Turkey's entrepreneurship and innovation hub, İTÜ ARI Teknokent, and our country's export leader, Automotive Industry Exporters' Association (OİB), continue to support their automotive and mobility initiatives exponentially. Within the scope of the cooperation that started in 2015, with the industrial power and support of OIB, 200 startups have been supported within the scope of ITU Çekirdek Automotive Program. Supported ventures received investment of more than 60 million TL. The two institutions will continue to provide great support to entrepreneurs who will produce the automotive technologies of the future in the new period of cooperation.
ITU ARI Teknokent and Automotive Industry Exporters' Association (OIB), which came together in 2015 in order to commercialize innovative technologies and make them usable in the automotive sector, continue their cooperation by increasing this year. Within the scope of ITU Çekirdek Automotive Program, which was implemented with the support of OIB and includes initiatives in different fields from driving safety to battery management, software solutions to material technologies, autonomous vehicles to micromobility, 200 startups have been supported so far. Initiatives supported in the program received investments of more than 60 million TL, reached a turnover of 96 million TL and provided employment to more than 500 people.
Entrepreneurs who apply and are accepted to the program throughout the year are entitled to participate in the "Future of Automotive Design Contest" organized by OIB in October, in addition to benefiting from the support of ITU Seed such as mentoring, training, R&D support and investor interviews. The best startups participating in this competition are rewarded by OIB both in cash (500 thousand TL lifeline) and also gain the right to participate in the Big Bang Start-up Challenge event. In addition to the additional cash rewards (600 thousand TL lifeline) provided by OIB, startups get the chance to benefit from prizes, cash and investments of more than 54 million TL at the Big Bang stage. Subsequently, by being included in the İTÜ Çekirdek Incubation Program, they have the rights to accelerate their growth processes such as one-to-one coaching, consultancy and an office at İTÜ Çekirdek.
Dikbaş: “We support the automotive technologies of the future”
Making statements about the OIB cooperation, ITU ARI Teknokent General Manager Prof. Dr. Attila Dikbaş said, “We have supported hundreds of entrepreneurs as a stakeholder since 2015 with the Automotive Industry Exporters' Association. Fortunately, among the supported initiatives, there is also an initiative that produces biofuels from microalgae by purifying wastewater and flue gases; the one who obtains carbon black with tire recycling; Developing smart camera systems that enable vehicles to perceive the world as humans do; It also provides emergency response opportunities by detecting accidents with its technological equipment… At the point we have reached today, our initiatives received more than 60 million TL of investment, reached a turnover of 96 million TL and even started exporting. We would like to thank OIB for their support in order to increase these success stories exponentially.”
Çelik: “We aim to contribute to Turkey's export growth”
Stating that their support to İTÜ Çekirdek supports the future, OİB Chairman of the Board Baran Çelik said, “We are in a period in which the use of driverless, artificial intelligence, interconnected and electric vehicles is becoming more and more widespread in the world. As the coordinating union in the automotive, the leading sector of exports, we are working to make our country a part of this transformation. Exactly in this context, we aim to direct Turkey's automotive entrepreneurs to this field, to enable them to produce, and to contribute to the increase in exports of our country, with the support we provide to ITU Çekirdek.
Applications are open year-round
Startups pursuing the automotive technologies of the future can apply at itucekirdek.com automotive address to become an ITU Seed entrepreneur with the support of ITU ARI Teknokent and OIB.
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