ALI EMRE BILGIC
_edited.jpg)
Where it started
seasons on court
Guard and forward. Captain at Lima Sports Club, 2023–2025.
On a basketball court you get about a second to decide: pass or shoot, help or stay home. After ten seasons as a guard and forward, I stopped only asking whether a decision worked and started asking why I made it.
That question pulled me into economics and behavioural science. Why do some teams keep winning while others don't? Why do people know they should save, and still don't? Why can't a loyal crowd buy a championship? I've chased those questions through my own research, economics olympiads and courses from Stanford, Harvard and MIT, and then tried to build something useful with what I found: a budgeting app, a finance club at my school and a savings curriculum for ten-year-olds.
Piano is where I slow down. Running is where I learned that the hardest part of any long project is the middle. This site is where I write down what I'm learning and building while it's still happening.
10
01
It started with a split second.
runners, one cause
The team I organised for KAÇUV at the Istanbul Half Marathon.
8
countries at IEO
Represented Türkiye in Shenzhen and spoke at IEOx Youth Talks.
56
languages
Turkish and English, with Spanish in progress. Born in Belfast, raised in Istanbul.
3
02
How I Spend My Time
Five things I take seriously.
I've played basketball since I was eight, as a licensed player for five clubs: FMV Işık, Bahçeşehir, Beşiktaş, Lima and ITO. Every new team meant proving myself again to new coaches and new teammates. Being captain at Lima Sports Club from 2023 to 2025 changed how I saw the game. It stopped being only about my own performance and became about keeping the team focused when we were losing, looking out for the players who weren't getting minutes, and setting the standard in training. Basketball is also where my interest in decision-making began. On the court you have a second to read the defence and choose, and I wanted to understand what makes some choices better than others. It taught me to lead and to stay calm under pressure, and to be the same teammate whether we're winning or not.
What interests me most about economics is the gap between how people should decide and how they actually decide. I've studied it through ORA's economics and finance summer school and courses from MIT and HarvardX. I've also tested my own questions. My research on the Turkish football league asked what really separates winning teams from the rest, and it won the Best Paper Award at the International Princetonian Institute Conference. I've also tried to make the ideas useful to other people. I built MicroBudgetCoach to help people form small saving habits, and I helped adapt a financial literacy curriculum for 5th graders, because I believe everyone should have access to this knowledge, not just the people who go looking for it.
I like taking a question far enough to find out whether my first answer holds up. My research has taken me from Turkish football to greenwashing in corporate reports. In my greenwashing project, I looked at what a rule-based system misses when it identifies environmental, social and governance claims. Working with my mentor, Dr. Emre Atlıer Olca, helped me turn that question into a paper accepted for presentation at ISMSIT 2026. Research has made me more careful about what I can claim from the evidence. I enjoy finding patterns, but I also want to understand where a method falls short and what I still don't know.
FINANCIAL LITERACY INITIATIVE
With the Global Shapers Community, İzmir Hub · 2026
The more I studied economics, the more it bothered me. Financial decisions shape almost every part of daily life, yet most students are never taught the basics, and the ones who are usually come from schools with more resources. I joined the Global Shapers İzmir Hub and worked with volunteers from India and Thailand on how financial education could work in different cultures. Comparing our countries showed that the problem is the same almost everywhere: people learn about money too late.
My part was helping adapt Mary and the Secrets of Savings into Turkish. Translating it was the easy part. The real challenge was rewriting the ideas so a 10-year-old could understand them, using simple language, visuals and examples from their own lives. The programme will run first in my school's middle school and then at a partner public school, so it reaches students from different backgrounds.
KAÇUV HOPE AMBASSADOR
Kanserli Çocuklara Umut Vakfı · 2026
KAÇUV supports children with cancer and their families. It provides housing near hospitals for families travelling from other cities, along with psychological and social support. Most of all, it reminds children that they're not alone. I had two surgeries when I was younger, and I still remember how confusing and overwhelming a hospital can feel for a child. That's why this cause is personal to me.
As a Hope Ambassador, I turned something I already loved into a way to help. I ran the İş Bankası Half Marathon with a donation page linked to my run, and I'm now training for my first full marathon in November for the same cause. Raising money meant telling my story publicly and asking people to support it, which was harder for me than the running.
Piano is the opposite of basketball. There's no crowd and no clock, just me, the music and a lot of repetition. Preparing for ABRSM Grade 5 means practising the same passage again and again until it's right, and then practising it some more so it stays right. That slow, quiet progress has taught me patience I don't think I'd have learned anywhere else. On busy days, playing is also what resets me. After school, training and studying, sitting at the piano helps me focus again.
03
Selected Initiatives
Things I've started, built and led.
International Economics Olympiad (IEO) 2026
Representing Türkiye in Shenzhen, China, I earned a Silver Medal among finalists from nearly sixty countries. Being selected as one of twelve IEOx Youth Talks speakers allowed me to share insights globally, gaining new perspectives, lasting friendships, and profound motivation for future challenges.
IEO 2026 TEAM TÜRKİYE
SILVER
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
SAC Financial Literacy & Investment Club
CLUB
A student club at Sev American College for learning how money, saving and investing work in real life.
PROJECT LEAD
Financial Literacy Education Initiative
EDUCATION
With the Global Shapers İzmir Hub, adapting "Mary and the Secrets of Savings" into Turkish for 5th graders, first at my school and then at a partner public school.
CREATOR
Let's Study Together
Free study systems, AP and SAT resources, and a step-by-step guide to starting your first research project.