Ada Wong founded the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture (HKICC), a unique non-profit organization whose mission is education innovation and a creative civil society.  Among other projects, HKICC founded Hong Kong’s only “art high school”, the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity and Ada is the School’s supervisor.

She also founded the Make A Difference (MaD) initiative, a continuing platform to groom the next generation of creative leaders and innovative changemakers in Asia.  Ada’s latest social venture is The Good Lab, an inspiring co-working space and a collaborative community for social innovation and entrepreneurship development in Hong Kong.

Ada was an elected member of the Urban Council and Wan Chai District Council between 1995 and 2008 with the last four years as Chairperson of the Wan Chai District Council.  Ada received her BA (Hons) from Pomona College, California, USA and M Ed from the University of Hong Kong.

Ayla Goksel is CEO of Özyeğin Social Investments, a network of non-profit organisations, including ACEV (Mother Child Education Foundation), Hüsnü M. Özyeğin Foundation and Iz Child and has over twenty years of experience in education programs, policy and infrastructure impacting 1.5 million people across Turkey with award winning programs implemented in 14 other countries.  Goksel is Trustee of Ozyegin University, Board Member of Education Reform Initiative and has been selected a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, Senior Fellow of the Synergos Institute, Qatar Foundation WISE Laureate and World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council member. She holds a BSc from University of Bath, MSc from London School of Economics (LSE) and has conducted fellowships on non profit organisations at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University. 

She is currently a Visiting Fellow at LSE.

Ayşe Sabuncu is one of the co-founders of Impact Hub Istanbul. After completing her undergraduate studies with a double major in computer engineering and business at Johns Hopkins University, Sabuncu started her career in banking industry at Citi Group in New York where she served at different levels for 5 years.

While working at Citi Group, through Adım Adım (Step by Step) Initiative she came across a fundraising project for the welfare of the youth “Gençlere Değer Projesi” by Toplum Gönüllüleri Vakfı (Community Volunteer Foundation). In support of this cause, Sabuncu climbed Kilimanjaro Mountain with her friends and after this experience she decided to give another direction to her life.

She did an MBA program at Stern School of New York University to advance her knowledge on social impact, innovation and entrepreneurship. She specifically focused on social entrepreneurship, microfinance and social investment subjects. In the summer of 2014, she started working in the field of microfinance with Kiva - a global non-profit organization - in Zimbabwe and South Africa where she was introduced to Impact Hub.

In the last two years, Sabuncu and her partners have been working on mapping and analysis of social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Turkey. Having moved into their new home at İstanbul’s upcoming industrial district 4.Levent Sanayi in June 2016, Ayşe Sabuncu believes that Impact Hub Istanbul will be the meeting point of all impact driven individuals as well as serving as an inspirational space to foster social innovation.

After graduating from Istanbul High School, Ayşesu completed her bachelor degree in Economics from Boğaziçi University in 2015. After graduation, she attended a digital design boot camp in Chicago where she worked with startups on user experience, research and design. Since March 2016, she has been part of the ATOLYE team,  focusing on user experience design, research and strategy.

Batuhan grew up in a family that has been involved in education for four generations since his great-grandfather as a graduate of Darülmuallim (school to educate teachers), founded the village schools of the young Republic of Turkey in Muğla. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Marmara University and a master’s degree in International Education Policy and Management from Stanford University. He is a policy analyst and education specialist who has been working in the area for nearly 20 years. In 2007, upon the invitation of Liberian Ministry of Education, he served as the coordinator of Liberia Primary School Construction Program developed with partners such as the World Bank and UNICEF with the support of Open Society Foundation. As a result of his work, he received “Distinguished Service Award” given by the Ministry of Education in Liberia. Finally, he participated in the 4th Evaluation Meeting of Anti-Corruption in Azerbaijan organized by OECD Anti-Corruption Network and prepared the chapter on prevention and prosecution of corruption in education. In 2012, he was awarded the Patricia Blunt Koldyke Social Entrepreneurship Award for his contributions to public education in Turkey by Chicago Council of Global Affairs, one of the most respected think-tanks of United States of America.

