Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Launched in cooperation by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), Turkcell and TOBB Women Entrepreneurs Council under the auspices of and hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife Emine Erdoğan, the Women Writing the Future Project training was launched on March 16, 2019, between 10:00 and 17:00 in 24 provinces with 1601 participants in 58 classes simultaneously.

While evaluating the project, TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu pointed out that they are working with women in order to educate them on software and to increase women's employment capacity and entrepreneurship. Hisarcıklıoğlu pointed out that, as TOBB, they are cooperating with Turkcell and TOBB Women Entrepreneurs Council. Emphasizing that TOBB Women Entrepreneurs Council, Turkey's largest women's organization, through great sacrifice, are supporting the project in their regions of their members; “I wholeheartedly I thank our project partner Turkcell and all the women entrepreneurs who are contributing to the success of this endeavor.”

- The project to destroy the misconceptions

Pointing to the fact that technology is perceived as a specific area for men all over the world, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “The success of Women Writing the Future proves how wrong this perception is. It is destroying misconceptions. We need to increase the number of such projects to turn our population advantage into an opportunity. To prosper, we must combine quantity with quality. Today, if you know how to develop software, you can work in companies that will grow the fastest in the future. You can establish such companies aside from work. The greater the number of developers, the higher the chance that the billion dollar start-ups will emerge.”

The project consists of three stages: Training, project development and final phase. Supported by in-class trainings conducted in the service buildings of our Chambers and Commodity Exchanges in provinces, Turkcell instructors provide face-to-face and online training while TOBB mentors support the commercialization of ideas.

- In which provinces will training take place?

In order to increase the awareness of the project and increase the number of applicants, TOBB Provincial Women Entrepreneurs Council Presidents and board members make significant contributions to the project. The provinces where the project will be implemented are: Ankara, Antalya, Bursa, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Erzurum, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Hatay, İstanbul Anatolian and European sides, Izmir, Kayseri, Kırklareli, Konya, Kütahya, Mardin, Mersin, Muğla, Ordu, Sakarya, Samsun, Şanlıurfa, Tekirdağ, Trabzon.

The project, which was implemented in order to increase female employment in technology, garnered attention by winning an award at the Technology for Women category at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​and was shared with participants from other countries as a good practice example at the United Nations Women's Empowerment Principles meeting.