Special Issues - turkofamerica.com

The Venture Capitalist of The Capital of the World

#25 Omer Er, 33 - Managing Partner, Middle Bridge Partners

Ömer Er is the Founder and Managing Partner of MiddleBridgePartners, a boutique venture capital firm investing in early stage companies of the new economy in the US with a very diverse industry focus. He oversees more than 10 portfolio companies. Ömer started his career at the 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, and 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, Ömer has published articles and editorials on foreign direct investments.

September 2, 2016
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A Beautiful Heart-Touching Voice

#26 Sinem Saniye, 37 - Musician

Sinem Saniye is an award-winning singer and songwriter from New York City. Born in Germany with Turkish family roots, her music channels a sound that skirts pop with hints of jazz. Sinem worked with Grammy-Award-winning producers Mark Plati, Philip A. Jimenez, Henri Scars Struck, and Greg Calbi on her debut album “When I Don’t Sleep..”, which was released to much critical acclaim. Delta Airlines featured a song from the album, “A Certain Kind Of Lovely” on their inflight music program and magazine, and in 2011, the same song was chosen for a compilation CD entitled “Songs of Love for Japan,” to raise funds for Japan earthquake relief, alongside notable female artists such as Tori Amos, Sarah Barreilles, Regina Spektor, Lady Gaga, and Ani DiFranco, to name a few.

September 2, 2016
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Hackers Get More Sophisticated, Efe is in Demand

#27 Efe Orhun, 39 - Derivative Technology

Efe is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded a number of start-ups including AraTurca, SanalAkce, Kannas Energy LLC and Starters Lab. He currently serves as CEO of Derivative Technology LLC (www.derivativetech.com), an information security and risk management consultancy working with clients in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the US. Established in 2002, Derivative Technology currently serves a range of companies in Silicon Valley from Fortune 500’s to start-ups. The company focuses on cybersecurity, information and risk management, information security architectures, and regulatory compliance.

September 2, 2016
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Leading Edge Scientific Solutions to Solve Complex Real-World Problems

#28 Tolga Kurtoglu, 39 - System Sciences Lab

Tolga Kurtoğlu is Vice President and Director of the System Sciences Lab (SSL) at PARC. Research in SSL focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, control, planning, optimization, and high performance analytics for a variety of cyber-physical system applications serving Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), CAD/CAM, Transportation, Energy, and Aerospace and Defense sectors.

September 2, 2016
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The Co-Founder of Preferred Alternative Database, Citus

#29 - Umur

September 2, 2016
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The founder of NBA Turkish Heritage Nights

#30- Salih Eroglu, 38 - Activist

Salih Eroğlu is currently teaching three courses at UCLA Extension in the fields of Construction Management, Cost and Technology. Salih has over 15 years of experience in the construction industry. He is currently providing real estate development, construction and project management services to private cooperation and public agencies.

September 1, 2016
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Burcu Shines and Makes Others Shine

#31 Burcu Unsal, 37 - Life Coach

Burcu Ünsal was born in a coastal town of Mediterranean Turkey, Anamur, to a loving family of educators in 1979. Since she was a little girl, she has loved speaking, singing, entertaining and sharing her gifts with the world. She learned to play different instruments such as the flute, mandolin and organ at a young age and continued with the guitar as a teenager. As a smart and multi-talented girl, she was both the valedictorian, representing her high school in quiz shows and the main talent of the school, receiving several music and literature awards. So a small town with limited opportunities was not really what she was after. She wanted more in life.

September 1, 2016
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15 Years of Experience in Casino Marketing

#32- Emre Erkul, 39 - Seminole Gaming

Emre Erkul is Senior Vice President of Marketing for Seminole Gaming, overseeing 7 casinos in South Florida including Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood and Tampa, owned and operated by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, owners of Hard Rock International. Erkul started his career with Trump casinos and Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, N.J. and is considered a dynamic, results-driven marketing executive with 15 years of experience in strategic casino marketing, hospitality and branding. Erkul obtained a MBA degree from La Salle University in 2001.

September 1, 2016
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The Inventor of An Innovative Point of Sale System

#33 - Onur Haytac, 37 - Founder and CEO of Benseron

Benseron was founded in 2004 and forged out of “a need for a more innovative point of sale system” explains the company’s CEO, Onur Haytac. Haytac stumbled upon the multi-billion dollar industry during his time working for a restaurant owner on a payment system. Soon after he realized the perks of the business, Benseron began implementing its own proprietary point of sale software, called Bevo POS, in 2013.

September 1, 2016
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The Man of Trailers

#34 - Ahmet Atalay, 37 ? The Ant Farm

Ahmet Atalay is a producer and editor who is known for his trailers for movies and games such as Pirates of The Caribbean, Iron Man, Transformers, Halloween, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Black Ops, Rage, Socom 4, the Assassins Creed series, Wolverine, and Infamous. Atalay works for the leading entertainment advertising agency The Ant Farm. It is dedicated to creating unforgettable campaigns for every facet of the entertainment world, including movie and video game trailers and TV spots, print and interactive advertising, viral marketing, 2D and 3D motion graphics, music and sound design. The Ant Farm has created award-winning work for every major studio and video game publisher. Currently, Atalay has been the producer and editor of Mortal Nightmare and Circle.

September 1, 2016
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Embedding Media Arts into Architecture

#35 Refik Anadol, 31 - Media Artist

Refik Anadol is a media artist and director born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1985. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He is a lecturer in UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. He is working in the fields of site-specific public art with a parametric data sculpture approach and live audio/visual performance with an immersive installation approach; in particular, his works explore the space among digital and physical entities by creating a hybrid relationship between architecture and media arts. He holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in Media Arts, a master of fine arts degree from Istanbul Bilgi University in Visual Communication Design as well as bachelor of arts degree, summa cum laude, in Photography and Video. He is the co-founder and creative director at Antilop.

September 1, 2016
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Guvenc Ozel Wins NASA Prize for Mars Habitat Design

#36 - Guvenc Ozel, 35 - Architect

Güvenç Özel is an architect, technologist and researcher. He is a lead faculty member and Program Advisor of IDEAS, a multidisciplinary research and development platform in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and the principal of Ozel Office, an interdisciplinary design firm located in Los Angeles.

September 1, 2016
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Designofurnimationalist DJ

#37 - Alper Nakri - Multitalented Man

There is no such word as Designofurnimationalist in English, but this is the way Alper Nakri describes his title. When he was in high school, he started his career as a DJ. Later on, he moved to Los Angeles and became a journalist. He has covered Hollywood, the Oscars, the Emmy Awards and NBA games. With the help of one of his friends, he started to work as a cameraman for documentary channels such as History and Discovery. In his spare time, he isinterested in graphic design and photography. Lately he has started to design lamps which are made out of parts of scrapped planes.