Batuhan is an Advisory Board Member of Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV). Prior to this, he was an Executive Board Member of Teacher Training Academy Foundation (ÖRAV), Darüşşafaka Society and the Network of Education Policy Centers, a regional network based in Croatia.

Berivan Eliş is the Director of Istasyon TEDU - Center for Social Innovation at TED University, Ankara, Turkey. She previously worked at the European Union Delegation to Turkey, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG), and Bilkent University. She worked in projects and programmes related to youth, gender, human security and social development issues. She has been working in the establishment process of Istasyon TEDU since December 2015 and teaching civic involvement and social innovation under the Global Citizenship Secondary Field Program at TED University since September 2016.

Berivan studied International Relations at Ankara University (BA degree) and at Bilkent University (MA degree). She is passionate about information activism.

Bugra Celik has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University and a Master’s degree in Business from Istanbul Bilgi University. Bugra started his entrepreneurship journey when he was a freshman student. Since then, he has focused on building communities around products, ideas and companies. His latest venture is Ahtapot, a start-up that allows NGOs to build their own private social network. He also works with several start-ups as an advisor on growth and investment.

Currently, he works as the Director of imece.

Having almost 20 years of experience in Project Management and Implementation, Bülent Özcan has been working as the Director of the Project Implementation in the Ministry for EU Affairs in Turkey since 2010. Prior to this position, he served as the assistant expert, expert and coordinator within the Ministry.

After gaining his Bachelor’s Degree in the Department of International Relations in Middle East Technical University in 1999, he completed the Master’s Programme on the European Union Economy at the EU Institute of Marmara University. He also attended the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government Executive Education Programme in 2011.

He has an outstanding role in managing project portfolio in the fields of capacity building of civil society, improving the legal environment, strengthening public-CSO dialogue, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, volunteerism, civic innovation and strengthening the civil society dialogue between Turkey and EU. 

Alongside his experience, he takes the lead for the development of “Civil Society Sector Strategy of Turkey”, which is one of the fundamental sector within EU Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA) Funding to Turkey and responsible for programming and management of “civil society sector” under IPA Funding. 

Caitriona Fay is a senior philanthropic leader in Australia. She has fifteen years of private family and institutional grantmaking experience in Australia and Europe.

At Perpetual, Caitriona oversees approximately 1,000 charitable trusts and endowments, and more than $3bn in community funds. Under her management, Perpetual’s clients distribute more than $100million annually through philanthropic trusts, estates, and endowments.

Prior to her time with Perpetual, Caitriona has worked in government and philanthropy via The Ian Potter Foundation and The Heritage Lottery fund in both Scotland and England. Outside of Perpetual, Caitriona is a leader in genderwise and LGBTQIA+ philanthropy in Australia.

Caitriona is a founding board member of The Channel, Australia’s first sexuality-sex-and gender-diverse giving circle, reflecting her passion for the power of democratised philanthropy. Caitriona is also a founding member of Melbourne’s Women’s Fund, and an Australian member of the International Women’s Forum.

Carolyn Curtis is CEO of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), one of Australia’s most respected social enterprises focussed on addressing challenging social issues. Carolyn leads TACSI’s vision for systems that deliver real and sustainable social outcomes, through working with the people facing the challenges we are trying to solve.

Carolyn brings to TACSI over 15 years of experience at the front-line and in management in the social sector, including as founding Director of TACSI’s Family by Family program which won the NAPCAN award for Innovation and the International Good Design Australia award in Service Design.

Carolyn is also a leader of social innovation beyond TACSI, as a Director for the Social Innovation Exchange, the world’s leading social innovation network, and in leading a number of initiatives for better social outcomes nationally and as a judge for the Good Design Australia ‘Social Innovation’ Awards.

