I speak at EFNI

I am speaking  as a panelist in the Plenary Session “Shared challenges facing Turkey and European Union in a globalized world” at European Forum for New Ideas (EFNI) in Gdansk, Poland together with Mr Zbigniew Brzeziński (Center for Strategic & International Studies, USA), Mr Ludwik Sobolewski (President, Polish Stock Exchange –GPW-, Poland), Ms Beata Stelmach (Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poland), Mr Jürgen Thumann (President, BUSINESSEUROPE, Germany), Mr Cevdet Yilmaz (Minister of Development, Turkey) on Friday, September 28 at 9 am CET.  Click here for the details!

Waving The Flag at the Dig, the pirate one this time :)

On digging strenuous inspirations for self.

My friend Peter is the only person I know in the corporate world besides myself who is interested in archeology, especially the living part of archeology, i.e. the digs. We had a discussion at the dig he works in today. Folks around us are amazed why one would be interested in digging up dirt alongside whatever comes in it, pieces of pottery, seeds, and all that is good for carbon reading. We are amazed to their disinterest. How can humans be so interested in today or tomorrow when they have no perspective on the past? 

Equilibrium Must Prevail; Socially Responsible Business

With Intel Mexico Country Manager

There was a great session on corporate social responsibility and why should businesses care for people and the planet. In attendance was Carlos Slim Domit, world's richest man's (Helu) son alongside other three CEOs of Unilever, Manpower and Groupo Bimbo. Audience listened attentively the strategies and plans of the biggest companies of the world how they address the gaps between the ones who have and who don’t.

B20 Notes, First Day.

With President Calderon

Los Cabos is a beautiful small resort town of Mexico on the Baja peninsula. It is similar to our Antalya in Turkey, with big resorts and endless beaches. President Calderon chose this beautiful secluded part of Mexico to host the world's business and economy leaders.

The Four Billion Dilemma...

And why isn’t technology fixing things?

First day of G/B20 in Los Cabos , Mexico, there were two very interesting speeches on technology and its applications. One at a fifty thousand feet level with biomedical changes and genome and how it will change us humans; the other on real life applications to problems for other 4 billion people; power and electricity. 

Dean Kamen is president of DEKA company. He worked on stairs climbing wheelchairs; prosthetic arms; pap smear test machines prior.  In his opening line he mentioned all the CEOs who are coming to G20 represented business who operated mostly in the 60 countries in the world and had no interest to go beyond that for economic reasons and he made a call to the room for everyone to focus and help to find a way to fix two very fundamental issues that people in remaining of the world faced today. Water and electricity. He talked about two billion people on earth with no access to electricity and over one billion people with no clean water access; and the other two billion scrambling to get it.

Celebrating global women summit in the city of Athena; 
Goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization!

I have several favorite cities that I love going back to in the world. Since I got the invitation to attend Global Summit of Women in Athens, I been so anxious. I kept on planning, just being happy that I would go to Athens finally after a while. You see, I am originally from Izmir, a beautiful Aegean town right across the sea from Athens, same parallel, same geography, same climate.And in the years I used to cover Greece from Istanbul, I always would feel like I was visiting Izmir with the palm trees, four story apartments w sun shades, our very own food but called Greek food mostly with greens, oh and if I may add, the very same loud and beautiful blonde women Izmir is known for J I did my usual round, ran to the Benaki museum to smell the ethnography of a part of my town Izmir brought to Athens at end of last century; as well as traditional clothes, artifacts, paintings, ancient and archaeological finds from Asia Minor-the land which we call Anatolia today.

World Economic Forum on the Bosphorus

We as team participated in the “World Economic Forum on the Middle East, North Africa and Eurasia” which convened more than 1,000 leaders from industry, government and civil society last week in Istanbul. Quite a spectacular event with attendance such high level from all countries surrounding Turkey. 

Nairobi - Conveying the Naked Truth

Places of Interest: Innovation Hub, Nairobi Fairmont Hotel, Nakuru National Park

Third trip in past six months to Africa, this time brought the whole gang, my colleagues with me to Kenya. It is a different feeling. Normally when I talked about Africa, or anyone else for that matter, one keeps talking about opportunities, sharing observations, convey excitement, uncertainties and issues only through own eyes; own rhetoric in the context of whatever is being discussed. And you never can be sure how it is perceived. Whether people around you think you are like a news reporter talking on this far away land where only wars and famine or coups happen. Or they think you are talking about an exotic land where man hasn’t taken over the animal kingdom yet; or specially concocted for a movie set-but for sure somewhere on a planet not within today’s world.

Visiting a South African township

Self-sustaining community center meets technology

First ever place I landed in Sub-Sahara Africa is Johannesburg. It was late 90’s. I remember exactly how it felt: I was stunned and kept on trying to register why I knew so well this was the tip of Africa. It was warm with green beautiful trees I never saw before; and had this amazing color of a sunset falling on the thousands of people walking from work to their townships. The city has gotten much more advanced and crowded since.

New Interview with ITP.net

Click here to read!

Learning to like London

And how to cope with wanting to know everything…

Destinations: Foyles bookstore, Charing Cross. Red Fort Indian Restaurant, Dean Street in Soho.

  

I feel like a carnivorous tonight. Well—technically I am a carnivorous. I am talking about emotional hunger to buy books and learn much deeper about the places I visited in past couple of months. Finally I died and am in book heaven called Foyles.

Akdenizin her iki yakasındaki kadınlar soruyor: birbirimize nasıl destek olabiliriz? Birbirinden çok uzakta, okyanusun iki yakasında, farklı kültür ve coğrafyalarda olsalar da dünya kadınlarının sorunları ve istekleri ne kadar da aynı. Bu kadınların birbirlerine yardım etmek istediklerini görmek ise bir o kadar sevindirici.

Women on both sides of the sea talking—How do we help each other? I have been real lucky this month: was first in Barcelona, Spain for a business women summit together with Mediterranean women from southern Europe and northern Africa and Middle East; and then I was in Rabat, Morocco with women from all over the Middle East.