The Future of Energy
Sabancı University Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC) and Hello Tomorrow Turkey held an event entitled “The Future of Energy” at Sabancı Center on 31st of October, 2016. The high-level organization brought together leading innovators, science-entrepreneurs, corporate executives, investors and industry experts and the event was hosted by Prof. Ayşe KADIOĞLU, Acting President of Sabancı University.
The opening remarks of the event were conducted respectively by Hello Tomorrow Turkey Ambassador Timur TOPALGÖKÇELİ; French Consul General to Istanbul Bertrand BUCHWALTER; President & Chair of the Board of Directors, TUSIAD Cansen BAŞARAN-SYMES; Executive Director of International Energy Agency (IEA) and Steering Committee Honorary Chairman of IICEC Dr. Fatih BİROL (via video); Deputy Minister of Science, Industry & Technology of the Republic of Turkey, Dr. Hasan Ali ÇELİK.
Cansen BAŞARAN-SYMES remarked “I believe that Turkey, with its young, dynamic and tech-savvy population as well as its entrepreneurial spirit and growing startup scene, is well positioned to play a leading role in this energy transformation. It is without question that the innovation-driven entrepreneurship represents a strategic asset for a return to growth for the years to come, and game-changing entrepreneurs will remain the leading force of our economy.” and added “we are proud to see Turkey’s startup scene growing exponentially in the last couple of years.
Dr. Hasan Ali ÇELİK underlined “We need two key factors to reach our goal in terms of economy and society. These are entrepreneurship and innovativeness”. He added “Today we see that many companies which lead global economy were founded by very young people. A start-up firm with a small number of employees reaches 15-20 billion dollar market value.”
Following the introductory remarks, the first Panel named “Creating New Synergies Between Science-entrepreneurs & Industry Leaders” begun under the moderation of Murat ÖZYEĞİN; President of Fiba Group and Didem ALTOP; Co-Founder & Managing Director of Endeavor Turkey. Panelists: CEO of EnerjiSA Kıvanç ZAİMLER; CEO of Sanko energy Group Adil TEKİN; Senior Partner & Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group Harald RUBNER discussed how to establish an effective relationship between scientific startups and companies.
After the coffee break, Vice Chairman of Eczacıbaşı Group and Chairman of TBV Faruk ECZACIBAŞI delivered his special visionary keynote speech on “Transforming Resource Scarcity into Global Abundance”.
The second panel which Didem ALTOP and Emre KURTTEPELİ (Chairman Mynet, Galata Business Angels, and Endeavor Turkey) moderated was entitled “Creating a High-impact Science Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Turkey” and the panelists were Co-Founder & CEO of Pronet Alp SAUL; Partner & CEO of Vispera Information Technologies Aytül ERÇİL; Managing Director of Revo Capital Cenk BAYRAKDAR; and Business Development Leader of TTA Turkey Doğan TAŞKENT.
Start-up talks mainly discussed scientific vision with the specified topics of commercialized products driving impact, prototypes with high potential impact. And the speakers included Ceo-Founder & CEO of Nuvia Cem GÜL; Co-Founder & CTO of Reengen Energy Şahin ÇAĞLAYAN; Founder & CEO of Artesis Prof. Dr. Ahmet DUYAR; Co-Founder and VP of Strategy of CivicSolar Kerim BARAN; Business Development Manager of Highview Power Storage David KAYE, Founder & CTO of SolarPaint Eran MAIMON; Co-Founder & CSO of Episome Biotechnologies Dr. Murat BALABAN; Founder & Director for Center for Energy Environment Economy of Özyeğin University Prof. Dr. M. Pınar MENGÜÇ; Smart Grid & Clean Energy Technology Innovator Rish GHATIKAR.
The event ended with the networking activities such as an investor panel titled “Investing in Science Start-ups and IP Commercialization”, workshop named “How Corporates and Start-ups Can Scale and Succeed Together” and AMA (ask me anything session) with the speakers.
