Gelmekte olana hazirlanmak… | Hande Enes | TEDxBUU

Hande Enes opens by introducing herself as a technology investor — deliberately avoiding the 'angel investor' label — and explains her deep belief in the power of words and how terminology shapes mindset. She traces how her generation's understanding of artificial intelligence was formed by the Terminator movie franchise, which planted seeds of fear rather than opportunity, and describes her ongoing effort to reshape such narratives within the Turkish tech ecosystem.

Enes describes her background as the second generation of a textile family whose resources enabled her to experiment and pursue investment. An innovative employee in her family's company who constantly adapted machinery inspired her interest in innovation, which led her to discover startups. After investing in funds and businesses abroad, she decided in 2017 to invest in Turkish founders — a decision met with skepticism. She counters this skepticism with a civilizational argument: great invention has always originated in these lands, and innovation culture is not exclusive to Silicon Valley.

She describes early challenges investing in Turkey with a Silicon Valley mindset, but reports remarkable outcomes: Turkish startups can produce equivalent output with 1/5 the workforce and 1/9 the budget of their Western counterparts. To better understand and support this ecosystem, she invested in a Turkish data company to track technology and software investments, and in Turkey's largest digital platform for software investment announcements, believing that data literacy and proper messaging are foundational to ecosystem growth.

Enes argues that the term 'disruptive technology' was poorly translated into Turkish as 'destructive technology,' creating unnecessary fear. She reframed it as 'game-changing technologies' and says this language shift has gradually been adopted within the ecosystem and at government levels. She notes that impactful societal work may not yield visible results in one's own lifetime, but finds its context eventually.

Describing the entrepreneur she seeks, Enes emphasizes focus over idea-hopping, rapid iteration based on data, and willingness to challenge systemic impossibilities. She values entrepreneurs who understand diverse human perspectives, engage with opposing viewpoints, and are not defined solely by social media trends or echo chambers. She recounts an anecdote of an entrepreneur who knocked on her door and instinctively stepped back to give her composure time — a small act that revealed deep interpersonal intelligence.

On artificial intelligence, Enes is optimistic about human superiority, pointing out that the human brain operates on 12 watts and generates the world's most creative ideas. She argues that AI excels at identifying correlations between unrelated things, illustrating this with an example of behavioral analysis software that found people visit a restaurant when emotionally upset. She distinguishes between artificial intelligence — which solves problems — and human intelligence — which chooses which problems are worth solving.

Enes closes with a forward-looking message: new professions will emerge from newly discovered correlations and realities (she invents the hypothetical 'social geologist'), and the future belongs to those who read the world through multiple perspectives, engage across disciplines, and stop confining themselves to their own intellectual circles. She calls for law departments to collaborate with space technology, and for the end of siloed student clubs — urging the audience to act on these ideas today rather than waiting.