Ozan is the founder of SAGE HQ, Zillion Pitches & YellowX.
He is UC Berkeley SCET Global Ambassador, and Founding Chapter Director of StartupGrind Istanbul, and also an e-resident of Estonia.
He is an angel investor, experienced startup mentor and an accelerator manager with +10 years of experience in investing as well as building startup programs and ecosystems in US, Middle East & Turkey.
Ozan is currently the Head of Growth for Global Innovation Catalyst, focusing on scaling experiential learning programs to foster innovation economy in partnership with Stanford Center for Professional Development’s Idea to Market Program. He is a certified trainer by Stanford CPD delivering GIC iX Online Program Workshops. He is the head of EMEA Region for UC Berkeley’s Innovation Accelerator Group.
He is also launching the Founder Institute Regional Virtual Pre-Seed Accelerator targeting Startups from Turkey, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, and Syria.
Ozan was the Lead Program Designer of SDG Impact Accelerator; the first Global Social Impact Accelerator Program in Turkey built by UNDP and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & World Food Program. SDGia inaugural batch was targeting to find scalable solutions to the Refugee Problems in Turkey such as Sanitation and Livelihood Improvement & Security.
He was the founding Managing Director of Growth Circuit Accelerator (GCA) in San Francisco which invested to the highest number of Startups built by Global Turks abroad. Ozan helped international startups with at least one Turkish founder, to launch in Silicon Valley through partnerships with partners like UC Berkeley, Draper University, USMAC and ABC Accelerators.
He was the founding managing director of “Labsout” an IP to Innovation Program built for METU, the largest Technology University in Turkey. Labsout Graduates have worked on research around energy, sustainability and materials science and commercialized technologies as spin-offs.
Prior to moving to San Francisco, he founded 9/10ths Accelerator, the largest non-equity seed funded Impact Accelerator in Saudi Arabia in KAUST for the Ministry of Labor of Saudi Arabia and Human Resource Development Fund.
He has initiated the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology’s 2 Startup Accelerators between 2014 and 2016. New Ventures Accelerator was a generalist accelerator without a seed fund, and its graduates created a good track record, winning international awards and raising seed capital in the region. Hikma was the first IP Based Accelerator Program built solely for the Research enabled inventions. Hikma graduates have raised significant funding from KAUST Seed fund and other players in last 3 years providing solutions for Climate Crisis, Water Preservation and Energy Distribution as well as Sustainable Agriculture.
SAGE HQ, Zillion Pitches, YellowX
Founder
Ozan is a serial founder of many companies & some startups:
Global Startup and Innovation Consultancy Company (YellowX - https://yellowx.co), Students Academy for Global Entrepreneurs (SAGE www.sagehq.co) and an AI powered Pitching tool for founders (Zillion Pitches – www.zillionpitches.com) are currently alive and kicking.
He is an experienc…
Ozan is a serial founder of many companies & some startups:
Global Startup and Innovation Consultancy Company (YellowX - https://yellowx.co), Students Academy for Global Entrepreneurs (SAGE www.sagehq.co) and an AI powered Pitching tool for founders (Zillion Pitches – www.zillionpitches.com) are currently alive and kicking.
He is an experienced angel investor, brutal startup mentor and the founder/designer of many early-stage tech startup accelerators with +10 years of global experience in Larger Middle East North Africa + Turkey & Silicon Valley.
He recently became one of the founders of Metaverse Union, a platform targeting to create projects and advocate for the right ways of supporting & building the Metaverse Ecosystem Globally.
He is actively mentoring for programs and institutions such as Endeavor, EBRD Star Venture, Village Capital, Accelerate 2030, KAUST Taqadam and 500 Startups, helping various early stage technology companies and Intellectual/Science based founders. He is one of the founding directors of Founder Institute Ankara graduating 20 startups in 2 years during the pandemic.
He is selected to be the first Turkish professional to become a UC Berkeley SCET Global Ambassador in 2021. He was the Head of Growth for Global Innovation Catalyst, focusing on scaling experiential learning programs to foster innovation economy as a certified instructor by Stanford University Center for Professional Development. He is the head of EMEA Region for UC Berkeley’s Innovation Accelerator Group, and he has contributed to the formation of the MIT Enterprise Forum’s Pre-Accelerator Bootcamp in MENA for 8 years.
In 2019, he created the first Impact Focused Global Startup Accelerator for UN Development Program in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and World Food Program based out of Turkey and built a mentorship program for NY Based Building Markets that targets Refugee Built Small and Medium Businesses.
He has built an accelerator program and invested in #globalturks in Silicon Valley between 2016 & 2019. His portfolio startups had been accepted to 500 Startups, Techstars, Consensys, Hax and DU Ventures.
He worked for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, building 3 different Accelerators for Impact (9/10ths), Consumer Tech (New Ventures) and Deep Tech (Hikma), between 2013 and 2016. His initial career started 20 years ago in Financial Management and Reporting with Deloitte and Istanbul Bilgi University (later acquired by Laureate Group).
He has a BA in Economics and an MBA. He has also continued MS in Environmental Sciences. He has been contributing to multiple published books on Venture Capital, Fintech and Impact Entrepreneurship.
He has been a dedicated reader of Sci-Fi, Utopian/Dystopian Literature, ask him anything geeky and he’ll love to talk about it.
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