Hello everyone,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak today! We wanted to discuss our time at the conference and what made our experience so great.

There were common themes presented in the talks we heard during the conference. One of the themes that we were most excited about was the topic of entrepreneurship. We especially enjoyed hearing from Dr. Abdel-Naby about his journey as a new entrepreneur. It was exciting to hear from a student who was once in our shoes about how they leveraged their work to create a start-up, and the advantages and difficulties that come with this career choice.

Another theme was innovation, as is mentioned in the title of the conference. We enjoyed hearing about the BioIzmir initiative and how that is bringing emerging biotechnology to this area. Moreover, we got to see the actual campus, which really brought the idea to life.

Through the presentations of both the students and the professors, we got to hear a lot about ground-breaking science. One talk we found especially motivating in this area was Dr. Brennan’s talk on how his ventures have revolved around using emerging technologies to improve research and many other areas of science. His work has enabled many companies to do better and faster research, and now he is trying to expand his work so that it can help consumers as well.

Finally, another main theme was translation. We loved hearing Dr. Dimirchi discuss his FERTILE chip and how it has helped people all over the world overcome fertility issues at a much lower cost and with much easier and efficacious methods. As bioengineers, we all hope that one day our work will help others; it was very inspiring to hear from someone who had done just that.

Something else we enjoyed about this conference was the diversity in scientific backgrounds of the attending students. During the student presentations we were able to hear about advances in topics ranging from low cost devices for global health problems to complex algorithms with applications in cancer. Even more impressive than this breadth of science was the depth of the student engagement during the presentations. Every student seemed excited to hear about the research others were doing, and asked questions about topics outside of their expertise to learn more. This engagement allowed us all to think more broadly about the topic of bioengineering in general, which will only contribute to our research and innovation.

Of course, we must mention the location of this conference. For many of us, it was our first time visiting Turkey. When we arrived, it was 3 am, and we had no idea how to get to the conference location. Still, people offered to help us at the airport so we could contact Prof. Akay and get to the university safely. Throughout the rest of our stay, we found Turkey to be equally as friendly and welcoming as when we arrived to the Izmir airport at that early hour. We enjoyed getting to learn the history of Turkey by visiting the ancient city of Ephesus just as much as we enjoyed learning about the future of Turkey by visiting BioIzmir. I know all of us cannot wait to return to this beautiful country.

Finally, we would like to thank the Akays for putting together this entire conference. They were accommodating and welcoming before the conference even began, and were friendly and personal from the moment we met them. Most importantly, they have encouraged all of us to reach our full potential. We cannot thank them enough for what they have done.

Thank you so much!

Katrina Kalantar and Lindsey Osimiri