IDEAS MET THE INVESTORS
Izmir University of Economics (IUE) hosted Etohum Izmir organization which brought entrepreneurs and investors together. The steps, which young entrepreneurs need to follow in order to put their ideas into action, were introduced at Etohum event that took place at Swiss Hotel Grand Efes. Inspiring seminars on how to put business ideas into action, and establish businesses were delivered to the participants at the event, hosted by Izmir University of Economics, supported by IZKA, and organized by Etohum.
IUE Rector Prof. Dr. Tunçdan Baltacıoğlu, who delivered the opening speech, stated that the event started out with a small crowd but it filled out the whole room now. He said, “Izmir University of Economics is a young university. We established an incubation centre called Embryonix in 2001 within the University which is a pride of Izmir, and Turkey. When we pronounced this word initially, it was associated with chicken. Our centre rapidly developed in the last 3.5 years. 4 projects have been commercialized; over a thousand of projects were evaluated. We trained a total of 750 entrepreneurs or prospective entrepreneurs. We taught entrepreneurship to more than 500 high schoolers.”
Prof. Dr. Baltacıoğlu also reminded that with IUE Embryonix (Incubation) Centre, they created a 10 million TL added value for Turkey, and they recently qualified to have the “Entrepreneurship Flag” in the “Bu Gençlikte İş Var” titled competition organized by Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) for the most number of enterprising projects. Izmir proved to be a centre for entrepreneurship with these steps stated Prof. Dr. Baltacıoğlu, and he said that the city with its education level, its climate, its people, and means of transportation, took its steps towards this goal, and reached it.
Etohum founder Burak Büyükdemir, on the other hand, said that they were working hard to strengthen the relations between the entrepreneurs and the mentors. He said, “We are planting seeds in Izmir. In 5-10 years, we will see the entrepreneur trees, forests bushing out. Why wouldn’t Izmir become like San Francisco?”
Taylan Demirkaya, Director of IUE Embriyonix Centre, also stated that the young entrepreneurs would become significant figures of future business world. IZKA Program Coordinator Murat Çelik encouraged the youth by saying, “I am very happy to be seeing the most entrepreneurship community of Izmir right before my eyes.”
“An entrepreneur needs to identify the target group well”
İhsan Elgin, founder of Girişim Fabrikası, pointed out that the employment would be possible through new enterprises, not trough long established companies. He said, “When a company made it among the first 500, it used to be able to survive for 80 years, but now survives for 15 years only. They are trying to expand with the existing employees, whereas, an entrepreneur is trying to enhance a non-existent thing.” Ergin also stated that an entrepreneur did not have to spend a lot of money, and right steps needed to be taken in order to meet the needs of the target group, and that would lead the entrepreneur to success.
Barış Okur, from Viveka, Tümay Asena from Nokta Medya, Tolga Tatari from Markofoni, Emre Sokullu from Grou.ps, Murat Şahin from Secure Drive, Vadi Efe from Dekatlon Buzz, and Joachim Behrendt from BIC Angel Investments shared their experiences on entrepreneurship with the youth at Etohum Izmir event. The investors and the entrepreneurs discussed how to put new business ideas into action throughout the event.