In addition to her role as the Strategic Design Director at Doteveryone, Cassie Robinson is also co-founder of the Point People and Tech For Good Global, as well as founder of the Civic Shop. She’s spent the last 15 years working in and actively building the field of social innovation: she was an early service and social design practitioner working with organisations like thinkpublic, Participle, 00:// and the Young Foundation, and in 2004 she was awarded by Nesta as a Creative Pioneer.

Cassie’s developed network strategies for the British Council, Somerset House and Comic Relief, and has designed and delivered social innovation and systems change programmes for organisations like Nominet Trust, Lankelly Chase Foundation and the Gulbenkian Foundation. Her experience also extends to local and national Government. She has also worked with corporates like the Co-op, working with their communities team to identify ways national brands can be useful for local communities and social infrastructure.

Charles Leadbeater works internationally as an independent adviser on innovation to governments, cities and organisations both public and private.

The New York Times anointed his idea, The Pro-Am Revolution, as one of the biggest global ideas of the last decade. His 1997 Demos report The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur was one of the first in the UK to predict the rise of the social entrepreneurship movement, with which he has been closely involved ever since. His most recent book on education – The Problem Solvers – argues that in an age of smart machines and artificial intelligence, education systems need to help young people to learn to be more human.He was an advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair and his governments. Between 1997 and 2007 he worked as an advisor at several government departments including the DCMS and the Department of Education. 

Charles was the first chair of the start-up social enterprise Apps 4 Good, a winner of the £500,000 Google Global Impact Challenge in 2013. 

Chris Sigaloff is a longtime social innovator fascinated by our society’s transitions. Her primary focus is on putting innovative ideas into action and to find new approaches, strategies and (design) interventions for complex social problems.

For the last 10 years she was the director of Kennisland, a think tank for social innovation, where she developed many innovative programmes, methods and startups, such as Education Pioneers (an innovation fund for teachers), LinC (a school for cultural changemakers), the Kafka Brigade (a method to tackle bureaucracy) and Social Labs (a laboratory for social change). The common element to all these initiatives is the idea that innovation and learning go hand in hand, that theory must support practice, rather than the other way around, and that asking questions can be more powerful than knowing the answers.

Chris regularly advises, speaks and teaches on social innovation. Currently she is an advisor for the Council of Culture and serves on the board of various public organisations.

Dave Knight believes there are huge opportunities for those organisations willing to adjust business models to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. An Environmental Technology Masters graduate from Imperial College London, he has spent over 20 years working internationally, across multiple industries at the interface of business and society.

He translates the science of sustainability and human rights into workable solutions, enabling business to reduce risks and build opportunities. A systems thinker, he drives change through creating alternate visions, training, writing, consulting and assuring. He has convened and supported many multi-stakeholder forums and initiatives to professionalise sustainable development and increase its appeal.

An entrepreneur, he has founded several consulting companies and has led a global certification body’s North American Sustainability practice. He is a Lead Certified Sustainability Assurance Practitioner and a CSR advisor to UNICEF. He has written and contributed to, a number of publications for UNEP, including ‘The Business Case for the Green Economy’. He tweets @daveknight25

Based in Istanbul over the past two decades, Ms. Didem Altop describes herself as a serial community builder and agenda setter, addressing a diverse range of vital social and economic development issues. She is best known for her role as the Cofounder and Managing Director of Endeavor Turkey, developing and leading the first, and most competitive, growth acceleration program in the country for selected high impact entrepreneurs since 2006, in collaboration with a local network of 150+ and global network of 3.000+ C-level and subject matter expert mentors and investors across 30+ countries. Through Endeavor Turkey, Didem is also the spearhead of Global Entrepreneurship Week in Turkey and Endeavor CaseCampus Entrepreneurship Learning Program, engaging a nationwide community of 300+ partners plus 100+ university faculty members and 800+ aspiring student entrepreneurs, respectively. Most recently, in cooperation with Turkey’s most prominent semi-governmental organizations and thought leaders, Didem also served as the Executive Director for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, hosting 3,000+ ecosystem builders from 170+ countries in Istanbul on April 15-19th 2018.

