Vedat Taylan Yıldız (nicknamed as it. meaning "elder brother who provides internet" born 7 May 1980) is a Turkish politician. He is member of the

Good Party The Good Party (Turkish language, Turkish: ''İYİ Parti'') is a Turkish nationalism, nationalist, Kemalism, Kemalist and Conservatism, conservative List of political parties in Turkey, political party in Turkey, established on 25 October 2017 b ...

group in the

Municipal Council of Istanbul The Municipal Council of Istanbul () is the decision-making organ of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. The council has decision making authority on most municipal matters with the exception of transport policy, which is handled by the Tra ...

Career

He started working at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

after studying at Boğaziçi and

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

Universities. He returned to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

to support the opposition in 2017 constitutional referendum. He learned to read and write at an early age and started primary school in

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

. Then he studied at İzmir Karşıyaka Anatolian High School and İzmir Science High School respectively. Yıldız, who graduated from Boğaziçi University in 2001, completed his master's degree in

industrial engineering Industrial engineering (IE) is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical, an ...

Massachusetts University The University of Massachusetts is the Public university, public university system of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes six campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell ...

. In 2003, he was accepted into the marketing program of

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

's PhD in

business administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...

. When he returned Turkey in 2017 in order to contribute to "

no campaign The 'no' campaign was a Eurosceptic campaign in the United Kingdom beginning in 2000 which was opposed to the UK's adoption of the euro. The campaign was funded by Business for Sterling and New Europe (campaigning), New Europe groups and was moth ...

", he joined IYI Party as a founder and became the vice chairman of the party. Yıldız came to prominence in 2020 after Tevfik Göksu, the deputy head of the AKP group in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) Assembly, addressed him as "internet friend." In 2020, he started a campaign with the hashtags "internet brother" and "we want internet in the metro" to provide free internet service on the Istanbul subway. The campaign resulted in the start of free internet service on the Istanbul metro in October 2021. Yıldız distributed tablet computers to children and young people during the online education process that started with the COVID-19 Pandemic with the project he launched under the name "internetetsiz köy kalmasın." Yıldız argues that taxes on internet, mobile phones and computers should be reduced and that young people should be free on social media networks. On March 12, 2023, he opened a live broadcast on social media platforms and asked the public the question "Should I resign from my current position and become a parliamentary candidate?". After a large majority stated that this was the right decision, he resigned from Sarıyer and IBB Assembly memberships on March 15, 2023. On June 19, 2023, he announced his resignation from IYI Party.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yildiz, Taylan 1980 births Living people Good Party politicians