Launched in 2007 in memory of Arif Mardin (1932-2006), world-renowned producer/arranger and Vice Chairman of the American Turkish Society, the Arif Mardin Music Fellowship aims to further the education of promising musicians from Turkey by providing an opportunity to study in the United States. The program is conducted in partnership with Berklee College of Music in Boston, where Mardin’s successful music career began as the first recipient of the Quincy Jones Scholarship.

Prolonged conflict and natural disasters have destroyed the communities and economies that once thrived so well in the Middle East, leaving millions of people displaced now as refugees from the places they once called home. Many nations within the Middle East are undergoing great changes and challenges on a road to recovery. IRUSA is partnering to empower countless families across Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine.

Microsoft has acquired Citus Data which is founded by Umur Cubukcu, Ozgun Erdogan, and Sumedh Pathak in 2011. Microsoft and Citus Data will further unlock the power of data, enabling customers to scale complex multi-tenant SaaS applications and accelerate the time to insight with real-time analytics over billions of rows, all with the familiar PostgreSQL tools developers know and love.

Father of Turkish-American cardiac surgeon and talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz has died at the age of 94 in Istanbul on Saturday, according to hospital sources. Mustafa Oz was receiving treatment for a while, said the sources, who asked not to be named, due to restrictions on speaking to the media. The sources did not provide further details of his treatment process.