Opening Remarks

Hakan Tekin - Consul General of Turkey, Los Angeles, Consulate General of Turkey in Los Angeles

Born in 1967 in Ankara, Turkey. Graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of International Relations in 1989. Worked in the T.C. Ziraat Bankasi (Agricultural Bank of Turkey) from 1989 to 1990. Joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey in December 1990. Worked first in the Cultural and then in the Central Asian Department until August 1993. Served as Third Secretary at the Turkish Embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates from August 1993 to September 1995 and as Second Secretary at the Turkish Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria from September 1995 to August 1998. Attended the NATO Defense College Senior Course in Rome from August 1998 to February 1999. Upon returning from his first tour abroad, worked as Second Secretary in the Human Rights Department and then as First Secretary in the Balkans Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from February 1999 through August 2000. Served as First Secretary and then as Counselor at the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations in New York from August 2000 to November 2004. Following the end of his tenure in New York, took office as Chief of Section and then as Head of Department at the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from November 2004 until April 2007. Assumed his post in Los Angeles as Consul General on 15 April 2007. Married with a ten year old son.

Keynotes

Tony Seba - Entrepreneur, Author, Lecturer, Stanford University

Tony Seba is the author of "Winners Take All - The 9 Fundamental Rules of High Tech Strategy". He is a lecturer at Stanford University where he teaches high tech strategy and entrepreneurship. His recent courses include "Business and Revenue Models", "Strategic Marketing of High Technology Products and Innovations" and "Basic Financial Analysis for Strategic Marketing". He also teaches regularly at leading international business schools such as the University of Auckland (New Zealand) Business School. He has also taught his workshops in-house to high tech companies from Silicon Valley to London. Tony Seba brings 20 years of solid operating experience in fast-growth high technology companies. As PrintNation.com's founder and CEO Seba established the B2B ecommerce company as the undisputed leader in its market segment, winning such top industry awards as the Upside Hot 100 and the Forbes.com B2B 'Best of the Web'. Seba led two venture capital rounds raising more than $31 million in funding from well-known venture funds, hired a complete management team, 100+ employees, and managed the development of strategic partnerships with some of the world's top companies.

Panelists
(in alphabetical order based on last name)

Amer Alshawa, PhD - General Manager, STMicroelectronics Turkey

Dr. Alshawa received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ohio University in 1986. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Condensed Matters and Surface Sciences / Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the same university in 1988 and 2000, respectively. He has 15+ years of experience in semiconductor and optical materials and devices. He worked as a research associate for The US Air Force Office of Scientific Research at Ohio University between 1990 and 1996. He worked for other electronics companies in the USA as a senior design engineer, senior project engineer, and sales manager between the years 1996 and 2000. After getting his Ph.D. degree, he started to work as an IC design manager for Alcatel Microelectronics in Turkey. He later on worked as a design center manager and R&D site manager for STMicroelectronics, Turkey. He is currently the general manager of ST Microelectronics Turkey. He is a frequent visiting lecturer at local Turkish universities, in the areas of solid state electronics, IC design and fiber optics.

Didem Altop - Managing Director, Endeavor

Ms. Didem Altop is a Turkish-American born in the US in 1969, and living in Turkey since 1997. She is currently the Managing Director of Endeavor Turkey, part of a global non-profit organization supporting high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging markets as a catalyst for economic development. Prior to joining the Endeavor Global network, Didem was involved in management consulting on social and business entrepreneurship. She has worked with Turkey's leading holding companies to promote and design Corporate Social Responsibilty strategies and has also worked with Turkey's leading non-profit organizations on capacity-building campaigns. Didem serves as a board member of the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TUSEV), to support civil society development through regulatory reform, non-profit capacity-building and promotion of philanthropy. Didem is a founding board member of the Corporate Volunteer Council, coordinating private sector volunteerism in local community initiatives and as subject matter expert resources for non-profit organizations. She is also a board member of Junior Achievement, promoting entrepreneurship education for high school students, and a trustee of the Turkish Volunteers for Education Foundation, a nationwide network of after-school learning programs for which Didem designed a campaign to help them reach more than 1 million underprivledged children aged 6-16. Prior to shifting her career focus to CSR and the non-profit sector, Didem worked in emerging market business development for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, Shared Medical Services (SMS), MCI Communications and Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Didem also has management consulting experience on business process reengineering, total quality management and ISO certification. Before earning her MS in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University with a concentration in strategic planning and entrepreneurship, Didem worked for The World Bank on trade reform and privatization for Algeria, Morocco and Turkey. Her undergraduate degree is a BA in International Relations and Development Economics from The Johns Hopkins University.

