00:00So, let me tell you that Selçuk Barakhtar came to me as a very, very applied and determined student.
00:09He's, you know, there are students who come with every kind of profile.
00:13Some come with, like, strong theoretical training.
00:17Some come with, like, strong practical training.
00:21Some come with industry experience.
00:23Some come with all sorts of experience.
00:26Some even come with a degree in philosophy.
00:28And then the point is for us as professors to determine what they are, what their strong points are, and try to help them reinforce those strong points while learning hopefully something.
00:43And so, Selçuk came as a very applied student with his hands on every piece of equipment that he could get his hands on.
00:53And he also came with a very strong determination and with extremely strong work ethics.
01:03One of the clear characteristics was, again, his work ethics and also his courage and his ability to perform work to the max.
01:15He does everything to perfection.
01:19And I think this is because in part of his industrial training with the Bikar family.
01:26And one of the things I saw and I learned from him was his application to make perfect software.
01:34He told me the story of one of his associates who was working first on hardware.
01:41And then everybody was amazed that on software he was not making any mistakes.
01:45And Selçuk told me, well, this guy said, I did not know it was possible to make mistakes.
01:51So, very, very, very hard against producing high-quality work from the get-go.
01:58So, when I had known Selçuk for already a couple of years at MIT, and when we moved to Atlanta, I had offered Selçuk to stay at my home for time for him to find a place where to live.
02:13And I have three girls, three daughters.
02:15At the time, the youngest one was eight.
02:19And she had great pains with math.
02:23And Selçuk took it upon himself to teach her math.
02:28And he still knows her first name.
02:31Her name is Julie.
02:32And he still talks very fondly about this.
02:35And we all remember how he was trying to make our little Julie happy with math, even though it was clearly torture for her.
02:45But Selçuk was doing the best he could.
02:48Also, Selçuk once came to demonstrate drones to the Girl Scout troop that my wife was entertaining.
03:00So, here there were a dozen Girl Scouts watching Selçuk flying a drone inside a parochial school hallway.
03:13Selçuk has always been wonderful with kids.
03:15You know, the way Selçuk has been working on, you know, developing a significant aerospace industry for Turkey is probably the way I would have done it if I were given the opportunity.
03:32And if I had the capabilities, that is, Selçuk has always insisted on made in Turkey.
03:41So, he wants to source as many components as possible from Turkey.
03:47And he wants to have maximum independence from foreign hardware or technology provider.
03:57And I think he's doing that very well.
04:00This is a systematic development.
04:02It is a development that must be done for Turkey to assert its independence.
04:08Definitely, I do support his work and the approach that he's taking.
04:14Hard to tell, because Selçuk was such an independent worker.
04:18He was doing things on his own.
04:21He always managed to find a couple of teammates.
04:25And so, really, all I needed to do was to introduce him to people I thought were as genuine as he is.
04:34They have a little bit of influence.
04:36I would say it is by convincing him that, you know, say, writing a research paper is always a good idea.
04:45The research paper speaks for you and for your scientific achievements.
04:49And I was happy that we were able to do one such paper.
04:53Besides technical excellence, he has extremely strong work ethics.
04:59He's very independent.
05:01But he knows how to form teams.
05:04I've seen him in action.
05:05He was able to form a team for his research, mostly at Georgia Tech, I would say.
05:12And there they went to do their experiments.
05:16And, again, these are, like, essential qualities that I consider led to his success.
05:25There probably are many others.
05:26As I told you, you know, he has extremely strong work ethics.
05:32He's very good with anyone.
05:34So, I think that these are recipes for success.
05:37And I think that, you know, watching the result is amazing.
05:44I've been, I managed to, to watch Selçuk on top of a mountain, working with the troops, the Turkey's troops, testing flying machines.
05:56And I was, I was absolutely amazed that he was with the people up in the mountain, in the snow, testing his stuff.
06:05I am very proud.
06:06I believe that he's, he's one of the few people who really takes technology to heart and who is pushing technology, pushing it with the people who will be his users.
06:22And that's, that's absolutely indispensable.
06:27He's down there with the users to understand their needs and design the machines that meet those needs.
06:35Everybody has their own style.
06:38In the case of Selçuk, what that clearly meant, for example, in terms of mentorship, was that I would give him an end purpose, maybe unattainable, you know, far off in the sky.
06:50And just tell him, okay, get to that goal, reach for the moon.
06:55And, and then we see what, what happens and what truly happens.
06:59And, and then that's pretty much all, all I needed to do.
07:04Doing that, buying him the hardware, and then providing him with recommendable people he could work with.
07:11That said, there are other things that educators can bring to students.
07:18And I wanted to say that the Turkish students I've been honored to work with have all been such hard workers, such patient people, that something magic must happen in Turkey.
07:34Besides Selçuk, I know of two professors, two students who became professors, and they've been so patient, so hardworking towards becoming successful academics, that, you know, something magic must have happened in Turkey before they came over to the U.S. where I met them.
07:56It is a general characteristic among people from Turkey, that this ability to work very hard and to keep working and keep trying until it works, that I have seen in very few people.
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