TEKNOFEST Board Chairman Selçuk Bayraktar: There is great demand for Turkish defense works

TEKNOFEST Board Chairman Selçuk Bayraktar said, “There is great interest in Turkey’s defense products from all over the world. Starting from smart ammunition systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned systems, all of its products in a very wide range now have both global recognition and a sense of brand value.”

The finals of the technology competitions organized in 25 areas of TEKNOFEST, in which Anadolu Agency (AA) is among the media stakeholders, continue at the ANFAŞ International Fair and Congress Center in Antalya.

Coming to the exhibition center to join the excitement of the TEKNOFEST Mediterranean Technology Competitions finals, Selçuk Bayraktar visited the stands in the competition area and received information from the participants about their activities.

Bayraktar, in his statement to reporters, said that competitions in various categories continue in 11 provinces, as well as TEKNOFEST Mediterranean.

Bayraktar, who stated that the competitions were held in 49 categories this year, said that the competitions, to which 10 new categories were added such as quantum, financial and nuclear energy technologies, Turkish-Based Artificial Intelligence Language Model Competition and Wireless Communication Competitions, continued in a wide range.

Bayraktar stated that TEKNOFEST broke its own record again this year and received over 1.5 million applications, and noted that the successful ones out of 6,500 competitors competing in 25 areas in Antalya will compete in the TEKNOFEST Champions League in Adana on October 2-6.

Bayraktar stated that they aim to organize TEKNOFEST in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the coming years.

“We have seen hundreds of young initiatives born”

Bayraktar, who stated that the goal of TEKNOFEST is to reveal initiatives that will make Turkey fully independent and prosperous and to instill the passion for technology and science development in society, continued as follows:

“In addition, it was to ensure that they gained great self-confidence because we could say that there was a learned helplessness in these areas. With our works that will leave their mark on the world, especially with the breakthroughs made in the defense industry, this has been destroyed in a sense. We started to organize our competitions in a wide range with the ideal of the National Technology Move, which is a fully independent and prosperous Turkey, not only in the defense industry but in a much wider spectrum. In addition, we started to plant the seeds of initiatives that will become world brands with the teams established in those competitions. We saw great interest and interest in our initiative competition that we organized last year on the 100th anniversary of the Republic. The TEKNOFEST generation started to establish their initiatives. We saw hundreds of young initiatives being born. Just as Baykar is the world’s largest initiative in unmanned aerial vehicles today, and the biggest wind of transformation that has entered our lives in the world comes from high technology, and when we look at the companies that develop that high technology, we see that all of them have small initiatives at their roots, we see that this transformation has started in our country as well. We started to see that there are our brothers who participate in the competitions at TEKNOFEST, form teams and then start their initiatives.”

“There is great interest in the Turkish defense industry”

On the other hand, Bayraktar, who gave information about Baykar’s work, reminded that they were working on Kızılelma, which is one of their 20-year goals, and that the new Bayraktar TB3 platform was established.

Bayraktar stated that work in the space field is also ongoing, and said, “We have established our initiative called Fergani. Think of it as Baykar 10 years ago. It is currently working with a team of 70-80 engineers and is producing low orbit satellite constellations and constellations in the space field. It will launch its first satellite this year and is also conducting work on orbital transfer vehicles and launch systems.”

Bayraktar, who explained that Turkey’s defense works attracted attention, said:

“There is great interest in Turkey’s defense products from all over the world. Starting from smart ammunition systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned systems, all of its products in a very wide range now have both global recognition and a sense of brand value. When you look back 20 years ago, Turkey was a country that was 85 percent dependent on foreign sources. Now, with a very high localization rate, our UAVs are above 90 percent, and in other areas, above 60 to 70 percent, there is a defense ecosystem that first produces equivalents for almost every product that is embargoed to us and then makes it better.”