Duygu Kambur has a Bachelor's degree in Management from Bogazici University and gained experience in business development, project management, brand management, strategy and operations in the fields of civil society, art and entrepreneurship throughout her studies. Following her graduation she worked at Garanti Bank in the department of Corporate Communication and Brand Management. Since she wanted to deepen her knowledge on social impact, she moved to Berlin to do a Master's in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at TU Berlin. While pursuing her Master's degree, she studied Design Thinking in the HPI School of Design Thinking and worked on social impact oriented design; participated in Climate KIC programs supporting entrepreneurship on climate change. She started her thesis on examining the social innovation ecosystem in Turkey.

Since November 2016, she has served as the head of business development and strategy at imece, a social innovation platform based in Istanbul. She triggers social change on several fields from early-stage social entrepreneurship to developing multistakeholder projects and partnerships to strengthen the social innovation ecosystem. She has recently spoken in Istanbul Development Dialogues conducted by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and GEC 2018 Istanbul.

As the CSR and Sustainability Coordinator of Koç Holding, Ebru Bakkaloğlu Tüzecan plays an active role in developing relationships with stakeholders on awareness, collaboration and partnership levels, providing guiding materials on sustainability and creating and implementing community projects. Before joining Koç Holding, Tüzecan led reputation management and sustainability work at Coca-Cola Turkey, Caucasus and Central Asia Business Unit for 15 years. Tüzecan launched the community projects of Coca-Coa Life Plus Foundation and started partnerships with UNDP, WWF, Ministry of National Education and Ministry of Agriculture on issues including protecting water resources, empowering women and dissemination of physical activity.

Dr. Ecmel Ayral has pursued and followed a multi-faceted path since the beginning of his career in 1983, when he had to undertake the family business while still studying Management and Finance in Marmara University.

His role in Istanbul Bilgi University has been a life changer for him as he finally had the opportunity to combine two apparently different aspirations: success in academia and business. As a member of the top executive team he had the chance to take part in strategic decisions and their implementation processes. Following the acquisition of Istanbul Bilgi University by an international group, he refocused his efforts in private ventures ranging from property development, to finance, and education.

He currently deploys most of his capacity on the design, development and delivery of on-line and off-line training programs. As an education professional, he has been actively taking leading roles in corporate and academic education projects since the year 2000 and has designed & delivered hundreds of trainings. The scope of his favorite training areas ranges from macro issues such as Chaos Theory and Strategy to behavioral issues such as Leadership and Sales. He is currently teaching in Management Departments of Boğaziçi University and İstanbul Bilgi University.

He has a PhD in Organizational Behavior and his thesis is named “How to Manage Chaos: Fast, Innovative, Flexible and İntegrated Organizations”. He recently developed a pedagogic model based on Bloom Taxonomy, called Unlearn-X. The model constitutes a basis for the design and delivery of learning projects.

Ella Saltmarshe’s work sits at the intersection of culture and systems change. In 2018 she published Using Story to Change Systems in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. She’s currently working with funders, CSOs and the creative industries on how to most effectively use culture to change systems.

Trained as an anthropologist, Ella started her career working in international development. Here she realised the limitations of atomised responses to complex issues and returned to the UK to develop the field of systems change. She co-founded systems change network The Point People, worked with the University of Oxford to develop The Systems Compass, co-wrote Keywords: Building a Language for Systems Change & and has worked across sectors to design and deliver systemic initiatives.

Alongside this work she simultaneously realised the importance of culture in systems change, co-founding the Comms Lab to pioneer purpose driven innovation in advertising, co-authoring Reclaiming Agency: How to Save Advertising (and create a better world) and co-designing the Reclaiming Agency leadership programme funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. 

Ella also harnesses the power of creativity in very practical ways with initiatives like SHEvotes. Her writing on innovation and social change has been published in The Guardian, The Financial Times, Stanford Social Innovation Review,  Wired, Monocle, Fast Company & Creative Review. 

