Groundbreaking school project fuels Turkish innovation

By Tuncay Kayaoglu

ISTANBUL

Eighteen-year-old Istanbul college student Zuleyha Cakir likes music and going out. With her dark hair and eyes, a typical Turkish teenager she may seem. What makes her stand out from the pack, though, is that she is an entrepreneur.

Cakir and four friends – with the help of a unique school technology unit – founded a company last December selling a novel magnetic device to tie shoelaces for time-strapped teenagers.

But what makes her story remarkable is that Zuleyha is an orphan – now this Istanbul-based project is giving her and her friends a chance to excel in innovation.

Founded in 1863, Darussafaka school has provided learning to orphans through their secondary and high school education. As a non-profit institution, it needs donations to survive.

Cakir and her friends meet frequently at Darussafaka’s technology and science center in Istanbul’s European side. Opened in June 2013, it is the first of its kind among Turkish high schools to provide a space for innovation.

In this first term, teachers worked with 167 students. Paired, students are asked to come up with a business idea and present it to a jury.

Meltem Ceylan Alibeyoglu, project manager of the college, described how, in the second term, 30 selected students underwent further training on entrepreneurship. Darussfaka joined with technology giant Intel and Istanbul-based Ozyegin University’s Fit Startup Factory.

In this center, students conduct “exciting” experiments based on the theory they learn, says one senior science teacher.

“What we teach during class is abstract, but now we have an energy section within this lab. After the class, students can test what they learn,” according to Aynur Karabulut.

Adding well-equipped and operated labs is expected to help to increase Turkey’s rank at PISA tests, the international standard for assessing education organized by Paris-based the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The test is held every three years and assesses 15-year-olds’ mathematics, reading and science knowledge. In 2012, Turkey ranked 44th (out of 65) in this test.

“Impediments in our education prevent us from being successful at the PISA’s test. Our education system has not been structured around experiencing knowledge directly though labs. What we aim with this center is to overcome this,” Alibeyoglu says.

Darussafaka science and center says technologically advanced countries have re- structured their education system, emphasizing testing and experimenting.

Although one flower will not bring spring, the good news is that two other schools have since opened science and technology centers similar to Darussafaka’s.

In addition to science experiments, the second aim of the center is to provide students with the chance to form clubs on technology, including robotics and entrepreneurship.

The idea of Cakir’s magnet-tie was born at that center through the activities of an entrepreneurship club.

Cakir and her friends required negotiation skills to put the idea into reality.

They hit the road to visit wholesalers in Eminonu, a historical part of Istanbul where many shops are located. “Those wholesalers were surprised to see young girls at their shops, bargaining to get large sums of shoelaces,” Cakir recalls.

Once the ties are purchased, Cakir and her friends returned use the center’s facilities to turn them into “magnet-ties.”

“We have sold our first batch of products to teachers. Profits will be donated to the school’s budget,” she says.

Cakir aspires to be an engineer. The skills she acquired through last year’s program will have an everlasting effect on her. “I believe I can do something on entrepreneurship after graduation,” Cakir says.