Hi, I’m Utku. I studied econometrics, but most of what I’ve learned outside the classroom has come from trying things, working on startup ideas, research, data projects, AI experiments, and projects with people I’ve met along the way.
I always liked complex problems especially the kind that sit somewhere between numbers, business, and technology.
These days, I’m spending most of my time around business, finance, analytics, and investing.
I like understanding how a business works, what actually drives its economics, and how data can help turn a messy question into a better decision.
I still enjoy the technical side tho. AI, machine learning, and software are tools I like having around when they genuinely make the problem easier to understand or solve.
I’ve never been very interested in keeping business and technical work in separate boxes. Sometimes the useful thing is a financial model. Sometimes it’s SQL, a small script, a dashboard, or an AI system. Other times it’s simply asking better questions before touching any of them.
That mix is probably the common thread across most of the work on this site.
I studied Econometrics at Dokuz Eylül University, where I spent a lot of time around statistics, economics, quantitative methods, and financial markets.
I also spent an Erasmus semester in Brandenburg, where I stepped a little outside my usual lane and studied applied econometrics, algorithms, and complex systems.
University was also where I started getting involved in things beyond classes — student communities, project teams, competitions, and startup ideas. Some of them became serious projects, some stayed experiments, but all of them taught me something.
Looking back, that period was mostly about trying things, meeting people, and learning by doing.
Outside classes, I got involved in student communities, project teams, competitions, and startup ideas. I was part of the founding team of the DEU Econometrics Club, joined investment and technology communities, and worked with teams on projects that eventually took us to Teknofest.
Some of those things became serious projects, some stayed experiments, but all of them helped me understand what kind of work I actually enjoy.
Narsent was one of the projects where I got to work across a bit of everything — product, analytics, strategy, customer conversations, and the technical side of the decision engine. It taught me a lot about what happens between having an idea and trying to turn it into something companies might actually use.
Invessly was one of the first projects where I seriously mixed finance and AI. We worked on a RAG-powered financial assistant for retail investors, and I spent time across financial modeling, portfolio optimization, retrieval, and the context-engineering side of the product.
The project eventually took us to TEKNOFEST Mediterranean 2024, where we ranked 4th out of 327 teams.