Emre is an educator who throughout his career sought to reveal the fantasizing skills which are inherent in every child without an exception. He worked as the director of photography of the monthly Kadınca magazine in 2010-2011. His education career which started accidentally in Van, now continues in Istanbul.

He developed “Ask, Discover, Produce” approach focused on curiosity and need and based on children’s questions, curiosity and skills. This is a system consisting of elements such as “Question and Curiosity Library”, “Story-based Learning”, “Assembly of Can Do It”, and “Learning Through Production”.

“Imagination Center” was the name he gave to the place simultaneously shaped with the Ask, Discover, Produce system. Starting from 2016 Emre has been organizing across Turkey trainers’ trainings in cooperation with the Central Imagination Community’s voluntary educators and experts. Together with Imagination Central Community he worked with thousands of children between 3-18 ages and hundreds of university students and adults. Imagination Center is defined as a space, and not a school, for learning and new generation socialization where individuals can freely express their differences. It is a place empowered by “Ask, Discover, Produce” system aiming at generating social and individual benefit, starting a transformation in education and learning, and facilitating the production of art, science and technology outputs

He participated and spoke, as the representative of the Imagination Center, at many outstanding conferences and took part in teams such as Best Examples in Education, Future in Education Conference, Teachers’ Network, New Generation Learning. He gave a Tedx talk with the name “Evrensel Kamil” (Universal Kamil) on behalf of the Imagination Center, under the heading “Disciplining the Coincidences”.

Having been qualified, in 2017, as one of the projects supported by imece, a social innovation platform that connect individuals and organisations with various sources of funding, Imagination Center continues its cooperation with educational institutions and organisations committed to produce children-focused social benefits.

Emre is part of New Generation Learning, ATÖLYE, imece and TedxReset communities.

Born in Istanbul in 1984, Mehmet Emre Zorlu graduated from the Electrical and Electronic Engineering department at Koç University in 2006. He attended a master program at Essex University in the UK on Innovation and Technology Management. After completing his master program in 2008, Emre Zorlu Joined Vestel Elektronik as a board member in 2009, and he assumed active positions at Vestel on the areas of consumer electronics, white goods, digital products, information technologies, LED lighting and defense. 

Between 2010 and 2014, he worked as a Board Member at Zorlu Center project which was built with an investment of USD 2.5 billion as a complex involving residences, a shopping center, offices, a performing arts center and a five-star hotel.

In addition to being a board member at Zorlu Holding and some other holding companies, Emre Zorlu is also, since 2015, a member of the Board of Directors at Vestel Ventures, which seeks to support and provide funds to the entrepreneurs in many fields including technology, innovation and IP investments.

Mehmet Emre Zorlu is also a member of the Board of Trustees at Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation, a Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) Global Council partner, and a member of the Endeavor Turkey.

Engin Ayaz is the Co-Founder and Head of Design at ATÖLYE.

After graduating from Istanbul German High School, he completed his BS degrees at Stanford University in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architectural Design. He received project fellowship on green buildings from US EPA and Merage Foundation. He worked in the European and US offices of Arup, a leading international engineering and architecture company, as the sustainable design consultant. He took on the role of teaching assistantship in California College of Arts and Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design programs. Recently he got his MPS in interactive design, media arts and interactive installations from Tisch School of Arts ITP of New York University. Besides ATÖLYE, he is an adjunct professor in Bilgi University, Faculty of Architecture.

Eren Öztürk works for S360 on sustainability strategy, participatory learning design for organizations, stakeholder engagement, leadership development for systemic change, as well as business case for strategic sustainability. He has strong knowledge on scientific foundations of sustainability, framework for strategic sustainable development, organizational learning, participatory decision-making processes, systems thinking and corporate sustainability. After graduating from Environmental Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University (METU), he had worked for Regional Environmental Center (REC) Turkey Office between 2009 and 2013. The main areas of his work are Education for Sustainable Development, Local Environmental Action Plans and Sustainable Cities, Climate Change, and Regulatory Impact Assessment.
In 2012, he has finished his MSc. degree on Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden. Some of the areas he is interested in are; change invitation, learning organizations, transformational leadership, chaordic design, non-linear systems, developing intrinsic motivations towards sustainability.

