OPENING OF THE MÜSİAD SAİME SULTAN SCIENCE AND ART CENTER / 16 JANUARY 2023

Honourable Minister,

Honourable Governor,

Honourable members of parliament,

Esteemed president of our MÜSİAD İnegöl Branch and our valued members,

Esteemed members of the press,

Distinguished guests,

I greet you all with respect and affection.

Distinguished guests,

Today we are here together for a most blessed opening.

We are opening for service a qualified home of education led by our esteemed friend, the philanthropic businessman and one of the founders of our İnegöl branch, Mr. Necati Barışman, and dedicated by him to his late mother.

I hope that this exceptional centre completed with the contributions of our MÜSİAD members, the MÜSİAD Saime Sultan Science and Art Center, will be auspicious.

May God be pleased with everyone who contributed, from the laying of its foundation to its opening for service.

I also especially thank the loyal and philanthropic members of our İnegöl branch who completed this blessed and visionary work, and our esteemed Governor and his entire team for their support.

On this important and joyful day of ours, I offer my most heartfelt gratitude on behalf of the MÜSİAD family to our Honourable Minister, who honoured us with his attendance.

Honourable Minister, esteemed guests,

Without any doubt, our most important strength and our greatest wealth are our young generations and our children.

Our centre, with its 32 rooms, 24 classrooms and 11 laboratories, will serve our children who succeed in the special talent examinations.

It is these well-educated, talented new generations who will build a Türkiye that is strong both in the field and at the table.

In the words of our esteemed President, the Teknofest Generation will be the pioneers and the soldiers of the strong Türkiye in the field, while the generations to be raised in the humanities and social sciences will be those of the strong Türkiye at the table.

We must design our education system in such a way that new generations are raised with an awareness of their age, their origin, their self and their progeny.

If we can raise generations that are as visionary as they are attached to their roots and that have not become estranged from their land and their nation, we can secure our independence and our future.

We have this potential.

This strength is present in the codes of our noble nation, which for centuries established an order of peace and justice across continents.

It is enough that we open the way before our children, provide them with opportunities and support them according to their abilities.

Honourable Minister, esteemed guests,

MÜSİAD, which has reached a total of 165 branches and contact points on a global scale, both provides added value to the Turkish economy with its more than 13 thousand members and nearly 60 thousand companies and leads the development of different forms of cooperation at home and abroad.

MÜSİAD is a global cooperation and capital platform, and at the same time a development movement that draws its strength from our rich civilizational values and from Anatolian wisdom. At the same time, as a representative of the Akhi culture, MÜSİAD has an understanding that gives priority to culture, civilization and education. Contributing to commercial diplomacy through the international initiatives it takes and to humanitarian diplomacy through its social responsibility projects, MÜSİAD has always stood behind every blessed undertaking that will help raise qualified human resources, especially in vocational education, and will continue to act with the same vision and determination from now on.

Honourable Minister, distinguished guests,

At the International Business Forum we held last year, and at the Turkish-Arab Business Summit we will hold in Konya in May, our main theme will be “Food Security and the Protection of the Progeny”. Protecting the new generations, who are our most important wealth and our future, and preparing a safe and bright future for them is our greatest responsibility. As MÜSİAD, I would like to state that in the 100th Year of our Republic and at the very beginning of the Century of Türkiye we have placed this subject at the focus of our work.

Our belief is complete that we will get through this year, which is full of difficult and sharp crossroads, safely and successfully, and that we will all together begin a new period of surging forward.

The most vital issue of the coming period will without doubt be education, and we as MÜSİAD will continue to do whatever we can on this subject, almost with the spirit of a mobilization.

Once again I hope that the MÜSİAD Saime Sultan Science and Art Center will be auspicious. I remember with mercy our mother Saime Sultan, after whom we named our school.

I offer my gratitude to our Honourable Minister and to you, my esteemed guests, for your attendance.

May God protect you.

Stay in good health.

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD