Por que existimos

Eu recebi meu Ph.D. no final de 2007 de duas instituições diferentes, Télécom ParisTech e Boğaziçi University, com uma tese sobre reconhecimento visual. Meu Ph.D. o trabalho apareceu nas principais conferências e publicações do domínio da IA, incluindo revistas respeitáveis de IA, como PAMI e IJCV. e os algoritmos que desenvolvi foram classificados nas primeiras posições em várias competições.

After my Ph.D., I got involved in a joint project between Sabancı University and Philips Research in the Netherlands, as an EU Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow. That’s how our paths have crossed with Prof. Aytül Erçil, who was in charge of the Sabancı side of the project. I knew that Aytül Hoca had a company called Vistek, a company working on industrial automation and factory applications with machine vision technology. Towards the end of my postdoc in Philips Research, I told her I wanted to work in her company, and she happily accepted my request. Then, we got along very quickly. In 2010, I started working at Vistek as a Senior Research Scientist and then became R&D Director at Vistek until the end of 2013. And our fateful union has been established. Vistek had a German partner apart from Aytül Hoca, and at the end of 2013, Vistek would be acquired by this German company completely. At that time, I felt the need to do something new. With these thoughts, I had a trip with my friends and during our vacation, a friend of mine described a business model similar to what we do at Vispera now. It was a week-long vacation, and I returned to Istanbul with such thoughts.

That week, Aytül Hoca told me to have dinner with her. At some point during the dinner, she asked me "Ceyhun, you wanted to establish your business, and I do not intend

continuar com a Vistek após a venda; que tal construir um negócio juntos?" Foi incrível, a coincidência...

Can you believe it? I said, “Okay, let's do it”, and everything started. We worked on this idea for over six months. At the beginning of 2014, I resigned from Vistek, right after it has been acquired. I officially established Vispera on February 10, 2014. There were Erdem, Kaan Oner, and Levent with me as the founding team. Aytül Hoca officially joined us in early 2015.

Aytül Hoca provided significant financing for Vispera by transferring her own savings in our first year and a half. From very early on after my graduation from the university, I knew I wanted to found my own business but I didn’t have the right means to make this happen. Thanks to Aytül Hoca and with her, I have been able to found a company, which can really become great. This makes Aytül Hoca one of the most beautiful and important people in my world. We are two people who have been helping each other for ten years now. This is how we founded Vispera, this is how we grow it together with a great team that you will now become part of.

Depois de receber meu Ph.D. pela Brown University em 1983, começou a trabalhar no GM Research Labs. Depois de retornar à Universidade de Bogazici como membro do corpo docente em 1988, visitei estabelecimentos industriais e tentei entender os problemas que eles tinham. No entanto, não havia tanta confiança em nós para desenvolver produtos de alta tecnologia na Turquia. A pesquisa aplicada que realizamos na universidade não poderia se tornar produto.

In 1997, with our 2 graduates, we established Vistek Ltd. which has successfully completed several EU projects, received some international awards but did not do any commercial projects in Turkey. In 2001, I left Boğaziçi University and moved to Sabancı University. I closed Vistek Ltd. in 2006, and with the partnership of Inovent, Sabancı University’s incubation company, we established Vistek A.S. We have done many national and international projects within the organization, and our paths crossed with Ceyhun in one of those projects. After the completion of this project, Ceyhun joined to Vistek.

A German partner, ISRA Vision AG, came to Vistek in 2009; one of the conditions for the partnership was to buy the entire company 4 years later. Vistek was like my baby, I never thought of leaving, but I decided to move to a new exciting venture.

Como Ceyhun disse anteriormente que queria estabelecer uma empresa um dia, decidimos criar uma empresa juntos. Íamos trabalhar em processamento de imagem/aprendizado de máquina, onde ambos temos experiência.

Kaan, Levent, and Başak, who worked at Vistek, also came with us. Later, Kaan Can and Erdem joined us. Thus, we established Vispera with a small core group at the beginning of 2014.

Vispera parecia um paraíso depois dos meus problemas na Vistek. Iniciando esta jornada com alguém que não é apenas tecnicamente competente como Ceyhun, mas com uma equipe central em que confio muito desde o primeiro dia e trabalhando em um ambiente onde não há estresse sobre como pagar os salários no final de cada mês nos permitiu dar passos rápidos para realizar nossos sonhos.

Hoje, somos uma família de 100 pessoas, exportamos tecnologia para mais de 20 países, mas a emoção do primeiro dia ainda continua.