Having served first as a consultant/ advisor in 2014, Filiz Bikmen has been serving as Founding Director  of Esas Sosyal since its establishment in 2015. Having graduated from Columbia University in 1998 with a Masters in Organizational Psychology, Filiz worked as a management consultant at Andersen Consulting and with financial institutions in New York and Istanbul. Since 2001, has been working to promote social justice and philanthropy, serving in the senior management of TUSEV and Sabanci Foundation, and as an adviser and executive board member for several other Turkish, European and American NGOs and foundations. 

She published more than 30 articles on topics regarding civil society and philanthropy and was a research fellow at the Graduate Center in New York and at the Bosch Foundation in Berlin. Filiz currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Interaction Institute for Social Change in Boston and supports the EMpower Emerging Markets Foundation, headquartered in New York, in managing their Turkey funding portfolio (focusing on youth at risk).

Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of Nesta, and has been in post since June 2011. Under his leadership Nesta has moved out of the public sector to become a charity (in 2012), launched a range of new initiatives in investment, programmes and research, and has implemented a new strategy involving partnerships with other funders in the UK and internationally.

From 2004-2011 he was the first Chief Executive of the Young Foundation, which became a leading centre for social innovation, combining research, creation of new ventures and practical projects.

Between 1997 and 2004 Geoff had various roles in the UK government including director of the Government’s Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister’s office. Before that he was the founder and director of the think-tank Demos.
 
He is currently chair of the Studio Schools Trust and the Social Innovation Exchange.

Gianluca Misuraca is Senior Scientist at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre where, since 2009, is conducting research in the area of ICTs for governance and social inclusion. He is currently leading the research on ICT-enabled Social Innovation to support the Social Investment Package (IESI) in collaboration with DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

Before joining the European Commission, Gianluca was the Managing Director of the Executive Master in eGovernance at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). During his career he held several positions as policy advisor for different International Organisations, cooperation agencies and consulting in the area of eGovernment, regional development, research and innovation.

Gianluca's background is economics with focus on the interface between ICTs and public sector innovation. He holds a Diploma of Specialisation in EU Economics and Law, a diploma in Security Management, an Executive Master in eGovernance and a Ph. D in Management of Technology.

After graduating from Saint-Benoit Private French High School, Gonca Ongan completed her undergraduate studies in Economics at İstanbul University. Afterwards, she received her master's degree in global MBA in Fordham University, New York. Then she continued to her postgraduate studies at the Marmara University European Union Institute in Economics of European Union. Following her experiences in the field of private sector, public sector and civil society, she started working in Koç University in 2010. Her research field is "Sustainability and Social Impact" and she has been working in KUSIF since 2012. She is the founding member of AÇIK AÇIK Platform promoting individual donation and fostering transparency & accountability among civil society organisations in Turkey. She has been at the board of directors of AÇIK AÇIK since November 2016. Additionally, she was elected to the advisory board of International Sustainable Campus Network in March 2016 by the member universities.

Gorka Espiau Idoiaga is Professor of Practice  at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal (CIRM-McGill University) and Senior Fellow at the “Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies”, a collaborative research project to share internationally the Basque case of socio-economic transformation under extreme difficulties. Espiau is also a Senior Fellow at the Young Foundation, founding partner of Social Innovation Laboratory Koop (SILK) and advisor to the Work4Progress initiative powered by La Caixa Foundation  Previously, he served as Senior Adviser to the Executive Office of the Basque President. 

Gorka Espiau is also a former Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and a former Senior Associate to CICR (Columbia University). He initiated his professional career in Elkarri, the Movement for Dialogue and Accord in the Basque Country. Espiau is the author of “Pluja Seca” (TV3 2011) and “Parlem les Lluls” (TV3 2012) documentaries and is co-author of many articles and publications on social change.