Creativity and Improvisation Workshop for Entrepreneurs

Bahar Kerimoğlu

Today, we will have a creativity and improvisation workshop in our entrepreneurship class. This means that our MBA students will be on the stage. This is a unique approach to teach creativity in entrepreneurship domain. What I aimed when I designed this module was to teach some critical approaches in entrepreneurship such as what the risk is, where we should look for creativity, what the improvisation thinking patterns are for our projects as well as our daily lives and how we can get rid of perfectionist mindset in an innovative way. Regular way of teaching these approaches in entrepreneurship classes or in business schools is just showing them on the slides. However, seeing these terms on the slides does not really help us understand what they really mean “on the street” or what their practical implications are for our daily lives.

During my studies in acting last five years, I had the chance to learn these approaches deeply in another world and in a very effective way.  Applying these techniques in my work helped me increase my productivity as well as strengthen my innovative approach.  I wanted to share my own experience with my students. Therefore, applying these techniques in my entrepreneurship class was inevitable. The technique became successful and received attention from the media as well as was recognized at the 99 Percent conference by Behance Network in New York in 2012.

I was looking for a co-instructor to teach this module last one year. Then I have met Bahar Kerimoğlu in Atölye Craft where I have been taking acting classes lately.  In her first class, I was very impressed the way that she was running the workshop.  Besides her professional approach, what really impressed me were her sincerity and the effort that she was putting to make students “to be in the class“.

Bahar has a very successful acting background both in Turkey and New York, US. She graduated from the Department of Theatre at Bilkent University with a high distinction and won a merit scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of Turkey. She got her master’s degree in The Actors Studio in New York in 2002.   During her studies in New York, she had the chance to work with Elizabeth Kemp, Anne Bogart, and in Siti Company. Later, she joined New Stage Theatre Company in New York and participated several plays in Off Off Broadway for a year. Since 2003, she has been teaching drama classes in Istanbul in her studio as well as in different theatre companies. She also directed Ethan Coen’s “Waiting” for the State Theatre of Ankara, Turkey.  With this first directing experience, she won the Critics Association Award for Young Talent.

Bahar Kerimoglu will be with us in our class at 7pm in E4 – 302 which is one of the studios of Performing Arts department at Bilgi University.

Design can Save the Planet by Award-winning Journalist Simran Sethi

Simran Sethi an award-winning journalist and associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications will be our guest speaker on May 7th, 2012.  She will talk on sustainability and design driven approach for entrepreneurs which are quite challenging topics in emerging markets.  I believe, her talk “Design can save the planet” will guide us on our way towards building sustainable and environmental friendly businesses.

Simran has an impressive background.  She currently teaches courses on diversity, sustainability and the environment, and social media for social change at University Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

She was named one of the top ten “eco-heroes” of the planet by the UK’s Independent and lauded as the “environmental messenger” by Vanity Fair and an “environmental woman of impact” by Daily Variety, Simran has contributed numerous segments to NBC Nightly News, CNBC, PBS, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “The Today Show” and has appeared on MSNBC, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “The Martha Stewart Show,” and the History Channel. Simran is the founding host/writer of Sundance Channel’s environmental programming The Green and the creator of the Sundance online series The Good Fight, highlighting global environmental justice efforts and grassroots activism. She is committed to a redefinition of environmentalism that includes voices from the prairie, the inner city and the global community.

Simran is the contributing author of “Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy,” winner of the bronze 2008 Axiom Award for Best Business Ethics Book. She has written about sustainability for The Huffington Post, Metropolis Magazine, Mother Earth News, Oprah.com, and the Guggenheim Museum. She has been featured on NPR and is the host of the Emmy-award winning PBS documentary “A School in the Woods.”

Simran has presented at institutions ranging from the Commonwealth Club and the Poynter Institute to M.I.T.; keynoted conferences including the 140 Character (Twitter) Conference, Bioneers by the Bay, the Green Business Conference and the North American Association For Environmental Education conference; and moderated panels for the White House sustainability symposium GreenGov and Clinton Global Initiative University. Simran is a fellow in the Poynter Institute’s Sense-Making project, a Ford Foundation-funded program that is studying the integration of new media and democratic values.

Simran blogs at http://www.simransethi.com/ and can be followed on twitter at @simransethi

The talk will be at 8pm at Bilgi University Santral Campus @ room E3 – 216 on Monday May 7th, 2012. Please follow me on twitter at @gulayozkan for the updates

Necati Özkan, Founder and President of Oyku / Dialogue International

Necati Özkan is a senior entrepreneur and definitely a first-timer in several areas in Turkish business world.  During our lunch meeting,  I was delighted to learn the way that he designs his businesses. His talk in our entrepreneurship class will cover his entrepreneurial experiences as well as his future projects.

He is founder and president of Öykü/ Dialogue International;a creative agency with offices in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. He is also co-founder of KapitalMedya which is one of the leading B2B publishing house and FikriMuhim, which is the first Word-of-Mouth Marketing Agency of Turkey. He is also managing partner of NeoBiz Digital Agency.

