Ersin Uzun

Ersin Uzun is a technologist, entrepreneur and an angel investor. He is a 2022 transplant to UNY from Silicon Valley and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Global Cybersecurity Institute (GCI) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). GCI leads cybersecurity technology and workforce development efforts in the region while offering professional cybersecurity training and services globally.

Ersin’s professional experiences include leading innovation/incubation organizations, establishing technology and open innovation partnerships across public and private sectors, and co-founding, advising and investing in technology startups. In his last role in Silicon Valley, Ersin was the Vice President of R&D and the Head of New Ventures at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Under his leadership, PARC incubated 3 startup companies and licensed technologies to companies like Google, Samsung, Cisco, P&G, Uber, Sandvik etc. that created over $1.5B in market value.

Through his career, Ersin has served in advisory and review boards of Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, Research Council of Canada, U.S. National Science Foundation, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey as well as on the boards and advisory boards of over 10 startups. He frequently consults to VCs and CVCs on tech due diligence and angel invests in pre-seed & seed rounds.

As a hands-on innovator himself, Ersin has more than 65 granted patents. He is an inductee of University of California, Irvine Alumni Hall of Fame where he received his M.S. and PhD in Computer Science from; and, a graduate of the Executive Ignite program from Stanford Graduate School of Business.