Dr. Uygar Özesmi

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Uygar Özesmi

Uygar is an environmental scientist, and an Ashoka Senior Fellow. He is the founder and instigator of Good4Trust.org, an online system for creating a prosumer economy for ecological and social justice. He is the board chair of the Prosumer Economy Society. After graduating from Kayseri Science High School, he worked as the Advisor of Adnan Kahveci, the Minister of State responsible for the environment, between 1989-90. He did his BSc in Geological Engineering at Middle East Technical University. He has a masters in Environmental Science from Ohio State University as a Fulbright Scholar, a PhD as a MacArthur Scholar in Conservation Biology, as well as in Development and Social Change at the University of Minnesota. He founded the Environmental Engineering Department at Erciyes University (2000-2004), and the first crowd-sourcing, citizen science site in Turkey called KusBank.org in 2001. Uygar was also the founding board chair of Doğa Derneği (BirdLife Partner) in 2002. He then joined the United Nations Development Program in New York as Environmental Specialist (2004-2006). He served as the Executive Director of TEMA Foundation (2006-2008) and of Greenpeace Mediterranean (2008-2012). He founded Change.org in Turkey in 2012, and was the Executive Director until 2023. Uygar was the founding member of the Civil Society Development Center (STGM) and served for two terms on the Board of CIVICUS – World Alliance for Citizen Participation. He also currently serves on the Board of Ashoka and Trustee of Armaş Foundation. He is Adjunct Asst. Professor at Kadir Has University teaching Sustainable Energy and also Ecological Economics. At Istanbul University he teaches Social Entrepreneurship. He has more than 100 scientific publications, countless popular articles, three books and a daily radio program at Açık Radio.