Recent Events
Euromersive Turkey's Art and XR Technologies Panel event
On 19 May 2021, Euromersive Turkey hosted a panel of innovative artists working with XR mediums for a discussion of their work and what inspires them to experiment with emerging immersive technologies. While immersive works of art have long been featured in major museums and galleries, the lockdowns have seen an emerging trend of virtual exhibition. This comes with new opportunities but also new compromises. Featuring Meltem Sahin and Can Buyukberber, artists in Turkey working with immersive technologies, and to friend and XR artist Tim Deussen. Digital art curator Esra Özkan moderated this panel with these three creators on their experiences working with AR and VR technologies.
Photogrametry for VR Heritage Panel
On 20 January 2020, Euromersive Turkey hosted a public discusson about the emerging field of photogrammetry and volumetric recording. Both are very important to the future of augmented and virtual realities, particularly when it comes to documented, preserving, and increasing accessibility to culture and heritage. In this panel discussion, practitioners from Europe and Turkey presented their work in the fields of cultural heritage and performance as well as shared information about some of the tools they use.
Turkish XR Startups Panel Discussion
On 19 December 2020, Euromersive Turkey hosted Turkish XR startup founders to tell their stories, discuss their challenges, and share advice for other entrepeneurs interested in AR & VR. Together, Güven Çelikkaya, Tuğra Şahiner, Emrah Uluçay, and Emre Çelik represent a wide spectrum of XR industry verticals, from enterprise tools and gaming, to AR & VR and software and hardware.
Euromersive Turkey's Medical XR Panel event
On 3 December 2020, Euromersive Turkey hosted a public discusson in Zoom about applications of XR in medicine and healthcare. These fields have been early adopters of augmented and virtual realities, but with every use case there has been challenges to overcome and lessons to learn. In this event, entrepreneurs working on the fronts lines of this industry shared their thoughts and experience with our community. The panel consisted of: Firat Kaçmaz, AR/VR Development Lead at Medex Lab; Ruben Boyd, General Manager of NeuroReality; Yusuf Yeşil M.D., founder of Yeşil Science.
Euromersive Turkey organizes "State of XR" panel event
On 27 October, Euromersive Turkey organized a public discusson in Zoom on the state of the XR industry in 2020. The XR industry has changed a lot in the past few years, but no year has been as dramatic as 2020. New challenges for the world means new challenges for this emerging industry, and yet new opportunities have emerged. Founding members of Euromersive Turkey came together discuss where XR stands now and what new trends have emerged in the past months, globally as well as in Turkey. This panel discussion was free and open to the public. Euromersive Turkey is a member of Euromersive, the federation for XR professionals in Europe.
Some of Our Members
Michael Barngrover
Michael Barngrover
Michael Barngrover
Michael is the founder of Raptor Dance Studios, an Istanbul-based XR design and development company. He is a phd student researching collaboration in virtual spaces and organizes the ZeroEvent series of multiuser VR platform explorations for the international XR Crowd.
İsmail Burak Çendik
Michael Barngrover
Michael Barngrover
İsmail is the Founder and the Lead Artist of Freya Gameworks, a game art outsourcing studio based in Istanbul. Freya Gameworks creates art assets for a wide range of platforms, but especially for VR. In addition to creating art, İsmail also consults on local and international VR projects, helping to streamline their 3D content production pipelines.
Ayhan Çerçi
Michael Barngrover
Egemen Ertuğrul
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, h
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 Ertuğrul
Egemen Ertuğrul
Egemen Ertuğrul
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
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.
Fırat Kaçmaz
Egemen Ertuğrul
Fırat Kaçmaz
Founder and head of product at Medex Lab. Firat has been working with AR / VR SDK`s since 2015. His team has created holographic patient examination simulations for the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine. He is currently working with Hacettepe University faculty of medicine to develop a healthcare education app.
Oytun Kal
Egemen Ertuğrul
Fırat Kaçmaz
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
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.
Selen Lun
Virgile Mangiavillano
Virgile Mangiavillano
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
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.
Virgile Mangiavillano
Virgile Mangiavillano
Virgile Mangiavillano
- 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
- 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
Virgile Mangiavillano
Lance G. Powell Jr.
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 acad
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.
Lance G. Powell Jr.
Lance G. Powell Jr.
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
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.
Bora Sezer
Lance G. Powell Jr.
Ertan Toy
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 U
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.
Ertan Toy
Lance G. Powell Jr.
Ertan Toy
Ertan is an assistant professor at Graphic Design Department of Yildiz Technical University. Moreover, he is the founder and director of Yildiz Technical University Reality Laboratory, that focuses on the use of extended reality technologies in the fields of art and design.
Emrah Uluçay
Emrah is an entrepreneur, game designer & developer, and a cadet pilot. He is graduated from ITU Electronics Engineering. His current challenge is to create a globally successful location based mobile AR game.