Kerim Baran - Founder, Yonja.com

Kerim Baran is the Founder and CEO of Yonja.com, one of the leading providers of international online social networking services. Yonja.com is currently ranked as one of the most visited websites in the world. Yonja is headquartered in San Francisco and has particularly strong reach in the Turkish market (as the #2 most visited website in Turkey). Yonja team also launched MetroListe.com (a Craigslist like service) and 7inci.com (a DailyCandy like service) for the Turkish market. Prior to founding Yonja, Kerim worked in business development at Siebel Systems. He drove efforts to grow Siebel's business with key Global Strategic Consulting Partners such as Deloitte, KPMG and CSC. He joined Siebel from Bain & Company. At Bain, Kerim led projects advising Fortune 1000 Companies on a variety of sales, marketing and product development issues, with particular focus in the technology and service industries. Prior to Bain, Kerim helped to launch the US operations of SDP, a European Software Company that was acquired by Sybase. Kerim earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and holds a BS from Northwestern University in Industrial Engineering. On his free time, Kerim likes to program, sail, swim, and mountain bike.

Burçak Beşer - CTO, Telsima (WiMAX System Provider)

Burçak has more than 18 years of experience in the field of Networking and Communications. He was the chief architect in Juniper Networks. Prior to Juniper, he designed Cable Access systems for Pacific Broadband Communications, was the lead architect in Carrier Systems Division of 3Com Corporation and designed world-leading DSL systems and the market leading DynaMiTe DSL chip-set at Alcatel. Burcak has authored many fundamental specifications/standards that have been accepted by ITU, ETSI, ANSI, SCTE, IETF & IEEE.

M. Kemal Cιlιz - Professor, Boğaziçi University
                            Chairman of the Board, Tursign
                            Member of the Board, TUBISAD

M. Kemal Cιlιz received the B.S degree in 1985 from Middle East Technical University, Turkey and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1987 and 1990, respectively, from Syracuse University, USA, all in electrical engineering. He also received an M.A. degree in 1994 from Yale University, USA in International Economics. Since 1991, he has been with the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department of Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey where he is currently a Professor. Between 1993 and 1994, he worked in the Center for Systems Science at Yale University and at University of California, Berkeley as a research engineer. After his return to Turkey, he worked as a consultant in the Turkish IT sector. Between 1997-2000, he was the Director of Engineering Operations at Global One, International Telecom Operator. In 1995, Dr. Cιlιz has started three Information Technology companies in Istanbul. Between 2000-2002 he was the General Manager of Comnet, one of Turkey's first Internet Service Providers. As a shareholder in Comnet, he led the acquisition of Comnet by Borusan Holding of Turkey. One of the companies he started in 1995, Infonet Information Technologies Ltd, is still active today and a market leader in the Turkish IT Security market. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Tursign, Turkey's first Certificate Authority for Digital Signatures. Prof. Cιlιz is also active in various civil service organizations and he is a board member of TUBISAD (Turkish Businessman Assosiation of IT Companies) and TBV (Turkish Informatics Foundation). Dr. Cιlιz is a member of the engineering honor societies Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi and a senior member of IEEE.

Mehmet A Cirit - President, Library Technologies, Inc.

