TEDxUAA Youth

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Beril Mardin

  English Teacher at UAA

  After more than 20 years of experience in various fields of advertising and marketing communications ranging from copywriting and creative directing to strategic planning and client relations management, Beril Mardin decided to make a shift in her career and turned to education. A proud graduate of UAA 90’, she holds a BA from Boğaziçi University and an MA from Indiana University, Bloomington in English Language and Literature. Mardin has been teaching IB and AP English among many other courses in UAA for seven years.

• Bora Gümüşay

  Prep Student at UAA

  Bora Gümüşay is a prep student at Üsküdar American Academy in Istanbul, where he is involved in several extracurricular activities. He is a member of the World Scholars Cup club and TEDx club. Through his TEDx talk, he hopes to make his voice heard and share how small moments in life can shape who we become and the future ahead.

• İpek Kara

  IB student at UAA

  İpek Kara is a 10th-grade IB student at Üsküdar American Academy in Istanbul. She serves as the president of her school’s Law, Politics, and Economics Club and is an active member of the European Youth Parliament, where she collaborates with students across Europe on policy discussions. She is passionate about economics, especially behavioral economics and game theory, and she is also the Co-Head of DECA Türkiye, organizing the DECA Vision competition. Beyond academics, İpek volunteers as a peer educator with Understanding Europe. She has played the piano for ten years, graduated from the Akdeniz University State Conservatory, and continues performing and competing internationally. Through these experiences, she has connected with people from diverse perspectives and backgrounds, which has shown her the value of bringing different minds together to build a better future.

• Jülide Gökşin

  9th Grader at UAA

  Jülide Gökşin is currently a 9th grader in UAA. She is passionate about storytelling in many ways, including photography, design, and handicrafts. In addition to her creative personality, her work focuses on human psychology. She is fond of neuroscience and biology, aiming to find answers she has about humans with science. She is an active member of many clubs, including but not limited to World Scholars’ Cup, MUN, DECA, Spectrum, and UAA Choir. Just like her personality that is full of surprises, her speech for TEDxUAA is no different; She has a lot to say about a single jar.

• Melis Çetinkaya

  Psychologist & Founder and Instructor of Tango Mirada

  Melis Çetinkaya was born in Istanbul in 1982, the daughter of a pediatrician mother and an academic father. After graduating from Robert College in 2000, she completed a double major in Psychology and International Relations at Koç University in 2004. She earned a Master’s degree in Marketing from the University of Leeds in 2005. Between 2005 and 2015, she worked in marketing and advertising, managing youth-focused brands. After the birth of her daughter in 2015, she deepened her interest in child development and sleep science. In 2016, she founded Nyx Sleep Consultancy, combining her professional and academic background to support families.

• Yasemin Erol

  IB Student at UAA

  Yasemin Erol is a 10th-grade student at Üsküdar American Academy in Istanbul. She co-chairs her school’s AI Student Committee and serves as vice president of both the Programming Club and the AI Club. She loves building things, whether that means training a machine learning model, running an experiment in the lab, or trying a new recipe in the kitchen. She performs as a soprano in her school’s choir, plays the piano, and is a competitive tennis player. When she is not at school, she is probably traveling, researching something that caught her attention, or constructing her next project.

• Yavuz Samur

  Professor at Bahçeşehir University, Faculty of Educational Sciences

  Prof. Dr. Samur, graduated from Instructional Design and Technology, Department of Learning Sciences and Technologies at Virginia Tech with the Fulbright Scholarship, works as a Professor at Bahçeşehir University, Faculty of Educational Sciences in the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT), he is dean of Faculty of Educational Sciences. He is also the president of YEGAM (@yegam_egitim). His research interests are on using educational games for learning and instruction (@oyuntasarimi), artificial intelligence in education, gamification in education, educational game design, digital game design, multimedia design, technology/social media/game addiction and (digital) game based learning (@EgitimveOyun). He also designs physical, board and digital educational games for students and he is the owner of a company producing digital educational games titled as Ugur Games (www.ugurgames.com).