Tüpraş supports early stage entrepreneurs through “New Ideas New Businesses” Acceleration Program
As the leader of Turkey’s energy industry, Tüpraş has become a strategic partner in the “New Ideas New Businesses” Acceleration Program in 2018. Tüpraş is involved in the program in line with its aim to integrate with the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Levent Zağra, Assistant General Manager for Investment and Planning at Tüpraş, stated that the company strives to support the entrepreneurship ecosystem and innovative ideas while maintaining their intrapreneurship efforts. He also added: “We aim to contribute to the development of this ecosystem and support early-stage entrepreneurs with the benefit of our experience and know-how. Within our “New Ideas New Businesses” acceleration program, we have contributed to training sessions to monitor the transformation of ideas and provided mentorship to entrepreneurs. We have actively involved ourselves in every stage of the selection process. We believe that the program will cultivate new entrepreneurs who will be able to cooperate with us and contribute greatly to the ecosystem.”
New Ideas, New Businesses: Turkey’s First and Largest Technology-Focused Entrepreneurship Program
The “New Ideas New Businesses” Acceleration Program (YFYI),” organized by the ODTÜ TEKNOKENT, is Turkey’s first and largest technology-focused entrepreneurship program. The YFYI has contributed to the commercialization of more than 200 business ideas and added 1,000 new jobs. Aside from undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students, technology companies from 0 up to 36 months can participate to the YFYİ process.
Fifty-five entrepreneur teams took part in the YFYI, which was held for the 14thtime this year. The program provided over 1,000 hours of training and mentoring to the entrepreneurs. Drawing upon their training and mentoring, entrepreneur teams presented their solutions in the semifinals on September 5, and 22 of these teams qualified to participate in the Demo Day event. On Demo Day, entrepreneurs introduced their innovative ideas and solutions to the participants with three-minute presentations.
HERA and Sensgreen Projects Receive Tüpraş Special Award
Tüpraş Special Awards were given to two entrepreneurs at the event. Levent Zağra presented the awards to the HERA project, a project that focuses on a virtual reality-based personality analysis application, and the Sensgreen team, who have been working on smart systems that will enable energy-efficient buildings.