Mehmet Cirit received his B.Sc, degree in Physics from Middle East technical University in Ankara, Turkey in 1971, his M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees from University of Wisconsin, in 1973 and 1976. After a short stint in academic life at Hacettepe University, Ankara, his interests shifted to electronics and electronic design automation. He held various engineering and product development positions at various EDA companies, finally founding Library Technologies, Inc. in 1994.                                                                                                                 

Nuri Dağdeviren - President & COO, PINC Solutions

Most recently, Dr. Nuri Dağdeviren was the Vice President and General Manager of Samsung Business Segment for Agere Systems, based in Seoul. In this role, he was responsible for managing all aspects of Agere's business with Samsung Mobile. A 19 year veteran of Agere Systems including its parent companies AT&T and Lucent, Dağdeviren has held positions in R&D and management. Having spent most of his career on semiconductor R&D for communications applications, Dr. Dağdeviren was elected a Bell Labs Fellow in 1998 in recognition of his contributions to the invention and development of 56k modem technology in the early 90s. Dağdeviren holds a PhD in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has served on the faculty of California Institute of Technology prior to joining Bell Labs in 1987. He holds over twenty patents.

Wei-Jin Dai - CEO, GiQuila Corp.

Wei-Jin Dai has 20 years experience in development and management of EDA and semiconductor technologies. Before joining GiQuila, Dai was a corp vice president responsible for IC digital business with $250 million annual revenue and with a team of 500 worldwide including in India and China. Dai joined Cadence through its acquisition of Silicon Perspective Corporation, which he co-founded and was vice president, R+D. He led the team that developed the industry-standard First Encounter silicon virtual prototyping system. Prior to SPC, Dai managed software development at Quickturn Design, a leader in emulation technology. He has also held engineering and management positions at Hewlett Packard and Lucent Bell Labs. Dai holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Steve Erickson - Vice President and General Manager, Advanced Technology Center and Audio Products - Creative Labs

Steve Erickson is Vice President of Creative's Advanced Technology Center and General Manager Audio Product Division, managing P&L, R&D, operations and WW marketing for the Audio Product Group. The Audio Product division includes the Sound Blaster and E-mu line of audio products. Mr. Erickson has held several senior positions with the company, including Director of OEM sales, Director WW FAE's and Audio Planning. Mr. Erickson started his career at Tandy Electronics, where he was an Electrical Engineer. From there he went on to Creative and started with the company as a Field Applications Engineer. Mr. Erickson holds a BA in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University.

Alan B. Grebene - Founder, Exar Corp. and Micro Linear

Alan Grebene received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1961, his MSc. Degree from UC Berkeley in 1963, and his Ph.D. from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in1968. He has been involved in the semiconductor industry since 1963, and has published several books on Analog and Mixed Signal IC Design. He was the principal founder of two IC companies, Exar Corp. in 1971, and Micro Linear in 1983, and Symmetry Design Systems, a software company in 1992. He has also served as a consultant and advisor to various high-tech start-up companies and venture capital firms. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, and a recipient of the IEEE Centennial Medal.

Görkem Güven - General Manager, Hittite Microwave Corporation

Görkem Güven is the General Manager of the İstanbul Technology Center of the Massachusetts based Hittite Microwave Corporation (HMC). After graduating from Middle East Technical University in 1998, Mr. Güven began his career in a Lockheed Martin Company. He joined the Chelmsford Headquarters of HMC in 2000 and has been with the company ever since. He recently came back to Turkey to establish the HMC İstanbul Technology center within the ITU Technocity. HMC designs and develops high performance integrated circuits (ICs), modules and subsystems for technically demanding radio frequency (RF), microwave and millimeterwave applications covering the frequency range of DC to 110 GHz. HMC products are used by more than 2,300 customers in a variety of applications and markets, including; Automotive, Broadband, Cellular Infrastructure, Fiber Optics, Microwave & Millimeterwave Communications, Military, Space and Test & Measurement market applications. Mr. Güven is also one of the initial shareholders of Airties Wireless Networks in İstanbul, which is a prominent name in the wireless communication market.

Stuart J. Kerry - Wireless Business Development Executive, NXP

Stuart J. Kerry is responsible for implementing all wireless standards strategic direction for NXP Semiconductors and is a key member of the NXP cross-corporation standards team. In this role, Kerry is responsible for advanced technologies, market evaluations, alliances, investments, acquisitions and technology licensing. Kerry brings over 30 years of engineering and business experience from the wireless industry to NXP. In addition to his position at NXP, Kerry is also the Chair of the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Standards Working Group where he is responsible for managing the approval and implementation process for all IEEE 802.11 standards and amendments. His responsibilities include managing 24 chairs (802.11e, i, j, k, m, n, etc.) that contain over 700 members, establishing policies and procedures, serving as the public interface for all IEEE 802.11 matters, and evaluating whether a new standard is commercially and technically viable. Before joining NXP, Kerry was principal and founder of OK-Brit, a high-technology marketing and technical engineering consulting firm. At OK-Brit, he provided technical advice to various large corporations and start-up companies focusing on the wireless industry in North America, Asia and Europe. Prior to OK-Brit, Kerry was Chief Technology Officer for Butterfly Communications, Inc., a wireless multinational corporation that was purchased by Texas Instruments. In that position, he was responsible for developing and implementing the wireless technology strategy for the corporation.

Emre Kιcιman - Researcher, Microsoft Research, Stanford University

Emre Kıcıman is a researcher in the Cybersecurity and Systems Management group at Microsoft Research, where his work focuses on the end-to-end reliability of Internet services. His recent projects include monitoring wide-area network problems and techniques for remotely debugging and monitoring the client-side behavior of AJAX applications. Generally, Emre's interests lie in large-scale systems management and the use of aggressive monitoring, machine learning and data analysis techniques to improve their reliability and operational efficiency. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford in 2005, where he was a member of the Recovery-Oriented Computing project, working with Armando Fox and David Patterson; he received his Masters from Stanford in 2002, and his BS in EECS from UC Berkeley in 1999.

Michael Menke - Chief Portfolio Advocate, HP

Dr. Michael Menke is a business and technology strategy consultant for HP. He advises working teams at all levels and in all segments of HP on strategy development, decision making, risk analysis, portfolio management and new business creation. Before joining HP he was a founding partner of Strategic Decisions Group, a consultancy where many of the portfolio management approaches in use today by leading companies were initially developed. At SDG he consulted with Alcoa, Bayer, CIBA-Geigy, DuPont, Exxon, Ford, Kodak, Lilly, Mitsubishi, Pfizer et al. on strategy, major decisions and/or portfolio management. He has also been an invited speaker at dozens of international conferences on these topics.

Aydιn Onur - VP, ModusLink, TABC Board Member

Mr. Onur is currently VP of Enterprise Applications and Architecture at ModusLink, which is a $1.1 billion subsidiary of CMGI Inc. In addition, Mr. Onur is a TABC Board Member and leads TABC Consulting Services, extending his extensive consulting experience for the benefit of Turkish and American companies. Prior to this position, Mr. Onur worked as a management consultant for Polycom, the market leader in video and Audio communications, integrating the $100 million Israeli Bridge Company Accord. He also designed and implemented a "Self Help" feature for Customer Product Activation that yielded $80 million revenue. Mr. Onur is the former VP of e-Business Philips Electronics who implemented a web based collaborative supply chain for 32 sites around the globe. As the CIO of Flat Display Systems, he implemented SAP/R3 in Japan and led supplier due diligence for a $2.6 billion LG/Philips joint venture in Korea. As the Senior Director of Enterprise Systems for a Johnson & Johnson Medical Device company, Mr. Onur integrated International Operations of J&J Professional and DePuy International in just six months. He started his career at AT&T Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies. Mr. Onur managed a $160 million budget for the Global Corporate Y2K Program for Lucent Technologies. He configured Oracle Applications for Global Microelectronics Operation and drove ISO 9001 and SEI level 2 compliance. As the Bell Labs MIS Manager Mr. Onur developed global new product introduction processes and systems. Mr. Onur holds an MBA degree from Moravian College and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from ASU.

