Gizem Şalcıgil White is the founder of the ‘Turkish Coffee Truck’ project, which promotes Turkey through engagement and cultural diplomacy. This non-profit project, which is a volunteer initiative to promote world-renowned Turkish coffee culture and to engage people in “coffee conversations”, has been honored in the United States House of Representatives Congressional Record in May 2012. Volunteers travelled to five major states in the U.S. in 2012 and European countries in 2013 including Netherlands, Belgium and France. She is also the founder of Turkayfe.org, a social networking website developed to promote Turkey online. More info can be found at www.mobileturkishcoffeetruck.
Gizem has been donating her time and energy to the Turkish-American community in D.C. since 2009. She is the current president of American Turkish Association of Washington D.C. (ATA-DC) and the Vice President of Capital Region for Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). She also served as the Washington DC representative of Federation of Turkish American Associations (FTAA) in 2012.
She is married and lives in Crystal City, Virginia.