April was a memorable month for TurkishWIN!

We had an amazing kick-off event of our Istanbul chapter on April 12, 2011 with more than 140 guests in attendance and 2,126 online viewers from all around the world.

Our speakers dazzled us with their talks on "Dream, Play, Achieve" and inspired us with their courage and generosity. I would like to share some of my favorite lines (paraphrased from their presentations) with you:

• "I decided I wanted to make a difference in Turkey. I am providing financial literacy education to pave the way to financial freedom for everyone. What are you doing?" by Ozlem Denizmen Kocatepe
• "If you feel embedded in a place but feel forever alien, you are not alone." by Anastasia Ashman
• "Take calculated risks, plan well, believe in luck and karma. Just do it!" by Sedef Koktenturk Baldwin

You can catch the talks online now. We would like to thank our local brain trust, sponsors and partners, Microsoft,   Iltek Media, Pozitif TV and Kagider, for helping us produce this dream event.

On April 19th, a small group of TurkishWINners enjoyed an intimate luncheon with former Senator Bill Bradley at the Allen & Company in New York. Bill answered our questions about leadership and emphasized the importance of values.

Our next event will take place in Istanbul on June 7th at KAGIDER. To catch TurkishWINners talk about the “Art of the Start,” RSVP here.

Last night we enjoyed a great talk by Elmira Bayrasli. Elmira is a magnetic story teller and shared with us her story as she posed the question whether Turks can be defined as nomads or entrepreneurs.

We will share with you only one of the stories with which she touched us. Elmira took us along her journey to Kars, a journey inspired by Orhan Pamuk's novel "Snow," and told us about a conversation with a young local boy. When she asked, "What do you want to be?", he replied "an inventor."   Stay tuned to watch the whole story  in the upcoming TurkishWIN video...

We thank Imge Soker for hosting us at the HSBC USA in New York.

The pictures of the event are below. We hope you can join us at the upcoming TurkishWIN talk on February 17, 2011 in New York. Idil Cakim,  Senior Vice President of Interactive Media in GolinHarris’s Dialogue Group, will give a talk on "Building Your Brand Using Social Media."

You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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turkishwin-talk-by-elmira-bayrasli-turks-nomads-or-entrepreneurs-gnIsamlcqpjEAmIzaqbi.zip (10.75 MB)

TurkishWIN is one of the proud sponsors of the simulcast of the TEDWomen conference hosted by TEDxGotham in New York City. 

TEDWomen will take place in Washington D.C.You can share one or both days with a local community of TED-minded women and men in New York. The simulcast gatherings will take place at Booz & Co. on December 7th (101 Park Ave.) and BR Guest on December 8th (206 Spring St. @6th Ave).

To Register for the simulcast on December 7th, please click here

To Register for the simulcast on December 8th, please click here

Space is limited to several dozen seats for both events, so please RSVP soon if interested. This is a free event. If you do not live in New York, you can look-up a local simulcast at this link.

As a Chinese philosopher once said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." 

2010 has been a year of preparations and anticipation to launch the Turkish Women's International Network. Our goal is to provide a global trust network for accomplished Turkish women around the world and their community.

TurkishWIN's kick-off event took place on November 11th in New York City and featured Defne Ayas, Arthub Asia Director and Performa Curator. Split between Shanghai and New York, Defne Ayas works as a director of programs to Arthub Asia, a multi-disciplinary organization devoted to contemporary art creation in China and rest of Asia, and as an art history professor at New York University in Shanghai. Ayas is also curator of PERFORMA since 2004, the biennial  visual art performance of New York City, where she has presented more than fifty live performances and performance-related programs with an international roster of artists, curators, and critical thinkers.

Defne's talk's title was "Goddesses: Goddesses may take us to the very heart of what it is to be a woman." She shared with us the connections between the goddess culture and our contemporary lived experience and what it is that we share with our ancestors. The talk promises to be a visual compendium from a variety of contexts, encompassing both Eastern and Western references, with a special focus on Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and draws upon art, mythology, and spirituality. With illuminating commentary, Defne positions a group of fascinating Goddesses within their cultural context, from those of the early Egyptian civilization to the forgotten pre-Islamic Arab ones as found in art and literature. Surveyed together, goddesses promise to reveal many of the most fundamental archetypes of a woman's universal experience in this world. Interested in the universal power of female deities and their expression in society, Defne aims to bridge the gap between religions and civilizations and remind us of the lost connections in-between. was an amazing success. 

You can watch Defne's talk here. The pictures of the event are below. Join us at Facebook to hear about upcoming events!

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turkishwin-s-first-blog-post-sFqIgCynIypmtFrFEHqe.zip (30.5 MB)