Five METU students have been named University Innovation Fellows, which is a program run by Stanford University as a result of Fire Up 2022 training program. The six-week-long program was collaboratively organized by METU GİMER (Center for Entrepreneurship Research and Applications), İTÜ GİNOVA and Boğaziçi University BRIGHT entrepreneurship centers, and sponsored by METU TEKNOKENT. After the training program that was carried out online for six weeks under the supervision of Serdar Alemdar, the general manager of METU TEKNOKENT, and Assoc. Prof. Elif Sürer, the director of METU GİMER, each member of the METU team prepared their projects, which led to their selection for the University Innovation Fellows program. This year, METU takes part in the program for the first time, in which a total of 242 students from 63 institutions of higher education in 16 countries are selected. The innovation fellows of METU will represent our university at the Silicon Valley Meet-Up in March among 170 distinguished universities of the world.
The METU Students named University Innovation Fellows are:
- Diba Asadi – Department of Environmental Engineering
- Berk Barış Özbek – Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering
- Sıla Uzun – Department of Industrial Engineering
- Ege Yiğit Şen – Department of Economics
- Bahar Salman – Department of Computer Engineering
The UIF program, conducted by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford University, enables the admitted students to create new opportunities that will contribute to the entrepreneurial mindset and creative confidence of their peers that will help them overcome global challenges. For these purposes, fellows create student innovation spaces, found entrepreneurship organizations, host experiential events, and work with faculty members and administrators to develop new courses.
