- Social Innovation,
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Design Thinking
- Sustainability
- Blockchain for Social Impact
- Gamification for Social Impact
- New Frontiers of Social and Human Development
Dr. Ates is an associate professor with particular interest in social innovation, social entrepreneurship, sustainable development, socio-technical transformation, design thinking, blockchain for social impact and gamification. Dr. Ates has obtained graduate and undergraduate degrees from Vienna University of Economics and PhD degree (Doktor der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften) from Vienna University of Technology in 2011. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard University in 2016-2017. Along with teaching and research activities, he has been involved in projects at UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) and EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) as investigator and country expert. With the belief that social innovation is key to overcome so called "middle welfare trap" by sustaining and improving the wellbeing of the people beyond increasing the monetary term welfare, Dr. Ates has founded Bostan Institute for Social Innovation in 2015.
- Member of Economic Policy Division at Department of Economics
- Economy and Development 2.0: New Frontiers
- Research Methods
- Social Innovation and entrepreneurship
- He has initiated and is still running various programmes for social development and change.
- He actively researches in areas of innovation, social entrepreneurship and and gamification for social impact.
- He studies non-monetary methods and applications that can be employed to overcome the so called "middle welfare trap".
''The best way to predict the future is to create it.'' Alan Key
A researcher and practitioner in the field of social innovation, social entrepreneurship, sustainable development, design thinking and new frontiers in social and human development