01
Teaching
Entrepreneurship, innovation and marketing courses at the university. Workshops in incubator and institutional programmes: idea and need validation, business models, investor pitching.
I work on teaching entrepreneurship through experience.
I am a lecturer at İzmir University of Economics. I work with entrepreneurs at the incubator and do research on entrepreneurship education. My areas of work, publications and writing are on this page.
20+Years teaching at university
500+Startups mentored
15Startups graduated from Embryonix
90+Columns published
About
Entrepreneur, educator, researcher.
I graduated from Bilkent University's Faculty of Business Administration in 1999. A year later, four of us co-founded an IT company. I then worked at a consultancy with people starting new businesses. That was my first contact with entrepreneurship.
Since 2003 I have been a lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at İzmir University of Economics, teaching entrepreneurship, innovation and marketing. In 2010 I took responsibility for the Embryonix Incubation Centre. Since then I have taken part in many events as an invited speaker, jury member or mentor. I have also delivered training on communication, sales and innovation culture to organisations.
I stayed close to the field. In 2013 I co-founded the startup KidoLindo. In 2019 I joined Glocalzone, founded by my own students, as one of its first investors. The company reached 2.5 million users and was acquired in 2026.
In 2026 I completed my PhD at Dokuz Eylül University. For my thesis I interviewed ten educators and ten entrepreneurs. The BADEGEM model grew out of those conversations. Today I work as an educator at the university, a mentor in the field and a researcher at the desk. I think the three feed each other.
- 1999 Bilkent University, Business Administration
- 2000 IT company, co-founder
- 2003-present İzmir University of Economics, Department of Business Administration, Lecturer
- 2010 Head of the Embryonix Incubation Centre
- 2011 Kendi İşini Kurma Rehberi (a start-up guide; Embryonix and Endeavor)
- 2013 KidoLindo, co-founder
- 2017 Monthly ICT Media column begins
- 2019 Glocalzone, early investor
- 2024 Girişimcilik Ego Sistemi, İzmir University of Economics Press
- 2026 PhD (Dokuz Eylül University); JOBDA article; IBANESS paper; Glocalzone acquired
Areas of work
In class, in the field, at the desk.
My academic work and my field work are not separate. What I find in research I try out in class; what I see in the field I take back to research.
02
Mentoring and jury membership
I have held mentoring sessions with more than five hundred startups, and served as jury member and mentor in TEKNOFEST, BİGG and TÜSİAD programmes.
03
Invited speaking
Invited talks and seminars on the entrepreneurial mindset, learning through experience, AI and entrepreneurship.
04
Research and projects
Research on entrepreneurship education, experiential learning and AI. I have worked on TÜBİTAK 1601, Newton Fund and Ege D-Tech projects.
Three questions I ask about entrepreneurship education
- Why do the fintech team and the game studio in the same accelerator watch the same slides?
- How do we measure a programme's impact, other than participant satisfaction?
- Do participants meet the ecosystem during the programme, or only at the closing ceremony?
Doctoral research · CR-EEM
Education does not start the learning cycle. It lowers its cost.
For my doctoral thesis I listened to entrepreneurship education in Türkiye from both sides: ten educators and ten entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs completed the learning cycle without any training, but at a price. They paid for trial and error with their own money and time.
This led me to one conclusion: the job of education is to lower the cost of that cycle and raise its speed. CR-EEM grew out of this finding, the Context-Responsive Experiential Entrepreneurship Model (BADEGEM in Turkish).
CR-EEM repeats Kolb's experiential learning cycle across four spirals of rising difficulty. I tuned the model to conditions in Türkiye. It has two forms of application: a university course and an institutional programme. The model has not yet been tested experimentally. Pilot applications are the next step. I will share the details in the book I am writing.
Thesis
A Model Proposal for Entrepreneurship Education (in Turkish). Dokuz Eylül University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Business Administration, 2026. Interpretivist qualitative case study, 20 semi-structured interviews, thematic analysis.
Publications
From thesis to books.
My academic work is on entrepreneurship education. I wrote my books for entrepreneurs and educators.
Academic
- 2026ThesisA Model Proposal for Entrepreneurship EducationPhD thesis (in Turkish). Dokuz Eylül University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Business Administration. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Olca Sürgevil Dalkılıç.
- 2026ArticleCourse-Based Entrapment in Entrepreneurship Education in Türkiye: An Experiential Learning-Based Integrative ReviewJournal of Business in the Digital Age (JOBDA), 9(1), 67–80. In Turkish, with English abstract. doi:10.46238/jobda.1969150
- 2026PaperParadigm Shift in Entrepreneurship EducationXXV IBANESS Congress, Plovdiv, 14–15 March 2026. Oral presentation.
Books
- 2024BookGirişimcilik Ego Sistemi (The Entrepreneurship Ego-System)İzmir University of Economics Press. ISBN 978-625-6001-05-3. In Turkish. Download the PDF
- 2012EditedGirişimciliğin Altın Kuralları (The Golden Rules of Entrepreneurship)Compiled by Ertuğrul Belen and Taylan Demirkaya. Optimist. Chapter: "Zihin Yapısı" (Mindset). In Turkish. See the book
- 2011GuideKendi İşini Kurma Rehberi (A Guide to Starting Your Own Business)Editors: Tunçdan Baltacıoğlu, Öznur Yurt, Taylan Demirkaya. İzmir University of Economics Embryonix and Endeavor. Author of Part One. In Turkish. Download the PDF
- SoonBookDeneyimle Öğretmek (Teaching Through Experience)A CR-EEM handbook for educators. İzmir University of Economics Press. In preparation.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7880-3071
Writing
A column every month.
I have written a monthly column for ICT Media since 2017. Longer essays are on Medium. Most are in Turkish.
ICT Media Monthly column · since 2017 · Turkish
- REA: What changes when every piece of software can be copied?
- The same programme for everyone: Why don't accelerators accelerate?
- AI is needed most by the entrepreneur in Anatolia: A scaffold that closes the gap
- The exit crisis in the startup ecosystem: Why have IPOs fallen in five years?
- Can AI raise entrepreneurs? A new age of learning from experience
- Why is entrepreneurship education done wrong?
Medium Essays
- Competence devaluation: When everyone knows the same thing, what is knowing worth? (Turkish)
- Expensive money, cheap experiments: Rereading entrepreneurship in uncertain times (Turkish)
- You can't predict the future and beat the market. Here is why
- The end of abundance and the beginning of scarcity
- The unintended consequences of AI: A critical perspective (Turkish)
- How I wrote this article with AI (Turkish)
Invited talks and video
Two examples from the stage.
In my talks I try to share the examples I see in the field and the mindset behind them. Both videos are in Turkish.
How does the entrepreneurial mindset make you happy?TEDxIzmirUniversityofEconomics
Idea and need validationTÜSİAD "Bu Gençlikte İş Var!" 2018 training camp
Talks and seminarsJoint events with universities, incubators and organisations.
Contact
Get in touch.
You can write to me about academic collaboration, mentoring, incubator and accelerator projects or speaking invitations. A short email is enough.
Areas of collaboration
- Academic collaboration, reviewing, co-authorship
- Mentoring for entrepreneurs
- Joint work with incubator and accelerator programmes
- Speaking and seminar invitations
- AI and education projects
One last thing I want to stress: I believe entrepreneurship is learned through experience. That is the common thread in my work.