ANKARA
Turkey’s Middle East Technical University’s ‘Teknokent’ project – the country’s first science and technology park, located in the capital, Ankara – is to expand to the United States.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency on Monday, METU´s teknopark president Mustafa Kiziltas said that by opening its first U.S. office in San Francisco, Teknokent aimed to create selling opportunities for innovative Turkish high-tech products to buyers across the world.
“San Francisco has commercial perspective as well as being a place with technological depth. Therefore, we intend to take advantage of these two aspects of this place," he said.
“We have aimed to transform technological knowledge from the Technopark into sellable technological products.”
He said ten U.S.-based companies with Turkish-American owners have already opened research & development offices in the Teknokent, adding that Turkey needs to create companies whose techonology are current and are able to sell their products.
As well as expanding to the United States, Kiziltas confirmed that Teknokent had plans to open an “incubation center” in Istanbul.
Established in the late 1980s, ODTU Teknokent was the first technology park in Turkey for creating synergy between industry and universities.
The teknokent now hosts 300 firms, more than 60 percent of which were set up in ODTU Teknokent. Three-quarters of these firms are Small- and Medium Enterprises, employing more than 4,400 personnel and carrying out research and development activities in a 120,000m2 area.
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