TEKNOFEST Southeast Opens as 1.6M Young Innovators Apply
Selcuk Bayraktar, chairman of the board of trustees of the Türkiye Technology Team Foundation (T3 Foundation) and chairman of the TEKNOFEST board, called the event “a confidence revolution” aimed at the mindset that says “we cannot do it.”
“TEKNOFEST is a confidence revolution. It is a rebellion against the mentality that says, ‘We cannot do it.’ It is an objection to imitation and learned helplessness,” Bayraktar said in his opening address.
TEKNOFEST Southeast, the festival's regional leg, runs through Oct. 4. It draws tech enthusiasts, young investors and thousands of visitors to shows, exhibitions and the finals of technology contests in 14 categories.
Record youth turnout
Bayraktar called Sanliurfa “the zero point of history,” noting that it sits among the lands where humanity moved to settled life, developed agriculture and laid the foundations of civilization.
This is the 15th festival since the launch in 2018. Bayraktar said the “seedling we planted in 2018 has today turned into a major technology movement.”
Participants have come from all 81 Turkish provinces and 97 countries, he said. More than 730,000 teams and over 1.6 million young people applied to technology competitions in 62 categories.
“These are not just numbers. They are Türkiye’s changing story,” Bayraktar said.
He singled out young participants from the country's southeast, saying children in the region are learning artificial intelligence and robotics at DENEYAP Technology Workshops.
Turning to the region's punishing heat, Bayraktar said: “When we came to Urfa, we understood something else. If a system works smoothly at noon in the Urfa heat, it will work anywhere in the world, and even in space.”
Technology drive reaches beyond aerospace
Bayraktar laid out a chain of cause and effect: confidence strengthens production, production strengthens technology, and technology creates the foundation for independence.
“That is why the National Technology Initiative exists,” he said.
“The National Technology Initiative is not only in the sky. It is in the fields, factories, laboratories, hospitals, workshops and universities.”
The initiative seeks to convert ideas into economic value, dreams into production, projects into jobs and technology into prosperity, he said.
“Our goal is high technology, domestic production and value-added exports,” Bayraktar said.
“We want to build an entrepreneurship ecosystem that will strengthen our country’s full independence, led by the TEKNOFEST generation.”
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