VRDays Europe's Immersive Tech Week Comes to Istanbul

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Ayhan has been working on Learning Management Systems, Massive Open Online Courses, Gamification, VR&AR Technology, 3D modelling, synthetic environments, Game-Based Learning, Serious Games and Simulation projects that are both national and international as a Training Technologist, Project Manager, and 3D Modeler for 11 years. Currently, he is working on Simulation-Based Training, VR-AR Training projects.

Egemen is a VR/AR researcher, software developer, and cyberpunk enthusiast. His research interests include Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality, Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, and Ubiquitous Computing.

He's experienced developing novel and intuitive user experiences that are powered by machine learning and multi-users for the web, desktop, and mobile platforms. He is currently focused on achieving real-time 3D articulated hand pose estimation from monocular RGB to enable novel input on low-end mobile VR/AR. 

Oytun Kal is an XR Designer and has given lectures on experience design with XR technologies at educational institutes like Bahcesehir, Medipol, Isik Universities, Bau Idea and St. Benoit High School. He is a 'digital filmmaking & animation' (SAE Berlin) and game design (Bahcesehir University, M.A.) graduate. After working as a filmmaking instructor at FSA (Ankara) and SAE Istanbul for many years, he wrote his thesis on "Educational Virtual Reality Game Design for Filmmakers", which is still an ongoing XR project. He is a resident member of VR First Lab BAU and continues to work on a variety of XR projects with a focus on cinematic storytelling. 

İpek is a PhD student at Yıldız Technical University, an architect and media artist, as well as an Adjunct Prof. at Istanbul Bilgi University's VCD and Digital Game Design and Halic University's Cartoon and Animation departments.

Between the years 2016-2021 she worked for the Mekan.Space Experience Design Studio as Co-founder and Creative Director. In 2021, she founded her own studio - Duende Multimedia Arts & Design + Architecture. Her studio is playground for creating artistic experiences using XR technologies. Currently her research and PhD studies are based on a post-humanist approach. She explores different fields such as AI, ancient cultures/rituals and virtual creatures. Her research interests include: XR Cinema, Virtual Fashion, Digital Game Design and New Media Art. She is also a yoga instructor and interested in developing experiences for the Wellness Industry.

Selen Lun is the founder of Lun Family Company; a community based, multi-diversed start-up love story.  Her work as an actor, writer, director, instructor and community manager on theatre, film, performance art, dance and pantomime expand themselves with her experiences and research on XR technologies, AI and HCI.

Currently, she is writing two online series scenarios, creating a mobile game for health & wellness and getting ready for a mo-cap suit acting job.

- Founder & CEO of Virgile Film https://virgilefilm.com , Creative Producer. 

- Founder : Virtual Reality club at Saint Benoit high school in 2017.

 - Actor for Turkish cinema and television www.imdb.me/virgile

- Coordinator : Digital Research Development Committee | Comité Développement Recherche Numérique | Dijital Araştırma ve Geliştirme Komitesi

- Pilot : Erasmus+ funded project 'Media and European Citizenship Education' 2020-2022 (Belgium, France, Romania, Turkey).

- Coordinator : International Digital Spring | Printemps Numérique International | Uluslararası Dijital Bahar #numistanbul #sbdijitalbahar https://youtu.be/2UDoRQA7_tI

- Mentor : FIRST international robotic competition www.robin8263.com 

- Creator : artificial intelligence hackathon IATHON in cooperation with Google https://youtu.be/19OFPGrQgGw

- Teacher of French, educator, trainer

- Technology integration adviser - Conseiller pédagogique #Numérique - Eğitim Teknololojileri Danışmanı

Hatice Öz Pektaş is a professor inthe  Visual Communication Department of Uskudar University. She is the founder of the Medical Visual Design Technologies Research Group, that focuses on the producing design-oriented solutions in the field of health sciences. It is an initiative that combines medicine, art, design and technology. Her academic research focuses on the sociology of virtual reality and neurological applications in XR. 

 Lance G. Powell Jr. is a VR Researcher-in-Residence at the VR First Laboratory at Bahcesehir University, where he also teaches the game department design course Virtual Worlds. Lance has been active in XR hackathons for education, collaborated on social programs in VR like Beyond Recovery, and developed prototypes of VR apps for exercise and film. He has twice presented on Social VR at the Game Developer Conference in Istanbul as well as the Sonar technology and music festival. Lance is active in content creation within VR, producing a blog on VR, the digital magazine Social Life VR Style, and the VR Special YouTube channel. He received an M.A. in Cognitive Science from Bogazici University and he was one of the earliest academic researchers in communication design and harassment in Social VR. 

  C. Bora Sezer is an academician at the Istanbul Ozyegin University's Architecture and Design Faculty's Communication department. His MA is from Istanbul Technical University's Information Technologies in Design and he has another MA from the Netherlands Creative Design for Digital Cultures Master Degree from HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in the pathway of Game and Interaction. He gives Virtual Reality Design classes to interdisciplinary students as an elective.  His interests concern xtended Reality including virtual and augmented reality, Internet of Things, Game Mechanics and cultural heritage preservation techniques via photogrammetry.