance company valuation in technology development and commercialization. He takes an operational lens to decision making and risk management, focusing on how organizational resources and processes can be utilized more effectively for enabling innovation and decision making. His research has been published in several journals including Production and Operations Management, IEEE Transactions, Decision Sciences, Resources Policy, and Omega.

As an instructor, Sinan brings his knowledge and consulting experience about operations management and innovation processes for organizations in a number of different industries. As such, his work has included sustainable business model development for gold mining operations, sustainability strategy for an international Fortune 500 organization in food sector, and designing operations strategies for clean technology ventures to help them increase their potential for finding funding. He utilizes qualitative methods like design thinking to address new insights about a problem and quantitative analysis like optimization and economic modeling to guide strategic decisions with rigor.

Sinan values the innovative mindset in startups and enterprises as the driving force for better decision making, change and growth. As such, he utilizes the disciplines of supply chain and operations, design and innovation to improve how organizations enable innovations and do better business. He leads workshops on technology and operations management, innovation management and sustainability. Recently, he has been selected for Poets&Quants Best 40 under 40 Professors in the world.

Cem Oruc

Cem serves as the Senior Manager for Cluster Development & Industry Growth at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. Previously, he was the New Venture Development Manager at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Cem worked as the Director of Commercialization Assistance at the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center where he provided consulting and education services to small technology businesses in intellectual property, technology transfer, commercialization, and capital formation.

He served as the Assistant Director at the Georgia Medical Center Authority, where he developed a life sciences business incubator. He worked as a Contracts Specialist at the Emory University Office of Technology Transfer and participated in research and development of new vaccine products at Merial Limited.

Cem is a Kauffman Foundation Fasttrac® Tech Venture™ facilitator and a certified Technology Commercialization Counselor by the Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC). He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School (HBS) Private Equity & Venture Capital program. He holds a B.S. degree in Cellular Biology and an MBA from the University of Georgia.

Mustafa Ozgen

Mustafa Ozgen is the President and Chief Executive Officer for QD Vision, Inc. QD Vision is an MIT associated nanotechnology design and manufacturing company. It has received over $130 million funding from well-known tier-1 venture capital firms and strategic investors that are located in Boston, Silicon Valley, China and Germany. Company’s quantum dot based chemical material is used by TV, PC monitor and mobile phone OEMs to bring life like true color capabilities to the displays.

Mustafa joined QD Vision with more than 20 years of technology development and executive level global business management experience with various Silicon Valley public and private companies. His area of expertise is around consumer electronics, software, hardware, semiconductor chipsets and chemistry/material science related product development and business management.

As part of his long involvement with the consumer electronics industry, Mustafa has experienced the creation of digital TVs, digital cameras, smart phones, drones and many other new consumer technologies, and has done business with the companies that created these end products around the world. Some examples include Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Apple, Google, Canon, AT&T, Verizon, Cisco, Microsoft, TCL, Xiomi, LeEco, Vestel, Arcelik, etc.

Prior to QD Vision, he served as the Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Sigma Designs (NASDAQ: SIGM)’ Multimedia chipset business division, where he established Sigma Designs as the market leader of Smart TV chipsets in the North America region by partnering with Vizio and Roku.

Prior to Sigma Designs, Mustafa served as the Vice President of Home Entertainment Products at CSR Technology (LSE: CSR). Previously he worked at Zoran (NASDAQ: ZRAN), a public company which merged with CSR in 2011 where he held the post of Vice President and General Manager of the TV Business Unit. Mustafa also worked in engineering and management positions at Oak Technology, TeraLogic, and Wind River Systems.

Mustafa received his BS in Computer Engineering summa cum laude from the Turkish Naval Academy (Istanbul, Turkey) and an MS in Computer Science from the US Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California). He attended the Stanford University Graduate School of Business’ Executive Program for Growing Companies in General Management.

Ceylan Rowe

Ceylan Rowe is the founder of Trendy Napkin. She has spent most of her life advocating for and assisting women in the United States and abroad. Born into a family of entrepreneurs, Ceylan founded Trendy Napkin, a company that sells non-sweatshop shirts with an inspiring message. A portion of every sale goes to help refugee women start their own business. This December she will be speaking at the Massachusetts Conference for Women at the Small Business Roundtable Session.

Ceylan attended the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women’s session on how to protect women’s human rights against violent extremism. She hopes that Trendy Napkin can help refugee women, some in abusive situations, leave and be able to support themselves and their children by becoming an entrepreneur.

She studied political science and international affairs at Northeastern University. Soon after college, she worked at the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants. Ceylan also started a consulting company named Mommy’s Business BFF, helping moms start their own business or go back into the workforce.

Hakan Satiroglu

Hakan Satiroglu is an entrepreneur and investor specializing in education technology (EdTech) and innovation . He has been actively involved in either the founding or acceleration of more than 40 EdTech companies, many of which are tackling some of the most acute problems in education today.  As a co-founder of LearnLaunch, an innovation ecosystem for EdTech startups, Hakan has been a key player in making Boston a leader in EdTech innovation. His life’s mission is to build global companies focused on improving educational outcomes and workforce readiness.

Beyond LearnLaunch, Hakan is building his own portfolio of companies: he has co-founded several companies since 2012. His current portfolio of companies includes EdTech Times (a multimedia news publication focused on education technology), Mountain Gap Solutions (software/app development for the education industry), MindBridge Partners (market analysis and strategy development for K-12 and higher ed), Advanced Bootcamps (bootcamps for rapid skill acquisition), Teachers Connect (a social networking and mentorship platform for new teachers) and Global iLab (global gateway for sales channels and strategic market consulting services for non-US based startups, growth and established companies). 

Hakan started down the path of EdTech entrepreneurship when he founded Xplana Learning. As its CEO, Hakan established Xplana as the premier EdTech R&D company creating products for top learning companies such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, Cengage Learning (Thomson Learning), Houghton Mifflin and many others. Xplana developed one of the world’s first interactive online e-book platforms, a white labeled K-12 learning management system, as well as more than a dozen other widely used education products including podcasting, quizzing, activity and simulation engines. The company was acquired in 2009 by MBS Textbook Exchange, one of the largest textbook distribution companies in the U.S.

Hakan is on the board of several organizations and companies including Boston University Alumni Council, United Nations Association of Greater Boston, Equity Lab Charter School in Lynn, MA. He received his Bachelor in Science in Finance and Accounting from Boston University.

Cihan Yilmaz

Dr. Cihan Yilmaz received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2006 and his Ph.D. in mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in 2014. He is currently working as an Associate Research Scientist at the NSF Center for High Rate Nanomanufacturing at Northeastern University. Dr. Yilmaz’s research interests are micro, nano, and molecular scale directed assembly of colloids, and cost-efficient and sustainable nanomanufacturing of functional nanostructures for materials, energy, and biomedical applications. Dr. Yilmaz has authored or coauthored more than 15 publications and 10 patents in the field. He also co-founded a nanotechnology-based company that produces biosensors for early detection of various types of cancers. This revolutionary technology received many awards including Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) Award and National Technology Award at TechConnect Conference, and received funding from government and private sources.