Every year, the third edition of the Hello Tomorrow Turkey Finals, which we organize with the participation of startups selected as Deep Tech Pioneers from Turkey and technology experts from around the world, was held on July 6, 2021.
Due to the pandemic, the online event featured expert technology pioneer speakers, who once again demonstrated the power of deep tech with their inspiring talks, while startups selected from thousands of applicants that earned the title of 'Deep Tech Pioneer' also presented their projects.
Throughout the event, we had the chance to listen to many insights and new technologies about the technology ecosystem from our speakers, who were entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders. In this article, we briefly mention our speakers and would like to remind you that you can access the entire event on the Hello Tomorrow YouTube channel.
Thousands of applications from over 100 countries...
The Hello Tomorrow Turkey Challenge, held for the third time, began with the presentation of Arkin Çelik, Expression Designer and Founder of EVNX.Live. After the opening of the event, Timur Topalgökçeli, Founder of Hello Tomorrow Turkey, stated that we started this journey as a global family in Paris in 2016 and shared information about HTT's activities and the successes achieved as a result. Hello Tomorrow Turkey now reaches 400 people, institutions, and startups, making it an important force in establishing Turkey's deep tech ecosystem. As a local initiative, it has transformed from a simple association into a consultative body about deep tech and a center eagerly awaiting its reports. During his speech, Topalgökçeli also provided crucial insights and trends regarding Turkey's technology ecosystem. "As Hello Tomorrow Turkey, we believe in the power of deep tech and its solutions to challenging problems. We aimed to empower the entrepreneurial system in Turkey and bring innovations of startups to a global scale by trying to discover the best technology startups. We received thousands of applications from over 100 countries, and Istanbul has ranked among the top 10 cities with Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge finalists for the past 3 years," he emphasized, highlighting the success they have achieved as Hello Tomorrow Turkey.
The keynote speaker of the program was Dr. Hemai Parthasarathy, Founding Partner of Breakout Ventures and one of Silicon Valley's most important fund managers. Having also worked with PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel at the Thiel Foundation, Dr. Parthasarathy discussed the deep tech ecosystem in her talk titled "Revolution vs. Evolution in Deep Tech," addressing the high-tech development process as a serious scientific endeavor, the evolution of the deep tech concept in the last 10 years, and her personal experiences.
"Now is the perfect time to be a deep tech entrepreneur! There couldn't be a better time in the world than today."
Dr. Hemai Parthasarathy stated that while the global pandemic has brought forth inequalities, it has also introduced us to fantastic technologies, emphasizing that the effective production of vaccines in less than a year is an international scientific triumph. She said, "Now is the perfect time to be a deep tech entrepreneur. There couldn't be a better time in the world than today. It is the best time to create new opportunities drawn from science to make the world a better place, to transform the planet, and to empower future-oriented scientists and technology-based initiatives."
Following Dr. Hemai Parthasarathy’s impressive speech, we watched presentations from 10 startups selected as Deep Tech Pioneers from Turkey in categories that are becoming increasingly important for both the world and Turkey, such as Agriculture, Environment, Energy, Digital Health, Medical Biotechnology, and Industry 4.0, among 4000 applications in the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge. The jury, comprising Benjamin Joffe (SOSV), Petri Saarinen (Salto Digital), Mustafa Çakır (Patent Effect), and Emin Okutan (Viveka), evaluated groundbreaking technologies, innovations, and approaches in their respective fields.
During the Fireside Chat held between the presentations of high-tech startups, we hosted Fatih Canan (TEB) and Metin Karabiber (Enqura Information Technologies) on our digital stage.
"Collaboration is a very important concept at the core of the startup ecosystem's success."
Fatih Canan emphasized that collaboration is a crucial concept underlying the success of the startup ecosystem and shared with us that they are trying to establish partnerships with many places in Turkey and that they encourage the startups within their structure to become global companies. Meanwhile, Metin Karabiber, who founded Enqura six years ago, shared that they currently have over 70 companies in many different countries around the world and that they were among the top 10 companies in the "Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Turkey" program held since 2006 in 2019.
After listening to the session on TEB's activities in entrepreneurship and the financial technologies developed by Enqura, our event continued with the second presentation session.
Before moving on to the award ceremony, a “Corporate & VC Panel” was held, moderated by Dr. Sanem Yalçıntaş, with Leonid Astrin from Shibumi International and Pınar Köse Kulacz from Arçelik Global. The panel discussed investment trends in Turkey and around the world, investments made in the high-tech field, and advice for high-tech ventures.
And the Award Ceremony...
After the investor panel, we reached perhaps the most exciting part of the program: the award ceremony! We found it very difficult to choose among the initiatives that embarked on the journey with valuable ideas and produced groundbreaking technologies! Based on our expert jury's assessment, we can’t wait to briefly introduce you to the winners of our first 3 initiatives!
Here are the Grand Winner of Hello Tomorrow Turkey Challenge 2021 and the Runner-ups!
Grand Winner...
Auctifera Scientific! Auctifera Scientific helps IVF clinics choose the best embryo to transfer to their patients, increasing the success rate of infertility treatment through IVF.
This topic was developed based on a problem faced by 160 million people worldwide today. Its importance for the world is evident.
Runner-Up...
Biolive! Biolive is a biotechnology company producing completely natural, biopolymer, and 100% bio-based vegan leather from olive pits and unusable food waste to address environmental issues globally and fill the gaps in the bio-material market.
There are 1.3 billion tons of food-related waste in the world. 6 million tons of this waste is made up of olive pits.
Runner-Up...
EyeCheckup! EyeCheckup is an AI-based early diagnosis system to prevent blindness and visual impairment, detecting around 20 diseases threatening vision from retina photographs and guiding people to eye doctors early for preventive measures with proprietary AI-based software.
To summarize this Turkey technology ecosystem gathering, which started with the Demo Day event of the LAUNCH Academy organized in collaboration with Facebook; it was an event where we brought together deep tech startups that bring their advanced technologies out of the lab to the world, global investors, scientists, and experts, examining the ecosystem once again through the eyes of its key players, and we traveled into the future. Don't forget to follow us to keep updated on Hello Tomorrow Turkey’s future projects and to take part in next year’s Hello Tomorrow Turkey Challenge!
Until our next meeting, stay connected with technology and entrepreneurship! Remember, groundbreaking technologies are not far away; we have embarked on a journey to find these gems in our country, and we see that the technology that will shape the world is not far, it is near.
