Mehmet Ali Makbuloğlu

Mehmet Ali Makbuloğlu was born in 2001. He is in his second year of high school. In 2014, when he couldn’t get the medicine his sibling needed for an illness because the roads were closed, he started Project:DROVE, a pharmacy drone project. Along the way, Mehmet Ali embraced the Maker Movement, gave training to children at Istanbul Maker Lab, and at various education seminars explained to teachers the behaviors, wishes and actions of 21st-century students. For 1 year he competed from Turkey with his school team in FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition), sponsored by NASA and Google. In 2016 he paused the DROVE project and started Project: Pira, so that people from all walks of life could build drones to suit their own needs without facing the difficulties he faced while building one. Pira, now run by two young entrepreneurs, is at its 3rd prototype stage. Linking maker culture with the 21st century, Mehmet Ali is trying to spread these concepts through examples.