Let me begin by briefly introducing myself and telling you about my 'short' life full of traveling :)

I was born the 22nd of february 1984 in Istanbul, Turkey, where I lived until I was 6 year old. Then, my family and I moved to Brussels, Belgium, because of my mother's work at Turkish Airlines. 6 years of my life passed in Belgium, where I finished primary school. It was now time to go back to Istanbul and continue my education in a francophone school. I have completed high school and university there, except one semester during my university years that I spent in Lille, France with the Erasmus exchange program. Having finished my undergraduate studies, I decided to discover a new country and its people, culture and language, and I chose to do my master studies in Stockholm, Sweden, where I am still located today. Today, I work as an information security consultant in the swedish company Bitsec.

If you had the courage to read the whole paragraph above, you probably understood that so far, I've travelled and lived in a lot of countries, basically following my education. But what have I done during all these years, except taking the plane and studying?

Rotaract is a worldwide organization made up of hundreds of thousands of innovative, community-minded young professional and student volunteers aged between 18 and 30 years old.

The purpose of a Rotaract Club is "to provide young men and women with an opportunity to enhance knowledge and skills that will assist them in personal development, to address the physical and social needs of their communities, and to promote better relations between all people worldwide through a framework of friendship and service".

Basically, Rotaract is about these keywords: leadership development, career development, community service, international service, friendship and fun...

I started to attend the meetings of the Rotaract Club of Istanbul-Marmara at the age of 17 and became a member when I got 18. During the following years, I participated actively to club organizations that were focused on community service. I was also elected president of the club during 2004-2005. Some of the works that we have done during my presidency are:

1. •Organized a game tournament to raise funds to buy pijamas and slippers for elder people at the Darulaceze nursing home.
   

2. •Organized a new-year 'party' with the old people at Darulaceze and gave them their presents (above).
   

3. •Collected exam preparation course books and sent them to the newly built library of a school in Ordu, Turkey.
   

4. •Organized a special theater show (with professionals) for children with hearing disability. Siemens sponsored this play.
   

5. •Organized a big party in Istanbul with popular DJs and participation of 700 people to raise funds to build a special leukemia treatment room in the Istanbul University Hospital.
   

6. •Organized a meeting with the students of a high school to help them make the right choice about their future profession.

Computers have become a passion for me when I was a little kid. Of course, it all began with games on GameBoy, and then on my first PC. But soon after that I became the person in the environment that everybody called when there was a problem with their computer. Then came my first 28.8 modem, opening the door to BBS's, a different world to reach information.. After Internet became an affordable technology in Turkey (which was quite late), my wonder and passion about computers and IT systems grew bigger and bigger. My curiosity to explore these might have been costly to my parents, but that was the thing that made me a computer engineer today (and I think they're proud of it:)). Before starting my university studies on computer engineering, I had already good knowledge about programming, especially web development as I voluntarily administrated the web site of my high school. "What do I want to work as?" was not a question for me; I knew the answer long before I graduated from high school... During the university, this passion evolved towards IT security issues, starting with a group project about cryptography, continuing with 'Information Security' courses that I took, and complemented by my personal interest and curiosity to investigate and experiment on the Internet. So that’s why I ended up in Sweden, doing a master on 'Information and Communication Systems Security".

I consider myself an innovative person, always trying to find, create, improve things. I always keep my mind open for ideas and opportunities. Although I don't limit myself to that, my previous personal projects have been web-based services. Let me tell about about two of them:

1. •GSUDERS.COM was an idea that I came up with when I was studying at Galatasaray University (GSU) and looking for students to give private lessons to earn some money. Instead of distributing papers with my name or using other websites for advertising, I decided to build a web site bringing together students at GSU that want to teach, and other students that want to take private lessons. After just two weeks, not only had I found myself 2 students, but I had also arranged students for my others registered to the web site. The number of 'teachers' and students increased very fast, and we gave lessons of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, computer and french, mostly to high school students. The main factor that made this project successful is that I used the fact that GSU was the only university in Turkey where the education language is french. The target students were those studying in francophone high schools, who would of course prefer teachers speaking french. The web site is closed now, as I moved to Sweden.
   
   

2. •ORTAKVIM.COM was another project that I thought of, designed and programmed. Briefly, it is a 'shared community calendar', where all users can contribute by sharing the evenements happening around them. The events are categorized and presented in a user-friendly way, with the option to filter according to a specific city or category. It is dynamic and fun. I used ASP.NET on the .NET 2.0 platform, and C# as the programming language. CSS was also used for design purposes. Unfortunately, this website is closed as well because I didn’t have time to manage it.
   

Basketball was my first sportive passion during my high school years, and I played in the school team for a short while after which I decided to quit and focus on my studies.

In the university, volleyball became my new hobby, and I started to play with the university team. Although I've not been into sports professionally, I believe that is the best way to spend free time. Apart from having fun, one learns the importance of team work.

I always carry my iPod when I go somewhere, as I really enjoy listening to music. Apart from that, I'm also an amateur guitar player. My favorite music type is alternative, or grunge rock, but I also enjoy different kinds. Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Audioslave, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool are among the bands that I like the most.