Fellow:Erdoğan Kocabaş


Name Erdoğan Kocabaş School (Cohort) Boğaziçi University (2022 cohort) Majoring in Industrial Engineering Country Türkiye Email Special:EmailUser/Erdogan.kocabas.2003

Bio

Erdoğan was born in a medium-sized city in Turkiye which is Denizli. Being curious to discover new places, tastes and people throughout his childhood, Erdoğan has made grades in national and international mathematics, science and intelligence competitions in his middle and high school life. He entered Boğaziçi University Industrial Engineering Departman as the 554th among 2.5 million people in the University Entrance Exam.

Due to the fact that Covid-19 has significantly affect the university status quo as it affected everything else, Erdoğan spent his first year in the college at his hometown. Thanks to having plenty of time to devote to himself, he was introduced to different youth programs, volunteering and impact-oriented projects. What changed the course of his life was a summit he attended as a young man who stepped into Istanbul for the first time. This summit was held by a NGO called 23, whose founders believe that we step out of comfort zone literally when we are 23. Erdoğan continued his journey at this organization as a fellow and experienced different areas varing from how big corperations operate their systems to how to think as an entrepeneur.

Erdoğan, whose awareness through world has irreversibly changed allocated himself to impact focused projects and startups. When detected the problems that people with disabilities have to face, we launched a startup which aims to decrease loneliness among disabled people by integrating them into society with art workshops with his friends from 23 fellowship. He organized 4 workshops all over the Turkey and touched the lives of more than 100 people.

In addition to these, Erdoğan was trying to obtain entrepreneural mindset proparly. He thought there were different stakeholders of a startup project's success: government, market and NGOs. Because of this, he wanted to gain some experience in different startups and NGOs. He became a volunteer at YGA, a internation non-profit organization in Turkey, as community manager and took part at different startups from different industries.

Erdoğan believes that only if people from different cultures, age ranges and expertness' working together can create a better future for humanity. When he recogined the importance of this, he attent Fire Up Change Makers Program to meet and produce with other people in order to save the planet. This program was designed by best public universities in Turkey including Boğaziçi University and covered all stages of Design Thinking. Erdoğan is wondering how UIF will affect his life and how it will inspire Erdoğan to scale up change's impact.

Achievements

Ranked 48th at 23th Turkey Philosophy Olympiad Ranked 18th at 23th Turkey Philosophy Olympiad Ranked 7th at Turkey Intelligence Foundation National Competation "Game"