Each semester, students in the Science Technology and Society (STS) course work in teams to complete a term project. In the course of preparing their projects, the students contact innovators in order to question them about the values that are considered in the innovation process. During the spring and fall semesters of the 2021–22 academic year – designated Sustainability Year at Bilkent University – students focused on sustainability as one of the key values.
At the end of both semesters, after the projects were reviewed by a jury, the teams with the projects that were judged to be the best received awards at a ceremony hosted by the Faculty of Engineering.
The spring 2022 STS awards event took place at Mithat Çoruh Auditorium on May 10. The event was organized by Dr. Robin Ann Downey, an STS lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering; Electrical and Electronics Engineering student Şahan Yoruç Selçuk acted as master of ceremonies. The program included a talk by Dr. Zeynep Yöntem, chairman of the board and founder of the sustainability consultancy firm Ekodenge, who spoke about the importance of sustainability for future engineers.
The awards were then presented. The Outstanding STS Sustainability Award was given for the project “Graphene-Based Solar Cells in the Context of Responsible Research and Innovation.” Team members were Dilruba Sultan Haliloğlu, Kerem Fidan, İlknur Yılmaz, Kaan Keven and Ece Teker.
The Sustainability and Innovation Award went to Arda İçöz, Ahmet Melih Gıcır, Zeynep Selcen Öztunç, Erdem Deniz Erdağ and Nurettin Onur Vural for their project “AirCar: A ‘Jetsons’ Dream Coming True.”
The Sustainability and Equity Award was given for the project “Tangible Social Concerns in a Digitalized World: An RRI Case Study on Digital Transformation Technologies at TEKNOPAR,” by Aras Fırat Ünal, Batu Arda Düzgün, Mehmet Ufuk Özdemir, Şahan Yoruç Selçuk and Tolga Veske.
The jury for the spring 2022 awards consisted of Assoc. Prof. Didem Dizdaroğlu (Urban Design and Landscape Architecture), Assoc. Prof. Selin Kocaman (Industrial Engineering), Assoc. Prof. Jennie Lane (Educational Sciences) and Prof. Haldun Özaktaş (Electrical and Electronics Engineering).