Translator: Alp Eren Özalp Reviewer: berat güven
Life is like riding a bicycle;
to keep your balance
you must keep moving.
To keep this balance, you need to know three things:
technology, history and society.
One of the key points in my life was these words of Einstein.
And we've seen many important improvements
in this digitally changing world.
Inventions were the most important ones.
First, we made the tools that do things a human being can't do with his hands,
like knives, hammers and so on.
Then, writing and compass came into our life and helped us.
Afterwards, in this fast-revolving, moving world,
calculators, TVs, phones and computers came into our life.
Now, we can't live without these things; they are like air or water to us,
and this world tells us how fast we need to move,
and to keep the balance, we need to keep moving all the time.
Sularbaşı District, Atatürk Boulevard, # 5, 58040, Sivas Post Office.
This place was one of the milestones in my life.
Why was it like that?
In 1995, internet came to Sivas for the first time in the post office.
My two friends and I often went there to use the internet.
I'll never forget: In those years, there were only two computers.
When you walked in, they were on the first floor,
on the left, and there were warning signs on top of them
saying, "You can use it up to 45 minutes."
My friend Fatih Güneş and I would use these separate PCs
for 45 minutes,
then we would switch the computers.
In the first years,
not many people visited Sivas Post Office for the internet, except us.
It was a starting point for me.
These PCs you see were very important; maybe many of us have seen these PCs.
This is mine, and it was always open when I was in Sivas.
I never closed the computer's case.
I learned what is a motherboard, a hard drive, by switching RAMs.
I started to gain knowledge in my life.
On the other hand, you see Sivas,
after internet and computers coming into our life.
Of course, some would sell it, and some others would repair it.
As you see, it was one of the first computer shops
and technical services in Sivas.
Perhaps my father is going to be angry with me hearing it now,
but I used to break my PCs frequently
so I could go this technical service that belonged to uncle Sezai and brother Ali
and learn how to fix PCs or how I could fix this PC.
I somehow broke my PC every month,
but when I went there, they'd say, "Erdem, it'll take 3 or 4 days to repair this PC."
So I'd always answer, "I need my PC today,"
to make them say, "Then, you need to wait here until evening."
But it was a great thing for me
because that's how I learned how to build and repair a PC.
For me, it was knowledge that I gained.
As you know, we replaced those computers
with these ones in my hand.
This thing is a computer.
You can connect it to a screen and a keyboard.
It also works much faster than the old, opened ones.
This is my new computer.
In Sivas, journalism was a very important job,
and there were so many local newspapers.
This newspaper you see
was one of the most important journals in Sivas and it's still publishing.
but for me it's the place
that had the fastest computers with the largest screen in Sivas.
Because of that,
I visited my friends Kaan and Mete
and asked them how I could help this journal's makeup.
I used to go there to watch them and be with them,
because those computers were my passion and my focus.
They meant dream, pleasure and happiness to me.
I spent part of my life in that journal, I spent the evenings there.
Then, I had an awakening in 1999.
I loved reading the newspaper,
but I used to read it laying it on the ground,
to see it wider.
One day I was doing the same thing and I saw an advertisement.
It was about creating a Turkish portal named "Türk Port."
What was that internet portal or page?
It was a city guide telling where the pharmacy and cinema are,
or what schools the city has.
I wanted to apply.
First, I shared it with my family,
and naturally they found it nonrealistic.
Besides, it was in Istanbul.
But I applied via an e-mail I saw in the newspaper.
First, I joined a web page competition.
We created this website almost in one and half minutes.
It was a very basic web page.
There were İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir city guides,
and we added Sivas,
making it one of the first four cities.
And I can say it was my first job as a high school student.
It was very special for me.
I came to İstanbul and I'll never forget, it was a 12-hour bus ride.
I traveled by Kılıçkaya Tourizm,
a company that doesn't exist anymore.
I went to Media Plaza in İkitelli,
and they told me they would give me two computers and I'd be a web master
and I could work at home or wherever I chose on those PCs.
I said OK, but I asked if they could send the PCs by cargo
and my father would pay the fee.
I came back to Sivas and my father asked me about the job.
I told him that the PCs would come, and he gestured, "Let's see."
After two days, he called home and said, "Erdem, come here to help.
They've delivered two big boxes; come over and help us carry them home."
Working for this web portal when I was 19
was another milestones in my life.
And then, university years.
My interest in music.
You're living in Sivas, and being originally from Erzincan.
It's natural to be familiar with string instruments.
All my friends were like that.
After that, we went to Ankara to see the universities,
where we could study or what we could do there.
This is the Concert Hall of The Bilkent University.
I had a good friend named Uygar,
and we were visiting the universities in Ankara
and we wanted to see Bilkent too before making university choices.
We loved its conservatoire building,
and we wanted to check inside.
So we went into the concert hall and there was a rehearsal
in this two-floor concert hall you see.
We decided to sit back there,
but there were a crowd of people and we sat among them.
They started to look at us;
they had some books and notebooks in their hands.
