The late Sakıp Sabancı, Honorary Chair of Sabancı University and philanthropic businessperson, was commemorated with a special ceremony on the 20th anniversary of his passing. The commemoration ceremony held at the Sabancı Center was attended by Istanbul Governor Davut Gül, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, representatives from academia, the worlds of business, art, and media, the Sabancı Family, and Koç Holding Honorary Chair Rahmi Koç, along with many of Sakıp Sabancı’s friends, and other guests.
Within the scope of the ceremony, in which a panel entitled "Sakıp Sabancı's Vision: Navigating the Future in Our Globalizing World: Trends, Risks, and Opportunities" was held, the artificial intelligence model developed by Sabancı University Board of Trustees Member E. Melisa Sabancı Tapan to reflect Sakıp Sabancı's mind, knowledge and way of thinking was also introduced. The digital model, developed by processing all visual, audio, and written content related to Sakıp Sabancı by productive artificial intelligence technologies, can simulate the mind of Sakıp Sabancı, who passed away in 2004, in the most realistic way, while carrying his ideas to the present day.
“Sabancı University is the greatest reflection of Sakıp Sabancı's belief in young people, education, science and technology.”
The opening speech of the ceremony was made by Güler Sabancı, Founding Chair of the Board of Trustees of Sabancı University. Güler Sabancı started by saying, "Sakıp Sabancı, in his own words, was a son of this country, and he loved his country very much," and continued as follows: "He loved each and every individual of his country, looked at every matter and every person without prejudice and constructively, and supported unity and solidarity. He had a personality that attached great importance to creating common sense, he was a lover of Turkey and worked tirelessly to advance Turkey on the path of contemporary civilizations. Our duty now is to keep his ideas and values alive and continue to pass them on to future generations.”
Stating that they commemorate Sakıp Sabancı with social sciences, humanities, and scientific research, as in his will, Güler Sabancı continued: “Sabancı University had a very special and privileged place for Sakıp Sabancı. Our university was 5 years old when he left us. Now it is a 25-year-old young institution. We have more than 11 thousand undergraduate graduates. The number of our master's and doctoral graduates has exceeded 6 thousand. As an institution that has implemented the best examples of academic-industry collaborations in our country, we have carried out more than 2 thousand projects so far. Sabancı University is the greatest reflection of Sakıp Sabancı's belief in young people, education, science, and technology. It has always been a pioneer and innovative in academic and scientific research in Turkey with its structure and its approach to education. At the heart of our university's Tuzla campus are the words of the Great Leader Atatürk, ’My spiritual heritage is science and reason.’ Inspired by these words, we always strive to be at the center of the most advanced technology and most innovative research.”
The theme of the 2025 Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards has been announced
Pointing out that the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards have achieved a first in their field, Güler Sabancı said: “The Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards are the only award program given internationally in the field of social sciences in Turkey. A separate fund was created for the program in the will of the late Sakıp Sabancı. The award program has so far supported dozens of young researchers and the best scientists in the world in many different fields, from economics to sociology, from Turkish and Islamic art to Turkish history. The Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards will continue to support young scientists next year, as every year. We determined the theme of the 2025 Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards based on the question “Realigning values in a transforming world order: What needs preserving, reevaluating, and redefining?”. I wish success to the young scientists who will apply for the award.”
Sakıp Sabancı gave a message with artificial intelligence
In her speech at the ceremony, Melisa Sabancı Tapan, Sakıp Sabancı's granddaughter, and Sabancı University Board of Trustees Member, emphasized that Sakıp Sabancı inspired the generations that came after him. Melisa Sabancı Tapan explained that, inspired by the idea of carrying Sakıp Sabancı's vision to future generations, they developed an artificial intelligence model using Sabancı's extensive content archive, videos, texts, books, and voice recordings. After his speech, Tapan had a conversation with her grandfather with the help of artificial intelligence.
Sakıp Sabancı, who gave heartfelt answers to Melisa Sabancı Tapan's questions in the very emotional conversation, sent the following message, touching on issues such as his view of life, social contribution, and future expectations: “If I had the chance to be with you in 2024, I would say, 'Let's look at what the coming years will bring to us'. The first thing for me to do would be to dive into this crazy, fast-paced world of technology and think, 'How can we incorporate it into our business?'. Then, how can we take better care of our lands and water? This is important to me. Sustainability, in today's language, is actually the same thing as what we used to call 'neighborliness' and ‘efforts to protect nature'. Yes, if I were among you in 2024, I would say, ‘Continue at full speed, pursuing new opportunities. It is not for us to stop.’ I would shout, 'We can do it'. As I always say, our greatest strength is our unity.”
“We must follow Sakıp Sabancı's footsteps and turn risks into opportunities.”
The panel entitled “Sakıp Sabancı's Vision: Navigating the Future in Our Globalizing World: Trends, Risks and Opportunities", held at the 20th anniversary ceremony, also attracted great attention. The panel, moderated by Prof. Dr. Meltem Müftüler-Baç, Dean of the Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, was attended by Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards Special Jury Prize winners Lord Nicholas Stern, Professor of Economics and Management at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences; Susan Michie, Director of the Center for Behavior Change at University College London; and Philip Pettit, Princeton University L.S. Rockefeller Professor of Human Values.
Lord Nicholas Stern said 21st-century growth and development must be sustainable, resilient, and long-term. He continued, “The climate crisis also poses a great risk for the future. With a temperature increase of 3 degrees, Southern Europe would look like the Sahara Desert. We need to change the energy landscape of cities, and this brings many opportunities. All of this can be achieved thanks to good social sciences. I believe we can and must deal with the risks. Good policies, good social scientists, and scientific studies can help us in this regard. We must follow Sakıp Sabancı's footsteps and turn risks into opportunities."
Professor Susan Michie said the following: “We are not yet ready for the world of the future. We must achieve behavior change at many levels. We must act collectively. We must educate our population, our societies. While making things better, we can take advantage of elements such as artificial intelligence. This requires democratic supervision, transparency, and accountability. Efforts should be increased to prevent water, food, air pollution, pandemics and to develop medical technologies."
Professor Philip Pettit listed the risks that the world is likely to face in the coming years as scarcity of resources, mass population movements, and information anarchy. Stating that we will encounter climate refugees in the future, Pettit also drew attention to the aging population. Philip Pettit said, “The world population will be very old in 2070. Curiosity is one of the most important virtues. Young people need to think about everything instead of assuming or accepting things as they are. In addition, there is information anarchy on social media. From this perspective, I say, "The unexamined life is not worth living."
"Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards and 20th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony" ended with plaque presentations and the screening of the commemorative film following the panel.
You can find information about the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards at award.sabanciuniv.edu.