Project Team

Ekin TAŞKIN

BEST For Energy Team Leader 

Ekin Taşkın

Mr. Taskin has a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Master’s Degree in Science and Technology Policies from Middle East Technical University. He has worked as research assistant in the same university for 1.5 year and then decide to move onto real life. Taskin, has accredited by the United Nations - International Trade Center as one of the youngest Business Development Advisors in the world. Then he became one of the Cluster Benchmark Experts of European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis and was certified as Cluster Excellence and Strategy Instructor by European Foundation for Cluster Excellence.

Mr. Taskin has 20 years of experience in strategy development, clustering and innovation, he has worked as a coordinator/team leader for more than 30 national and international projects. He had obtained significant experience for business model diagnostics and strategy verification by delivering advisory services to more than 30 clusters and 3000 companies internationally.

In the area of innovation, Mr. Taskin had found first cased based training program “Innovation Academy” for Turkish Exporters’ Assembly. He has taken part in four FP7 and one Horizon Project as partner manager/advisor and became one of the evaluators of European Commission for Horizon program.

During his academic career, he has delivered “Strategy and Cluster Policy” in Yasar University MBA program. Moreover, he had delivered technical assistance to regional and national authorities to develop cluster strategy to foster competitiveness. Currently, he is the TEAM Leader of BEST For Energy Project.

 

Barış Cihan BAŞER

BEST For Energy Key Expert

Barış Cihan BAŞER

Barış Cihan BAŞER is a freelance expert with over 22 years of professional experience in public and private sectors.

Barış Cihan BAŞER worked as an Engineer in mining sector in the beginning of his career.

He spent 7+ years as Patent Expert in Turkish Patent and Trademark Office where he specialized in promotion of IPR and development of innovation support services.

Barış Cihan BAŞER was a principal expert in innoCentric. He spent nearly 14 years in this position, where he conducted business diagnostics for 2000+ companies and developed strategies for more than 40 sectors. During this duty, he had the chance to accumulate in-depth knowledge especially in renewable energy, automotive, defence and machinery sectors. He established Ostim Defence and Aviation Cluster and prepared Cluster Map of Turkey and Clustering Guidelines.

Barış Cihan BAŞER has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Gazi University, TR and a master degree in Management and Organization from Arel University.

 

Pelin DURTAŞ

BEST For Energy Senior Expert

Pelin Durtaş

Pelin DURTAŞ holds her Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering bachelor degree from Başkent University with a full scholarship at 2001. She then completed his master's degree in the same department. Pelin Durtaş worked as Project SExpert at the Technology Development Foundation of Turkey (TTGV) until 2015 in the fields of national and international R&D and innovation support mechanisms, evaluation of R&D projects, innovation management, entrepreneurship, strategy planning, commercialization of R&D outputs, technology transfer, industrial clustering and international cooperation.

Since 2015, she has been working as a consultant within the scope of EU-funded projects, United Nations programs, R&D projects.

 

Turaç LAÇİN

BEST For Energy Senior Expert

Turaç LAÇİN

Turaç LAÇİN holds a bachelor’s degree from Middle East Technical University, department of Statistics in 1998. Turaç has 24 years of general professional experience in the fields of financial management, procurement, public relations, event management, networking, contracting and logistics. She worked in different private banks for 7 years and ended her finance sector career as a branch manager in Ankara.

After then, she was the financial and administrative manager in an engineering and consulting company. Since 2015, she has been working in different projects as event coordinator for World Bank, TURKAK, ILO, CFCU and has experience on organizing events, workshops, conferences, trainings, preparing tender dossiers for events, managing daily activities, promotional materials, logistics, budgeting and contracting, reporting, monitoring and evaluation of the activities.

 

Buğra BARLAS

BEST For Energy Senior Expert

Buğra BARLAS

Buğra Barlas has a Bachelor Degree in Economics and holds a two Master’s degrees; an Executive MBA degree from Dokuz Eylül University and MA degree in Industrial Policiy and Technology Management from Istanbul Commerce University along with over 17 years of professional experience.

