I draw inspiration from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s saying, ‘…Our true mentor in life is Science…’ and I try to influence people to contribute to science for the development of our communities. Because I hold this ideology, through the years I have served as a council member of the Republican Turkish Party, Construction Committee Coordinator, member of Reel Sector Advisory Board of the Prime Minister, and an advisor to the Interior Minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. I am currently serving as a board member of the Chambers Soil and Construction Materials Testing Laboratory, Moment Journal and as Geotechnical Committee coordinator.

As a Construction Committee Coordinator, I met stakeholders in the construction sector within the country and prepared a master plan to shape politics towards a more reliable and sustainable construction industry. During my engagement as Reel Sector Advisory Board member, I have worked as part of a committee to prepare a strategic plan for higher education and trade shift between Northern and Southern Cyprus for the Prime Minister. Finally, being part of the advisory committee to the Interior Minister allowed me to directly study national housing strategies and deliver affordable housing for communities.

The Chamber of Civil Engineers have embraced numerous missions to inform the public about the civil engineering profession, encourage youth participation in the civil engineering community, create links between academia and industries, and address national and international civil engineering matters. One of my main roles is to monitor and coordinate the daily activities of the Soil and Construction Materials Testing Laboratory of the chamber. Further, I have taken an active role in the establishment of the soil mechanics laboratory, where my links with Turkish and international suppliers of laboratory products allowed us to acquire equipment to serve the industry and the country. As the coordinator of the geotechnical committee of the chamber, I have worked with committee members to create a local report format for geotechnical assessments. Moreover, I worked on bringing together thousands of bore logs to aid in the development and establishment of a national soil profile system. Further, through intense negotiations with the committee of the Chamber of Earth Science Engineers, we have managed to establish standards for site investigation works and have started to work towards developing geological hazard maps of TRNC.

As the part of European Commission-funded Awareness Raising for Civil Engineers on Green Economy project, the chamber has attempted to raise awareness on principles of circular economy among stakeholders in the construction, environment, energy, transport, agriculture, and rural tourism sectors. We are organising the International Green Opportunities for Developing Economy Conference (GODEC), 2019, and we plan to conduct this conference for the next five years. We plan to bring together academics and industrial personalities from all over the world to raise awareness on the green economy and green job opportunities in TRNC, while simultaneously promoting and boosting entrepreneurship. As the chairperson of the conference, I am actively working with partner chambers (EMO, MO, CMO, YMO, etc.) to coordinate speakers, promotional materials, the conference venue, and so on.

On an international scale, I have been nominated to two technical committees, Laboratory Testing (TC101) and Ground Improvement (TC211), of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The ISSMGE consists of 25 technical committees, and the committees bring together important researchers, scholars, and engineers from the world over to develop and disseminate relevant information and current practices for the society’s members. As technical committees, our objective is to generate information and research by interacting with the industry and overlapping groups in the field of expertise. This is performed by creating standards, formulating technical advice for relevant fields, and designing technical programmes for international and regional conferences.