2024
Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) 2024, Humanitarian & Voluntary Leadership · JCI Turkey
Emre
Varol
We build AI technologies, agent systems, and learning products that expand human capability.
That work draws on building A2SV and production systems at Google · Palantir · Liftoff.
⌖
🇹🇷 Ankara
🇷🇼 Kigali
🇬🇧 London
🇺🇸 Palo Alto
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about me
Builder. Teacher. Changemaker.
8+
Years in Silicon Valley
I grew up in Ankara, Turkey, earned a B.S. & M.S. in Computer Engineering from Bilkent University, and competed at the International Olympiad in Informatics before spending 8+ years building production systems at Palantir, Google, and Liftoff.
But a promise I made to myself in my master's thesis, dedicating it to the children of Africa, never faded. In 2019, I flew to Addis Ababa with one idea: Africa's engineers can compete with anyone in the world. They just needed the right structure.
That idea became A2SV. Today, 1,200+ engineers from 22 African countries have gone through our program. Students who had never heard of Google are now at Google. That never gets old.
Founder & CEO · A2SV
TOYP 2024 Awardee
IOI Competitor
🟡🔴 Galatasaray
Guitar 🎸
Hiking 🥾
career
Where I've Built
A career in systems: talent systems, ML revenue systems, research systems, and mission-critical software.
Founder & CEO
Nov 2019 → Present
Incorporated 2021
- Talent and product system: founded A2SV and grew it to serve 1,200+ software engineers and tech entrepreneurs across 22 African countries
- Built a rigorous curriculum, graduate mentor loop, product incubator, and continent-wide AI hackathon
- Co-founded Eskalate and earned support from Google, Jeff Dean, and Karim Beguir
Machine Learning Engineer
- ML revenue system: architected core ML pipelines for mobile ad targeting: re-engagement & view-through optimization
- Automated feature selection with Gradient Boosted Decision Trees (GBDT)
- Delivered ~15% revenue uplift on a $100M+ business line
Software Engineer, Google Research
- Research production system: enhanced search ad relevance & quality using advanced NLP
- Built automated system for generating ad callouts
- Developed negation & conditional statement detectors to improve ad content accuracy
Software Engineer
- Mission-critical software system: migrated document persister from file-based to Git-based system, improving scalability
- Reduced database processing from hours to seconds via diff-based updates
Research Intern
- Distributed search system: research on query forwarding in distributed web search engines
- Pipelined strategies reducing latency in large-scale distributed systems
a2sv
Africa to Silicon Valley
A2SV is the nonprofit I founded in 2019. I started with 22 students in Addis Ababa. Google supported our early growth, helping the program become a more durable system. The talent was always there.
We combine a free 1,000+ hour curriculum with mentorship, product building, and access to global opportunity. Graduates return to teach the next generation, so capability compounds inside the community.
A2SV has grown beyond interview preparation. Graduates return as mentors, teams build products around real problems, and the program is adapting engineering education for the AI era.
Donate to A2SVWhere community members earned offers
Google
aAmazon
BBloomberg
inLinkedIn
Palantir
DDatabricks
🎓
1,200+
Software engineers and tech entrepreneurs
💼
120+
Offers earned by the community
🚀
20+
Products incubated
🌍
48
Hackathon countries
A2SV Documents
Read the five-year impact report for the programs, outcomes, and people behind A2SV's growth.
PDF · 50
PDF
A2SV 5 Years of Impact Report
Five years of programs, governance, outcomes, people, and product proof.
PDF · 2
PDF
A2SV 2-Pager
The model, results, footprint, and ways to partner in two pages.
Videos
Watch a conversation on how AI is reshaping work and what that shift means for African builders.
6:21
2:00
3:32
1:03:16
AI technologies & products
Digital Products for Human Capability
Products built by strong teams around real workflows: learning, access, health, finance, food, agent memory, and everyday decisions.
A2SV Products
Products built by A2SV teams
Adot
adot.life
Adot
A maternal health companion built by an A2SV team to support mothers with trusted guidance, vital tracking, appointment reminders, and access to care.
Momentum: serving mothers with hospital and medical expert partnerships behind the product.
Open Adot ↗
AfroChat
afrochat.app
AfroChat
A multi-model AI assistant from the A2SV product ecosystem, making modern AI tools more accessible for chat, images, personas, and daily productivity.
Momentum: thousands of users across dozens of countries are already using it.
Open AfroChat ↗
Akil
akilconnect.org
Akil
An opportunity platform from an A2SV team that helps young people discover jobs, internships, and volunteer roles matched to their skills and ambition.
Momentum: built to turn talent into visible, reachable career pathways.
Open Akil ↗
Dime
dime.gold
Dime
A remittance product from the A2SV ecosystem, designed to make sending money home faster, clearer, and easier for diaspora families.
Momentum: focused on reducing friction in one of the most important financial workflows for families.
