Dr. Ismail Ari received his PhD degree in 2004 from Computer Science Department of University of California, Santa Cruz. Between 2004-2009 he worked as a researcher in Hewlett Packard Labs in Silicon Valley, USA. His research interests include cloud computing, big data, machine learning, distributed systems and networked storage systems. He has international publications and US patents related to these topics. After joining Özyeğin University in 2009 he has received several awards and research grants including IBM Top Faculty Contributor Award, EU Marie Curie IRG (International Reintegration Grant), and TÜBİTAK (Turkish NSF) National Young Researcher Career Award. Dr. Ari is a member of IEEE, ACM and a founding member of the IBM Cloud Academy. As a part of his professional career between 2010-2018, he also worked as Director of Ozyegin University Knowledge Tech Transfer and Entrepreneurship, Vice President of TUBITAK, CEO of Teknopark Istanbul and Co-founder of Havooz Ltd.