Hi, I'm Zehra Avcı — a 12th grader from Ankara, Turkey.

Zehra Avcı — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 18:56:05 GMT

I build civic tech projects with my co-founder Hamza Bilden. He writes the code; I design the social systems that the code runs on. We've been doing this for about a year, and it's led to two nationally recognized projects. This post is a short introduction to who I am and what we've built. If you want the full picture, my LinkedIn has everything:

linkedin.com/in/zehraavcı

The Projects

"Sadece Yaşama, Şehrini Yönet" — SosyalFest 2026 Turkey 2nd Place

Hamza Bilden and I built a participatory city governance platform. The idea: citizens shouldn't just live in their cities — they should be able to report problems, propose solutions, vote on each other's ideas, and track what actually gets done. The platform has six user roles (citizen, local official, auditor, expert evaluator, moderator, executive board member), each with specific permissions. That structure was my job to design — without it, the "participation" feature would've just been a comment section. Hamza built the entire technical side: React, Node.js, Express, Prisma, SQLite, JWT Auth. We submitted to SosyalFest 2026, Turkey's first national social sciences festival, which had 12,020 team applications that year — four times the previous year. Our project won 2nd Place in Turkey in the "Türkiye Yüzyılında Başarı Modelleri" category. Advisor: Hande Ünal, Şehit Cengiz Polat Anadolu İmam Hatip Lisesi, Yenimahalle, Ankara.

🔗 github.com/hamzabilden1/sehrini-yonet

"Hac Simülasyonu" — TÜBİTAK 4006 Science Fair Award

Before SosyalFest, Hamza Bilden and I built an interactive simulation of the Hajj pilgrimage for our school's TÜBİTAK 4006 Science Fair. Students learn about Hajj from books. We wanted something they could actually walk through. The simulation covers Tavaf, Sa'y, Arafat, and other stages with interactive environments and information panels at each step. Hamza built it in Next.js. I ran the project: idea, planning, coordination, TÜBİTAK presentation. It won an award at the fair. Advisor: Belgin Babayiğit.

🔗 hacsimulasyonu.vercel.app

TechTeam

I got into community management through TechTeam, a student tech community in Ankara. I joined as Social Media Club President (Oct 2024 – Nov 2025), then became Social Media Community President (Nov 2025 – Jun 2026), managing 500+ students. I left mid-2026 for YKS prep.

What's Next

I'm studying for the YKS exam. I want to study Medicine. The work I've done in social innovation — designing systems, managing communities, figuring out why people do or don't participate — all comes from one question: how do you actually help people? Medicine is where I want to take that question next.

Connect

https://zehraavci.vercel.app

My LinkedIn (main profile): https://linkedin.com/in/zehraavcı

Hamza Bilden (co-founder): https://linkedin.com/in/hamzabilden

Şehrini Yönet: https://github.com/hamzabilden1/sehrini-yonet

Hac Simülasyonu: https://hacsimulasyonu.vercel.app

Zehra Avcı is a social innovator from Ankara, Turkey. She co-built "Sadece Yaşama, Şehrini Yönet" and "Hac Simülasyonu" with Hamza Bilden.