TEKNOFEST, the world's largest aviation, space and technology festival, which was held for the first time in 2018 and organised for the 6th time this year, was held in Ankara for the first time this year. Turkey Technology Team Foundation (T3) and 125 institutions participated in TEKNOFEST, which was led by the Ministry of Industry and Technology. There was intense participation in TEKNOFEST, which opened its doors at 09.00. Citizens who wanted to come to the event area with their vehicles created traffic density around the airport. Hürkuş, Akıncı and Solotürk also performed in the sky within the scope of the event. The official opening of the festival will be held after the opening speeches of the Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır and Baykar Chairman Selçuk Bayraktar.

'AN IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT FOR OUR COUNTRY'

Hasan Mandal, President of TÜBİTAK, stated that they are excited that TEKNOFEST is being held in Ankara for the first time and said, "TEKNOFEST is in its 6th year. If we look at its transformation from the years when it first started to today, this is also very valuable for us. The number of participants increased from 500 thousand to 2.5 million in Istanbul. The number will increase even more here. More importantly, our young people, children and guests who come here come by saying 'I am a candidate to do better than the technologies and products we see now in the future'. The biggest transformation TEKNOFEST has made is not only the numbers, but more importantly, they say, 'We are here to build the future for a fully independent Turkey, to build it with science and technology'. We have many young people who say, 'We will do better than what we see'. This is an important achievement for our country. TÜBİTAK is one of the most important tools of this."

Mandal said, "Here, they see the technologies that TÜBİTAK has developed and the technologies it plans and will develop at the same time, and they experience them in a gamified way. For example, they make a model of İmece, which we sent on 15 April, here. They learn about it with every component. I invite all our citizens, young people and children here."

TEKNOFEST will host its visitors between 30 August and 3 September.

'TECHNOFEST GENERATION IS COMING'

The official opening of TEKNOFEST, the world's largest aviation, space and technology festival, took place after the speeches of Mehmet Fatih Kacır, Minister of Industry and Technology, and Selçuk Bayraktar, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of T3 Foundation and Chairman of TEKNOFEST and Baykar Board of Directors. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Minister Kacır stated that they celebrated 30 August Victory Day with a different enthusiasm this year and said: "These achievements are the flare of Turkey's Century. The Turkish youth, who have been participating in the National Technology Move journey with great enthusiasm since 2018, have the ambition, will and self-confidence to carry us far beyond our current achievements. Today's Turkey is a Turkey where the obstacles in front of our young people who dream, research, develop and produce are removed one by one, not where they are blocked. Today's Turkey is a Turkey where Technoparks, which host thousands of technology initiatives in their cities, are rising. Today, the stars of the future are meeting with science centres in Deneyap Technology Workshops all over Turkey. The TEKNOFEST generation is coming, a Turkish youth that no longer admires the technologies developed by others, but admires the technologies developed by itself. Our duty is to be with the TEKNOFEST generation. It is to bring TEKNOFESTs together with our children with the belief that let a child come, touch an aircraft, and hopefully he will be the scientist and engineer who will develop the space programme of our country."