Zeynep Sarılar begins new term as ITEA chair

Zeynep Sarılar today begins her new position as chair of ITEA, the EUREKA Cluster programme supporting innovative, industry-driven, precompetitive R&D projects in the area of software-intensive systems and services.

She succeeds Rudolf Haggenmüller, who has served in the role since 2005.

Sarılar graduated from the Department of Electric and Electronics Engineering at Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, in 1989.

She has much experience in software engineering, having worked for several major companies on three continents as an engineer, business consultant and manager focusing on embedded systems, wearables and mobile applications.

In 2001, she co-founded Mobilera, a leading customer relationship management-based mobile marketing and advertising company. She was responsible for service and product development until 2013 when she began GEMİM, a centre for entrepreneurship training and incubation.

Sarılar has also participated in several ITEA projects and boards.

“ITEA is the place for software innovation, and software innovation addresses the global market,” said Sarılar. “My ambition is to make ITEA more global and to support our countries and companies in mastering the digital challenges.”

You can read an interview with past ITEA chair Rudolf Haggenmüller in issue 14 of Pan European Networks: Government and view his Foreword to the sixth edition of Horizon 2020 Projects: Portal here.