IZMIR, Türkiye

A project done as part of TEKNOFEST, Türkiye's premier technology and aerospace event, helped a total of 100,000 children experience flying.

“On the 100th anniversary of our Republic, we aimed to have 100,000 children experience the 'Let a Child Come and Touch a Plane' program. As of today, we reached this target in Izmir,” Muhammet Saymaz, TEKNOFEST secretary-general, told Anadolu on the sidelines of the five-day event, which wrapped up in the Aegean province of Izmir on Sunday.

Under the project, students from neighboring provinces experienced helicopter flights for the first time.

The project was conducted in memory of Ozdemir Bayraktar, the founder of one of Türkiye’s leading defense firms, Baykar.

Noting the importance of children witnessing the projects developed by Türkiye during the event, Saymaz said: “It is very important to have them witness and expand their horizons.”

The project began last year in Türkiye’s Black Sea province of Samsun and continued in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir.

As part of the project, 40,000 children were brought to Istanbul and 30,000 others to Ankara.

On Sunday, Selcuk Bayraktar, chairman of festival organizer the Turkish Technology Team (T3) Foundation, said some 2 million young people had competed with their projects at nine TEKNOFEST events since it was held for the first time in 2018.

Bayraktar added that more than 9 million visitors also took part in the event so far.

Co-organized every year since 2018 by the T3 Foundation and the Industry and Technology Ministry, the banner festival is held in cooperation with other ministries and dozens of other public institutions, private firms, and universities.

Since the festival began, Anadolu has been among TEKNOFEST's media shareholders as a global communications partner.

The event was previously held in various Turkish cities in even years and in the Istanbul metropolis in odd years.

To mark the centenary of the Republic of Türkiye, this year the event was held at three different sites in Türkiye's largest cities, first at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport in May, welcoming a world record 2.2 million visitors, and next in the capital Ankara, attracting nearly 1 million people.

*Emirhan Yilmaz and Furkan Gencoglu contributed to this story.