Ertuğrul Öner, Design Manager, Maxim Integrated Products

Ertuğrul Öner received B.Sc. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey, in 1995 and 1997, respectively. From 1997 to 1998, he was a reserach associate at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN and studied hot electron induced oxide damage in submicron devices. He was with Fujitsu Microelectronics, San Jose CA from 1998 to 2000 where he engaged in development of several high volume mixed-signal ASIC products. In 2000, he joined Maxim Integrated Products, Sunnyvale, CA. He designed and successfully introduced 20+ products for data communication and automotive applications. He is currently the design manager of İstanbul Design Center and Automotive SerDes Product line in SSIP bussiness unit focusing on CDRs, Gbps Spread-Spectrum Full/Half Duplex Serializers and Deserializers.

Mehtap Özkan - Managing General Partner and Founder, Golden Horn Ventures

Mae is the Managing General Partner and founder of Golden Horn Ventures. Golden Horn Ventures is the first early to expansion stage venture capital firm in Turkey, focusing on innovative Turkish technology companies. Mae has been a proven technologist and a renowned speaker on technology. She has had over ten years experience in architecting, developing and marketing products and solutions in the areas of enterprise security, legacy application integration, business-to-business connectivity, and enterprise system design and implementation for software, computer, telecommunications and retail companies. She has involved in numerous software startups and technology companies in the capacity of co-founder, executive or consultant.

Cüneyt Özveren - Chairman, CEO and Founder, Yoriwa

Cüneyt Özveren is the Chairman, CEO and founder of Yoriwa. Yoriwa has built LeapTag, a web discovery tool that automatically finds content relevant to a user based on the user's tags and feedback, in the form of "thumbs up" and "thumbs down", on content. Dr. Özveren is a serial entrepreneur. Before Yoriwa, Dr. Özveren was the founder and CEO of Atoga Systems, a venture-backed startup that developed DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) equipment. Atoga Systems was acquired by Arris International in 2003. Dr. Özveren also co-founded Berkeley Networks, which was later acquired by Fore Systems. Dr. Özveren did his undergraduate and graduate studies at MIT and holds five degrees from there, including a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science, and an MBA. He is also the author of numerous published papers and holds nine patents.

Julia Rosen - Assistant Vice President, Arizona State University

Julia Rosen is the Assistant Vice President for Economic Affairs at Arizona State University (ASU). The mission of the Economic Affairs office is to increase ASU's impact on the metropolitan economy of Greater Phoenix. Rosen serves as a co-Principal Investigator for a $5 million project, University as Entrepreneur funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Rosen leads a number of university-wide entrepreneurial initiatives including ASU Technopolis, an economic development program that educates, coaches and connects entrepreneurs; and the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative, which funds new ventures led by ASU students. She is a key member of the team creating SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, and she regularly works with global partners on a variety of entrepreneurial and economic development efforts. Rosen previously was Manager of Business Development for ASU’s technology transfer office, where she launched several new technology transfer initiatives including a “proof-of-concept” investment fund, entrepreneurial education for faculty, investor relations, assistance to startup companies, and community outreach and alliance-building. Prior to ASU, Rosen led business development efforts for an Arizona-based venture capital firm, and led the technology-based economic development practice of the City of Tempe, Arizona. Fluent in Spanish and proficient in Portuguese, Rosen holds a Master of International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a Master of Business Administration from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

George Ugras - General Partner, Adams Capital Management

George Ugras is a General Partner of Adams Capital Management, Inc., ("ACM") a national venture capital firm specializing in early-stage, applied technology investments in the IT, networking infrastructure and semiconductor industries. ACM is a lead and active investor and deploys its markets-first, Discontinuity-Driven Investment Strategy, which identifies and exploits fundamental shifts (discontinuities) in existing markets to invest in emerging growth companies whose value propositions are driven by economics, and are likely to define and dominate product categories. George joined Adams Capital Management in 1999 as a General Partner, after spending a year as an investment professional at Apax Partners, a private equity firm in New York. Prior to joining Apax Partners, George spent four years as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Co. in New York, working closely with clients in the telecommunications and media industries, on strategic and operational issues. George is a director of several private companies in the networking infrastructure and semiconductor industries.