After his first professional experience in banking sector for 5 years, he worked abroad as an Area Manager and Finance Manager in England and Germany while remotly managing operations in Czech Republic and Romania as a General Manager. Following his return to Turkey, he got involved in the project world and has been part of more than 15 international projects as an expert in Turkey, Serbia, Azerbaijan and Kosovo funded by Europian Union and UNDP.

Buğra has solid knowledge and experience of EU programmes, Project Cycle Management, strategy development, sectoral competitiveness, establishing Business Incubators, Co-working Spaces, technology and Business Development Centre, designing and implementing Entrepreneurship Concepts, innovation and commercialization activities.

Beside being a professional consultant for companies and freelancer for the projects over the years, Buğra is a amateur producer for domestic and international short films by virtue of strong interest in photography.

 

Hazal COŞKUN

BEST For Energy Project Expert

Hazal COŞKUN

Hazal Coşkun started her university education in Bilkent University and continued in Yaşar University, holds Bachelors Degree from the department of English Translation and Interpretation. She got 3 Project Cycle Management Training certificates after her graduation. After having worked at Ulutek within Enterprise Europe Network programme, she has started to write projects in the scope of EU Grant Programmes.

She implemented ‘’Solar Energy and Energy Efficiency’’ project as project assistant within Civil Society Dialogue IV programme. She worked as project manager in the project ‘’EIA Experience Sharing’’ project within the CO-SEED programme of WWF. She wrote and implemented ‘’Sustainable Environment and Energy’’ project within Grassroots CSOs Grant Scheme and ‘’Sustainable Civil Society Dialogue for Sustainable Development’’ project within Civil Society Dialogue – V project as project coordinator. She has been writing and implementing projects with several civil society organisations within EU grant programmes such as Civil Society Dialogue, Civil Society Sector, Erasmus + in the fields of EU acquis, environmental sustainability, sustainable development, renewable energy and climate action for 7 years. She also worked as certified translator since 2013.

She has written booklets about ‘’Turkey’s progress and shortcomings on Chapter 27 of EU acquis’’, ‘’EU Best Practices within Chapter 27 of EU Acquis’’ and ‘’Solar Energy and Energy Efficiency in Turkey’’ within the projects she implemented. She had been working as columnist at Yarısaha Basket, Sportando, Karşıyaka Birliği about Turkish League, European Leagues and NBA basketball for 5 years. She worked as board member at Karşıyaka Sports Club basketball branch for 2 years.

 

Elif SEYHAN

BEST For Energy Project Coordinator

Elif SEYHAN

Elif Seyhan was born in Ankara in 1994. She was graduated from METU Economics in 2017. At the same time, she finished her Business Administration degree at Anadolu University, which she continued with her undergraduate education. After completing her undergraduate education, she started to work in Low Carbon Project as a Project Assistant/Office Manager in September 2017. She supported the TA team in the organization of training, seminars, conferences, monthly management meetings, steering committee meetings, and she is responsible for running of the Project Office.

After the Low Carbon Project was finalized, she started to work in BEST For Energy Project in June 2020. Meanwhile, she continues her master’s degree in Sustainable Energy at the İzmir University of Economics.

 

İmge ÖZDEMİR

BEST For Energy Communication Expert

İmge ÖZDEMİR

İmge Özdemir completed her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and minor degree in Anthropology at Hacettepe University in 2010. Afterward, she completed her MSc in Clinical Psychology at Hacettepe University. During her academic life, she participated in assessment, evaluation and trauma psychology trainings.

Throughout her professional career, she has especially worked with groups at risk and children, and gave trainings and seminars. She has also taken active roles in the projects of associations.

Currently, she is responsible for organizing activities, seminars, trainings, conferences, management meetings and monitoring, evaluation and reporting of the activities in the BEST For Energy Project. In addition to the project, she continues to carry out psychosocial support and counseling activities.