Dr. Orhan Çömlek was born in Karabük, Turkey in 1971. He received B.S degree in civil engineering from İstanbul Technical University, İstanbul, Turkey, in 1991. He had his Master of Science degree in design and earthquake engineering from University of Illinois, USA, in 1997. He had his Ph.D. degree in business administration from Gebze Institute of Technology (GYTE), Kocaeli, Turkey, in 2009.  He is also about to finish his second M.S. degree (at thesis) in design and procurement engineering at Gebze Technical University, Kocaeli, Turkey.

In 1991, he joined the Architecture Department of Gebze Institute of Technology, as a research assistant, and gave the courses of construction management, engineering mathematics as lecturer. At the same time He gave consultancy to the government agencies such as local municipalities and private construction companies as well. His research interest were smart buildings, construction management, conflict management, firm  performance analysis via self-assessment and proficiency.   

In 2014, he started to work at Tubitak Marmara Technopark, the first technopark in Turkey, as general manager.  His professional interests are entrepreneurship, innovation and research and development (R&D) projects management, marketing and commercialization of the innovative outcomes. As a rain maker he is also interested in the areas of  industrial symbiosis, IOT, industry 4.0, smart cities, fintech projects, clustering and funding the R&D projects such as  angel investing, social funding and venture capitals.

After setting up a new approach of management about downsizing and redesigning of the management system the technopark  has gained quality certification with new abilities about technology transferring and new success stories aroused; “Woman in Innovation” entrepreneurial camps, R&D-Industry-Academia  meetings, demoday (Entrepreneur & Investor Meeting )  funding portal,  crowd  funding projects, IT clustering, foreign trade delegations, mentoring , education and consulting  programs about intellectual property, contracting, project writing  and  management, marketing, commercializing, branding strategies etc.

Finally the technopark is called as “the difference maker”.