Moderators
(in alphabetical order based on last name)

Atiye Bayman - Director, Technology in Novellus Systems Inc

Atiye Bayman, Director of Technology in Novellus Systems Inc, has 24 years of experience in Semiconductor Industry. At Novellus she is responsible for technology development in High Density Plasma Products business unit. Prior to joining Novellus, she was employed at Synergy Semiconductor Inc., a small semiconductor device company specialized on fast memory and application specific chips. At Synergy she held positions in yield management and technology development. Her career in the industry started at Advanced Micro Devices in process development. Dr. Bayman holds a Ph.D in solid state physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and BS in physics from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.

Ateş Gürcan - Co-founder and CTO, Decicon

Ateş Gürcan is co-founder and CTO of Decicon Incorporated, a leading IP developer in the fields of Power Management and High-Speed Interfaces. Prior to co-founding Decicon, Mr. Gurcan was with Exar Corporation from 1988 to 1996 where he held various engineering positions. Before his tenure with Exar, he was with Northern Telecommunication A.S. from 1985 to 1988. Mr. Gurcan has over 25 years of hands-on experience in the semiconductor industry in areas related to analog and mixed signal integrated circuits. He has BSEE and MSEE degrees from Istanbul Technical University and is the holder of four patents.

Kürşat Kimyacιoğlu - Director, Philips Research - North America

Kürşat Kimyacιoğlu is responsible for strategy and business development for Philips Research - North America. Mr. Kimyacιoğlu brings over 30 years of business and engineering experience from the wired and wireless connectivity industry to his current position at Philips Research. Previously, Mr. Kimyacιoğlu established and managed Product Line Wireless Connectivity for Philips Semiconductors. In this role, Mr. Kimyacιoğlu was responsible for marketing, engineering and managing of Philips WLAN and WPAN semiconductor products. Prior to joining Philips, Mr. Kimyacιoğlu established and managed the Telecom Engineering Department at Exar Corporation, mainly focusing on the creation of advanced IC products for data transmission in the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy and various network interfaces. Mr. Kimyacιoğlu has participated in numerous industry initiatives and special interest groups with the founding capacity. He is a founding member of UWB MultiBand OFDM Alliance (MBOA), OFDM Forum and WiMedia Alliance. He served as VP of OFDM Forum and Wi-Media Alliance and is a member of IEEE. His current interest areas, in addition to the UWB field, are mmWave (60 GHz) and Cognitive Radio (CR) technologies. Mr. Kimyacιoğlu holds a BSEE and an MSEE degree from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.

İbrahim Korgav - SVP of Mfg & Business Ops, Netlogic Microsystems

Mr. Korgav has more than 27 years of manufacturing and operational experience in semiconductor and optical (DWDM) transport systems. Prior to joining NetLogic Microsystems, Korgav was a member of venture capital firm Global Catalyst Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Prior to joining Global Catalyst Partners, he was at Zaffire, an optical transport systems company, as senior vice president of operations. Previously, Korgav was with NeoMagic as vice president of manufacturing operations from its early start-up stage and helped build it into a successful public company with more than $250 million in sales. Before NeoMagic, he co-founded Micro Linear and also worked at Seeq, Synertek, AMD and Siliconix in various manufacturing engineering and operations positions. Mr. Korgav holds master of engineering degree from University of Tulsa and a B.Sc. degree in Engineering from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.