Semuhi Sinanoğlu

Semuhi is dedicated to empowering young people in the Middle East & North Africa, by providing them with leverage through expertise-sharing, networking, and multi-stakeholder settings, and also preparing them for future opportunities & challenges ahead regarding different applications of artificial intelligence and big data.

Semuhi serves as the founding president of the Co-Opinion Network, a World Bank partner which mobilizes more than 30 stakeholder institutions across 6 countries in the Middle East & North Africa, to advocate youth policies and empower young people in the region. The network aims to accomplish multi-stakeholder collaboration between the private sector, universities, and civil society to foster youth employment. Besides his university-based research projects, he worked for two years as social policy analyst at Development Analytics, a London & Istanbul-based consultancy company, where he was involved in several research projects of international institutions such as the World Bank and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He has been to Armenia, South Cyprus, and Iraq to contribute to peace-making and conflict resolution efforts. In 2016, he lived in Palestine and served as a researcher at Al-Haq, Ramallah, one of the first human rights organizations in the region. He also served as the vice-president of the Association of International Relations Studies for Turkey, which mobilizes students from 46 universities and 26 cities. He was the editor of several nationally-distributed magazines/journals, which aim to promote freedom of expression and cover the stories of subaltern. He also trains youth civil society organizations to help them develop their capacities in terms of strategic planning, public narrative, digital security, and networking strategies.

Semuhi completed his double major program in Political Science, International Relations and Economics at Bogazici University, Turkey, with high honors. He spent one semester at Columbia University, NY during his undergraduate program. He completed his MA in International Relations with a specialization in Middle Eastern Politics at Koc University, Turkey. His thesis focuses on the varieties of capitalism in the Middle East & North Africa. With a background in quantitative analysis and enthusiasm for cutting-edge research methodologies, in his university-based research projects he covers, inter alia, clientelism & patronage, welfare regimes, the politics of structural adjustment, and the political economy of development in the Middle East & North Africa. In 2017, he successfully completed Harvard University Kennedy School Executive Education Program entitled “Leadership, Organizing, and Action”.

In 2009, Semuhi was the 5th rank holder in National Student Selection Examinations out of 1.5 million students in Turkey. In the same year, he received an Outstanding Success Scholarship from the Turkish Educational Foundation. He is a change-maker at Ashoka Foundation, a young scholar at Global Relations Forum, an associate of the Al-Sharq Youth Forum, and a fellow at the Open Society Foundations Human Rights & Governance Program.

Semuhi is also passionate about singing, writing poems & stories, and believes in their transformative power.