Turkey’s largest tech event ends with dazzling shows

ISTANBUL

Teknofest, Turkey’s largest technology and aerospace event, ended on Sept. 26 with breathtaking closing ceremonies and the dazzling coordinated performances of the Turkish air forces.

The five-day event held at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport included a host of activities such as air shows with warplanes and helicopters, seminars and summits, as well as competitions and fairs.

Taking advantage of the warm and sunny weather on a weekend holiday, tens of thousands of Istanbul residents flocked to the festival area to witness the closing ceremonies of the event.

Aziz Sancar, Turkey’s Nobel laureate in chemistry was also one of the guests of the top-notch technology event.

“I came here to promote science and technology in Turkey and the Turkish world. What I saw here really made me proud and encouraged me,” he said in his address in Istanbul.

Future Nobel prize winners, Sancar said, can come out of Teknofest, advising everyone to work for humanity. “Do science, do technology,” the scientist encouraged.

He called on the youth to “work hard, stay determined even when things do not go well, and work with the mindset of ‘either I conquer it or it conquers me’ as Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II [conquer of Istanbul] said.”

“Do not forget the love for your country. Nothing can be done without it,” he said.

The spectators and participants applauded Sancar’s speech with great enthusiasm while he greeted the public along with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Sancar was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich for their mechanistic studies of DNA repair.

The 2021 edition of Teknofest has seen some technology competitions take place prior to the main event.

The festival featured dozens of competitions in categories like smart transportation, helicopter design, biotechnology, robotics, flying cars, rockets and unmanned underwater systems.

Organized by the T3 Foundation and the Industry and Technology Ministry, Teknofest is held in various Turkish cities in even years and in the metropolis of Istanbul in odd years.

Over 200,000 students in 45 teams applied for this year’s competitions, marking a significant increase from the previous three years.

Around 100,000 visitors were allowed in an area of 450,000 square meters at the same time due to pandemic-related measures.

Last year, the event was organized virtually in southeastern province of Gaziantep due to pandemic measures. In 2019, some 1.72 million people visited the event in Istanbul.