Last year in February, while running backstage at Hello Tomorrow Türkiye Summit 2024 to ensure the event went smoothly, I was unaware of how my story would shape.
Wait a second, let's start from the beginning.
I am Nazlıcan, a senior in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Bahçeşehir University. In the first year of university, I saw the significance of bringing the technical knowledge and skills we gained in academia to humanity and developed a great interest in the world of entrepreneurship. This curiosity led me to various resources, podcasts, educational programs, and idea workshops; and at the point where I understood that building a sustainable future is possible by grounding innovative ideas on deep scientific foundations, I encountered the concept of “deep tech”. The Deep Tech ecosystem was an incredible potential space where science was transformed to provide solutions to humanity's priority problems. The global resources in this field were very rich; reports, ecosystem maps, case studies. However, I discovered that the information on the deep tech ecosystem in türkiye was still very limited. During my research, the first place I came across was Hello Tomorrow Türkiye. I explored their website and followed their social media accounts.
A few months later, when a friend called me and said, “Volunteers are being sought for the Hello Tomorrow Türkiye Summit, are you interested?” I thought, “This can't be a coincidence.” Feeling that this call would drag me into a completely different world, I immediately joined the volunteer team. My first contact with Hello Tomorrow Türkiye during the HTT Summit 2024 happened through this volunteer opportunity.
Each person I met at the event was a source of inspiration for me. With every speaker I listened to and every entrepreneur whose stands I visited excitedly to ask questions, I knew I was witnessing the transformation journey of years of curiosity, effort, and struggle into tangible outputs. Deep tech seemed to transition from being a technical term to a lifestyle.
The people I met at HTT Summit 2024, the talks I attended, and the atmosphere I was a part of opened the door to a world where I could be not just a consumer of technology, but a producer.
At the end of the event, as I returned home tired but very happy, I had already begun to dream of being there again the following year. And that's what happened. As soon as the HTT Summit 2025 announcement post was shared, a message dropped into the inbox of HTT COO Hazal Tekman:
“Good evening Ms. Hazal, I just saw the announcement for the Hello Tomorrow Türkiye summit to be held on May 23 on Instagram. Last year, I greatly enjoyed being part of the volunteer field team during the event. Will a similar team be formed this year as well? Also, is there any area where I could get involved early on and offer more support?
-Best regards, Nazlıcan”
Throughout the past year, I examined the deep tech ecosystem, looking into türkiye's potential in this field, the challenges it faces, and where we stand compared to Europe and the world.
The technological ventures developed in advanced fields where engineering and scientific discoveries intersect, requiring long R&D processes and high capital, were promising as the problems they aimed to solve were directly of the kind that added value to humanity and the planet.
The deep tech segment that excited me the most was the biotechnological initiatives I focused on within the class, read in books, and wrote essays about in exams. These initiatives managed the transition process of transforming discoveries in basic sciences into direct clinical and industrial solutions, known as “lab-to-market”.
Many exciting developments were very new, very current. For example, the first CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing therapy CASGEVY (exa-cel), approved by the FDA in 2023, had begun to be offered for clinical use following its approval. This therapy, developed by CRISPR Therapeutics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, enables the patient's body to produce healthy blood cells by editing the patient's stem cells in a laboratory environment.
Another area that caught my interest was synthetic biology. Pioneering companies like Ginkgo Bioworks and Zymergen are establishing biofactories using programmable organisms and producing solutions working with the “organism as a service” model. They run projects across a wide range of sectors, from agriculture to cosmetics, food to industrial chemicals, by adapting these solutions. Artificial intelligence, robotic automation, and biology converge in this field.
I was increasingly curious about how these technologies were emerging in türkiye, whose shoulders they were being elevated upon, and whose lives they were touching. Thus, I also joined the HTT Summit 2025 volunteer team. This time, I didn’t feel just like “someone coming to support the event,” but rather like someone who had lived the past year as a continuation of that atmosphere and returned.
Each session of the HTT Summit was filled with hope, stories, courage, and belief. The people I met here and the conversations we had were the most precious moments of the day.
Before the event, I had long dreamed of meeting Dr. Dilek Gürsoy, the first female heart surgeon in Europe to perform an artificial heart transplant. This dream came true the moment I saw her in the foyer during the early hours of the event. She answered our curiosities about her career journey and the latest developments in the artificial heart field with sincerity and energy. During our conversation, she showed us the current and developing new artificial heart models used in surgeries. She explained the working principles of the devices, the innovations in their design, and their potential impacts on patients with great excitement.
After this sincere conversation, hearing her story on stage once more was much more meaningful for me. When she finished her speech with the words, “If you work hard enough and remember where you came from, one day you too can make it to the cover of Forbes!” I felt my courage to dream big was rejuvenated while recognizing the responsibility we carry in our career journeys.
I have always admired interdisciplinary fields of work. Listening to the works produced at the intersection of biology and industrial design by Prof. Dr. Elvin Karana, one of the founders of Foamlab, I shouldn’t be surprised at how excited I was. At Foamlab, Elvin Karana and her team, targeting the replacement of petroleum-based plastics and foams with eco-friendly alternatives, are producing nanoscale cellulose foams via bacterial fermentation that are ultra-light, highly porous, biodegradable, and customizable in density and mechanical properties depending on the application. I believe Elvin Karana’s speech reminded everyone listening of the potential of interdisciplinary work and the value of working in harmony with nature.
For a long time, I have been following, taking inspiration from, and at HTT Summit 2025, being able to meet face-to-face with Prof. Dr. Itır Erhart was amazing. Her interwoven roles as an academic, founder of social initiatives like Adım Adım and Açık Açık, marathon runner, actor, and social impact projects have shown me, through her life energy, the transformative power of social entrepreneurship in every area of life.
Inspiration is a treasure that we cannot find everywhere, and once we do, we must appreciate its value. As I asked for the contact information of the people who inspired me to reconnect in the future and perhaps work together on impact-focused projects, I didn't just feel like I was expanding my network but rather establishing bonds with very valuable people whose worldview resembled my own.
After getting plenty of photos and parting with beautiful memories following two full days at DasDas, I went to thank the Hello Tomorrow Türkiye team for their care and kindness in ensuring the event was an enjoyable experience for everyone. When Ms. Hazal said, “Nazlıcan, we loved working with you.” I felt that it wasn’t a goodbye but rather a new beginning.
I am now part of the Hello Tomorrow Türkiye team as a Startup Community Specialist. My journey with Hello Tomorrow Türkiye, which started 1.5 years ago as a volunteer, has today transformed into an experience where I am at the heart of transformation, working closely with deep tech entrepreneurs and contributing to the ecosystem, a process I feel a sense of belonging to. I am delighted not only to be a part of this ecosystem but also to be one of its shapers.
Sources
1- FDA Approves First Gene Therapies to Treat Patients with Sickle Cell Disease https://www-fda-gov.translate.goog/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-gene-therapies-treat-patients-sickle-cell-disease?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=tr&_x_tr_hl=tr&_x_tr_pto=tc
2- Singh, Ajeet MBBSa; Irfan, Hamza MBBSb; Fatima, Eeshal MBBSc; Nazir, Zainab MBBSa; Verma, Amogh MBBSd; Akilimali, Aymar MDe,*. Revolutionary breakthrough: FDA approves CASGEVY, the first CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy for sickle cell disease. Annals of Medicine & Surgery 86(8):p 4555-4559, August 2024. | DOI: 10.1097/MS9.0000000000002146
3- BCG & Hello Tomorrow. Deep Tech: The Great Wave of Innovation Report https://hello-tomorrow.org/deep-tech-the-great-wave-of-innovation