He graduated from Military College, studied law at the Ankara University and marketing at ODTU.Mr. Özkan has published numerous articles about marketing, destination marketing and political marketing. He is author of4 different books, titled “Election Winner Campaigns“, that analyzes the successful political campaigns of Turkey, titled “Leadership Secrets of Obama”, that analyzes lessons of 2008 US Presidential campaigns and books titled “Election Time 04 and Election Time 05”. Mr. Özkan is the vice president of EAPC (European Association of political Consultants).

He blogs at http://necatiozkan.blogspot.com/ & http://necatiozkan.blog.com/ and can be followed on twitter at @necatiozkan

Necati Özkan’s talk will be at 8pm at Bilgi University Santral Campus @ room E3 – 216 on Monday March 26th, 2012. Please follow me on twitter at @gulayozkan for the updates

A Design Entrepreneur Engin Erdogan, Founder of Itemology, X- IDEO Consultant

We start 2012 Spring class at Bilgi University MBA program with our guest speaker Engin Erdogan from New York City,US. Engin is a NY based entrepreneur. He recently founded his company Itemology, an early stage web service startup, where users create visual logs of personal belongings for friendly social commerce.

Prior, Engin worked at the innovation and design consulting firm IDEO for over 5 years, helping some of the largest corporations in the world change. His clients included Ford, AT&T, Microsoft, HBO, Apollo Group, Gannett, Marriott, and GS Home Shopping. His work at IDEO resulted in new products-services, new companies, and patents.

Engin holds a Master’s degree in Digital Media from Georgia Tech and a BSc in Civil Engineering from Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul.

The talk will be at 8pm at Bilgi University Santral Campus @ room E3 – 216 on Monday March 5th, 2012. Please follow me on twitter at @gulayozkan for the updates

An Entrepreneurial Shift in Culinary World from Turkey

 Mehmet Aksel is a serial-entrepreneur and the founder of Mutfak Sanatları Akademisi (MSA-Culinary Arts Academy).  He was recently awarded the 2010 International Endeavor “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. The academy has over 2000 graduates nationwide who went on to join professional kitchens or become chefs, even on international arena. More than 20,000 kitchen enthusiasts walked through MSA’s doors to learn and appreciate the art of cooking.

His enthusiasm paved way for MSA to be one of the most important culinary schools of Europe.  People in the industry think that the schools like MSA will found the basis of the values that will carry Turkey to where it really deserves to be in the Gastronomy world.

As an entrepreneur, Mehmet stands out with his result-oriented and passionate character. In the class, he will talk about his ventures and  his strong entrepreneurial perspective which has brought him a big success.

Dick Spring, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland is the first guest speaker of 2010 Fall Class

Dick Spring

We are delighted to have Dick Spring, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland and Executive Vice-Chairman of FEXCO as the first guest speaker of 2010 Fall class.  Ireland has been a success case in the world where many incubation centers and techno-parks are formed to foster the entrepreneurship eco-system.  There have been several tax programs to support the innovation  and attract multinational technology companies to launch their EMEA HQs in the country. Mr. Dick Spring as an important figure of Ireland has been witnessed  this transformation in the country. As the Executive Vice-Chairman of FEXCO, he has experienced the business world from technology company perspective after his successful political career. Mr. Spring will talk about business world from macroeconomic perspective which is mostly missed by entrepreneurs. Mr. Spring will also mention his experience at the latest economic crisis which affected Irish economy heavily.

    

Entrepreneurship from different perspectives by Ziya G. Boyacigiller

Ziya G. Boyacigiller, Investor/Entrepreneur/Mentor makes early-stage investments in innovative technology-driven start-up companies (in Silicon Valley and Istanbul) and works with the founding teams to help grow their companies (USA: Formative Ventures, Aeroprise, FusionOps… Turkey: AirTies, Artesis, Vistek,…).  He is a consulting member of Endeavor Turkey, Golden Horn Ventures, and Inovent. He also teaches MBA students entrepreneurship, at Sabanci University, Istanbul.  He is the co-president of the National Innovation Initiative/Financing of Innovation workgroup in Turkey.  Until October 2000, he was a Business Unit Vice President / General Manager at Maxim Integrated Products – a NASDAQ 100 semiconductor company (MXIM).  Mr. Boyacigiller joined Maxim in 1983 when the company was started, as a founding partner, and served in various technical and executive management capacities for 17 years, helping build the company to over billion dollars in revenues.  Prior to Maxim, he worked at Intersil Inc. and designed state-of-art mixed-signal CMOS integrated circuits, including the world’s first digitally calibrated 14-bit data converters. In the late 1970s, he started E/Z CAD Inc., a pioneer in the PC-based electronics design tools industry.  Mr. Boyacigiller holds an MSc in Engineering from UCLA, and a BSEE from Bosphorus University, Istanbul.  His current mission is to help to create and develop a world-class, technology-based entrepreneurship environment in Turkey.

Ziya G. Boyacigiller is an important figure in Turkish entrepreneurship “market”. We are happy yo have him as a guest speaker in our class.