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Volkan Gazioğlu

Very early on in my career, I received the following advice from an older Chinese businessman in Hong Kong: There are three pillars to society: the rule of law, the rule of logic, and the rule of relationships. In the West, these are prioritized as follows: first law, second logic, third relationships. In the East, it's exactly the opposite: first relationships, then logic, then law. All are indispensable. But what's most important is to understand that the starting points are different. -Andrew Liveris

Volkan Gazioglu, who has been working in the field of information and communication technologies for more than 30 years, has played an important role in introducing and disseminating Internet in Turkiye.

Gazioglu has experience in the Asia-Pacific market, taking on various roles in Italian, Arabic, American, British and Chinese companies.

As the "Network Administrator" at Ege University, he enabled the people to meet the Internet for the first time, and contributed to mobile operators' 4.5G service offerings as the "Service Solution Sales and Marketing Director" at Huawei.

Gazioglu, who has worked on 5G, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Customer Experience Management , is an Open Software supporter.

Education Period

While at Erzurum High School in 1987-1988, he achieved the 3rd place in a physics competetion by TUBITAK (Turkish National Scientific and Technological Research Council), held to train the future scientists and researchers.

University

After high school, being within the 1 percentile, he was placed in Ege University Computer Engineering Department as a result of the university entrance examinations (1989).

Pre Internet

Gazioğlu, who specialized on IBM mainfame computers during his education, worked as a hacker for a long time at BITNET, which was a pre-Internet network.

Internship

He secured an internship position at Erdemir (Eregli Iron & Steel) in 1993, and had a chance to examine the industrial digital transformation project carried out by Japanese and American companies, which was the second largest modernization project in Turkiye. In 1994, during the 1994 summer school organized within the scope of the European Community MedCampus project, he worked on a remote education trial between Izmir Cesme and Italy Lecce over a 64KB line.

Thesis

In 1994, he graduated by his senior graduate project in the field of Artificial Intelligence with Prolog. The project guided the students in their university exam choices, while the earned credit based education system was still being applied in high schools those years, 

Modem Era

While still a student, he started working as a "network administrator" at the university's computer center. Here, he worked towards giving the first public Internet services, within the university's foundation company named EgeNet. He established the University's "Campus Wide Information System" (CWIS), which is still in effect, and executed its operation. He carried out the information systems administration duty for Turkish Radio and Television (TRT İzmir, during the 1995 General Elections in Turkey.

NGO

He became the founding member of 1st Internet Conference in Turkey, organized in Ankara by Bilkent University on 17-18 December 1995. The aim was to promote the Internet in Turkey in all its dimensions by bringing together related groups to develop, discuss and attract public attention to this end.

Security

In 1995, Gazioglu was elected as a member of the "Military Computer Security Working Group" of the Turkish Military Academy (National Defense University). In 1997, he made a presentation on "Internet Security" at the "Symposium on Technological Developments in Defense Industry" held in Ankara.

Media

Besides the technological aspects, in order to inform the public about Internet's social, cultural, economic, security and legal effects, he started to write in the column named "Açık ve Net" in the well-known IT magazine and newspaper in Turkey, named BThaber. He then changed the name of this column to "internext", as he focused only on future trends and innovations.He also wrote the column "Internet'ten" in BTnet, the online magazine of the same group.

ISP Era

Due to loss of vision experienced in University, Gazioglu started to evaluate the proposals from the private sector, and founded one of the first private ISPs in Turkey named ISPRO. He was in the founding task force of Internet Service Providers Association (TİSSAD).

Search Engine

At ISPRO, he established the first domestic search engine, called TTT just one year before Google was launched.

Appliance

In 1996, he developed an appliance called NetSHIP, which enabled corporations to connect to the Internet over dial-up and leased lines. The device included router, e-mail, file and WWW servers, proxy and firewall services packaged in a single box.

Military

Between 1998-2000, he performed his compulsary military service as a reserve officer in the General Staff, as "Courier Planning Officer" in the Transport Coordination Center. Here, he lead some innovative projects while carrying out important transport activities of the armed forces.

Dependency

He saw that the concept of "ICT" was exploited in favor of foreign companies operating in his country; national technology, small entrepreneurs and open software were not being supported, and there was pressure on independent journalism.

Gazioglu decided to establish his own media when he was expelled from the company for reacting to this situation.

Bilişim Cumhuriyeti

Upon this, Gazioglu founded Bilisim Cumhuriyeti (Means "ICT Republic" in English); It included ICT news and opinions with its staff of journalists and writers from various countries around the world, without censorship, and without paying attention to the pressure of giant international companies. The news of the portal, which is called BC in short, has become published even in international media.

Software Alliance

He fought against an organization called BSA, which is an extension of multinational software companies, and an organization that raided our tradesmen and forced them to buy licenses.

Competitive Turkiye

He developed projects with Prof. Melih Bulu off CAT (Competitive Advantage of Turkey, currently URAK) to increase Turkey's competitiveness in the global arena by implementing Prof. Michael Porter's "clustering theory". One of the projects was the production of the Arcelik's Turkish coffee machine to support branding activities in the tourism vertical. He also worked for TurkeyHighTech, founded by Prof. Bulu again, where high technology strategies were being discussed.

Linux

In order to support domestic and national software, he had the documentary "The Code" about Linux, shown in theatres in the country, with his own means.

Professional Life

Worked as an expert at Aria, which started its operations in 2002 with the partnership of Telecom Italia Mobile and Is Bank. With the system he developed at Motorola, it became possible to complete the intelligent frequency planning of whole Turkey in almost a week, whereas even the planning of a single region was lasting for weeks before. This result has been shared as a global success story in the company. He worked on "smart homes" for the Motorola USA for a while until the end of the project, and later on GPON projects for Motorola UK.

Huawei

In Huawei, Gazioglu was the first to lead the "Central Asia and the Caucasusia" "Regional Network Analysis Center". Later, he worked as C level "Professional Service Solutions Manager" in the same market. He won the “Individual Gold Medal Award” given to only 39 people among more than 180 thousand employees, for his pre-sales and post-sales activities in the domains of Customer Experience, Service Quality, Network Performance and Big Data.

4.5G and 5G

During the 4.5G installation period, he worked as the "Professional Services Solution Sales and Marketing Director". ​During his tenure, "Professional Services" appeared in front of "box" sales for the first time. 

He also carried out marketing activities related to 5G.

Corporate

Worked as a director in Huawei's innovation center called OpenLab, carried out the activities of establishing an ecosystem in the fields of 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Smart and Safe Cities with local collaborations. He worked with stakeholders such as the public, regulatory (BTK), municipalities, mobile operators, universities, armed forces and police headquarters. He represented Huawei at the International Investors Association (YASED).

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