Open Dime ↗
Eskalate
eskalate.io
Eskalate
A2SV's talent and delivery platform for companies that need serious engineering capacity. It connects global teams with rigorously trained African developers who can build, ship, and scale.
Momentum: trusted by global teams, with A2SV-trained engineers delivering production work.
Open Eskalate ↗
RateEat
rateeat.app
RateEat
A food discovery product from an A2SV team, built around visual menus, item-level reviews, smart filters, and a better way to decide what to eat.
Momentum: hundreds of diners and restaurants, with review data growing across the platform.
Open RateEat ↗
SkillBridge
skillbridge.academy
SkillBridge
An AI-powered learning platform from an A2SV team, combining expert-verified content, tutoring, gamified practice, and exam preparation.
Momentum: thousands of students and tens of thousands of solved questions.
Open SkillBridge ↗
Other Products
Independent products gaining momentum
Engram
engram.tools
Engram
Engram gives AI agents durable memory for project context, decisions, gotchas, and reusable patterns, so teams stop rebuilding intelligence from scratch.
Momentum: stronger agents, faster handoffs, fewer repeated mistakes, and more productive builders.
Open Engram ↗
English Cash
english.cash
English Cash
English Cash turns language practice into a practical product loop: useful repetition, stronger communication, and better access to global opportunities.
Momentum: built for learners who want progress they can feel in real conversations.
Open English Cash ↗
EvimiBul
evimibul.org
EvimiBul
EvimiBul is a housing discovery product built around clarity, trust, and practical decision support for people searching for a home.
Momentum: useful software for one of the most stressful everyday decisions.
Open EvimiBul ↗
skills
What I Know
The mix I use to move from technical detail to teams, products, and institutions.
Leadership & Strategy
Software Engineering
AI & Data Science
Cloud & Tools
Teaching & Mentorship
Interests
education
Academic Roots
The academic foundation behind a career in algorithms, systems, research, and teaching.
M.S. Computer Engineering
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Jan 2010 → Jan 2012
GPA 3.61 / 4.00
B.S. Computer Engineering
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Sep 2006 → Jan 2010
GPA 3.64 / 4.00
teaching
Teaching Experience
From university classrooms to national olympiad teams, teaching has been a continuous part of the work.
Guest Lecturer - Addis Ababa Institute of Technology
Nov 2019 – Sep 2022 · Data Structures, Algorithms, Problem-Solving, Digital Logic Design
Nov 2019 – Sep 2022 · Data Structures, Algorithms, Problem-Solving, Digital Logic Design
Lecturer & Coach - TUBITAK National Olympiads in Informatics
2005 – 2011 · Advanced algorithms, national team coaching, contest design & selection
2005 – 2011 · Advanced algorithms, national team coaching, contest design & selection
Teaching Assistant - Bilkent University
Feb 2010 – Jun 2012 · CS351, CS102 (Algorithms), CS473, CS223 (Digital Design)
Feb 2010 – Jun 2012 · CS351, CS102 (Algorithms), CS473, CS223 (Digital Design)
recognition
Honors & Awards
Selected milestones from competitive programming, education, and public leadership.
2005
International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), Representing Turkey (2005)
2004
Gold Medal (1st Place), Turkish National Olympiads in Informatics (2004)
Ranked 10th Globally, 2nd IEEEXtreme Programming Contest (2008)
Ranked 1st, Bilkent University IEEE Computer Society Programming Competition (2010)
Ranked 1st, 12th METU Programming Competition (2009)
Ranked 82nd / 500,000+, National High School Entrance Exam, Turkey (2002)
research
Publications
Selected research on large-scale search systems and near-duplicate content detection.
Query forwarding in geographically distributed web search engines
Cambazoglu B. B., Varol E., Kayaaslan E., Aykanat C., Baeza-Yates R.
SIGIR '10 · ACM SIGIR 2010
CoDet: Sentence-based containment detection in news corpora
Varol E., Can F., Aykanat C., Kaya O.
CIKM '11 · ACM CIKM 2011
Galatasaray
Born in Ankara, heart yellow and red. Football and code have been with me equally long.
beyond code
When I'm not building
You'll find me with a guitar in hand, on a hiking trail, watching Galatasaray dominate, or deep in a book on psychology, leadership, or strategy. I believe the best engineers are also curious humans, and I try to embody that.
🎸 Guitar
⚽ Football
🥾 Hiking
📚 Reading
✍️ Writing
🧀 Good Cheese
gallery
Moments & Memories
People, rooms, and moments from building A2SV, teaching, product work, and the global technology ecosystem around it.
Selected moments
People and places behind the work.
These are not just memories. They are snapshots of students, advisors, teams, and institutions around the work: education, AI, products, and global opportunity.
Selected highlights
Six moments that carry the story
contact
Let's Connect
Send a message below, or choose a time if a conversation is easier.