So I told Uygar, "They've noticed that we're strangers."
But the tones were really nice,
we heard the cello and violin sound,
so we didn't want to leave.
After two and a half minutes, the conductor turned to us
and made a gesture and everybody stood up.
They were a choir and we just sat there.
So my Bilkent adventure ended,
but my interest in music hasn't, ever.
Because music is something that change us,
and it carries the past to the future.
And then we had a dream of designing an e-government portal,
and we achieved that.
With this dream, and also with the help of the internet and technology,
I received an acceptance letter from a university in the USA,
and there were many things that changed me
and especially my educational life.
This building you see
is the second tallest library in the world,
and academically, it's the number one.
The first thing that impressed me there - we already think about the digital age,
we were living in the digital age -
We decided to go down
from the top floor to the ground in the library.
First day,
we went up to the top floor
and we were going down with my wife:
there were excellent books and works,
but all the floors were empty.
But the school was open.
The school has 70-80 thousand students, from five universities,
and it is deserted.
When we came into the 5th floor, I saw something, on the left,
this office.
Fourth floor, 3rd floor, 2nd floor, 1st floor.
First four floor was like that.
They were the library floors
where I waited for 45 minutes or one hour in a queue.
It was another awakening for me.
I said to myself, "OK, digital age and communication
are changing the library, education and academic world as well."
The upper 24 floors were deserted
but on the first four floor you have to wait in a queue
to reach the same book, same information and same work
and it was a big change for me.
On my first day at this university,
we had a meeting with our teacher
and he started to ask us some questions.
First question, I raised my hand and answered it.
Second one, third one, and I did the same.
And I told myself, "OK, I am pretty good; in this kind of university,
among these people I can answer all the questions; I'm really good."
We had a five-minute interval.
Then, he opened YouTube, and it was something new back then.
And he played a 7 or 8-minute video and he suddenly paused it
and asked us to imagine and wtite down the rest of the video
on the papers in front of us.
I could write nothing.
I looked around and saw that everyone was writing something,
but I couldn't write.
Nothing.
And I realized that I needed to change,
I learned that lesson.
Because I had memorized things.
When I read a book, from page 20 I would turn back to page 5.
I could answer all questions stored in my memory,
but when it comes to creativity
or expressing an idea,
I had to learn:
how could I create something or how could I improve myself?
So I experienced another change in that education period.
The experiences and chances
I had in international companies and organizations,
along with the education both in Turkey and abroad,
in fact, showed me this.
As I said earlier, three things; technology, history, society
taught me what kind of geography and what kind of cultural wealth we live in.
While working or studying, I met many people from different countries
and they really knew about our history, cultural wealth
or what kind of land we were living on.
And when I thought about it -
As I said before, if you live in Sivas and are originally from Erzincan,
you are familiar with the string instruments.
And I realized that part of that cultural wealth was our music.
Beside the bağlama varieties the qopuz you see here
are the instruments we've played and carried
since the times in Asia.
I see that some artists still play qopuz.
Especially after 2009, I started to take interest in qopuz.
But there was something different I feel in qopuz.
It was not just an instrument you play; there were also feelings.
It also holds some of the wealth of our culture and history,
as other people indicated to me.
Let me share with you these feelings
resounding on three strings
which have come today from Central Asia.
What I understand of qopuz's three strings are:
the first string has the culture and history;
the second one has the healing power and avoidance of arrogance,
and the third one has the harmony.
If you press the wrong fret here,
you can spoil the whole harmony,
and our civilization and wealth arises
from this harmony and history.
Maybe the feelings we all have are common.
We live in such a geography
that when people from different cities and different regions
hear the sounds arising from these three strings,
they'll have the same feelings, feel sad, although they don't know each other.
(Music)
(Applause)
Erkan Oğur - some of you may know,
he is an inventor.
When you think about it, Erkan Oğur,
he is the inventor of the qopuz and the fretless guitar.
To meet Erkan Oğur was my dream
because he had introduced and popularized the qopuz in Turkey.
And when I listened to Erkan Oğur,
I learned the nothingness and the silence from him.
I tried to go to all of his concerts and catch him in the backstage,
I tried to learn my own qopuz chords
because the chord he made was a new invention.
So, to keep chasing my dream I strived for meeting Erkan Oğur,
and I wanted to share that nothingness and silence with him.
In recent years, we've developed a good relationship.
And I had the chance to share the same stage with Erkan Oğur.
(Music)
The introduction part at the concerts is really special
and really important.
At the concerts, we make these introductions in a special manner.
Sharing a stage with Erkan Oğur was my dream
and he is so modest that he let me and İsmail Hakkı
play this introduction.
(Music)
The harmony,
culture, history,
healing power and avoidance of arrogance
arising from these strings are the most important values brought us today.
When we are living these values, our feelings are really important.
We shouldn't consider it just an instrument.
We live the three things I mentioned, technology history and society
together with these strings in every aspect of our lives.
Do we really realize what kind of geography
and cultural wealth we are living in?
Thank you.
(Applause)