Within the scope of an EU Project, the London Entrepreneurship Bridge Project was carried out in partnership between Young MÜSİAD and the Turkish National Agency. At the event held on 23-28 February 2020, 12 young entrepreneurs from Türkiye were brought together with investors in London.
 
The “London Entrepreneurship Bridge” project, organized for the first time by Young MÜSİAD with support received within the scope of an EU project, took place last week. Coming together under the Erasmus Plus umbrella with EU support and in cooperation with the MÜSİAD United Kingdom branch, the participants had the opportunity to meet foreign investors, to present their ventures and to get to know the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the United Kingdom. Our young entrepreneurs also gained competence in expanding globally.

At the event, which took place with consultations on a startup development programme, the entrepreneurs were brought together with important institutions that would broaden their horizons and from which they could receive support. Within the scope of the visits made in London, Consul General of London Mr. Çınar Ergin, Ambassador to London Mr. Ümit Yalçın, Chief Commercial Counsellor in London Mr. Tarık Sönmez, Education Counsellor in London Mr. Hasan Ünsal, TRT World London Editor-in-Chief Mr. Fatih Er, Pladis Global CEO Mr. Salman Amin, Turkish Airlines London, the Yunus Emre Institute and TURKEN were visited. The Pladis Global factory was also toured.

During the visits, our entrepreneurs had the opportunity to make presentations to angel investors, accelerators and start-up consultants and to hold one-to-one meetings.

A Vision of a Youth That Is a Role Model, Not an Imitator

In his assessment of the matter, MÜSİAD President Abdurrahman Kaan stated that it is highly productive, in terms of gaining a vision for the future, for young entrepreneurs to broaden their horizons by taking part in such events, especially those held abroad. Pointing out that young entrepreneurs will shape the future of Türkiye, Kaan expressed that in this regard young people need to follow trends in the world closely and to take action by generating new ideas. Emphasizing that our country needs entrepreneurs who are role models rather than imitators, Kaan drew attention to the fact that young entrepreneurs' focusing especially on innovation, R&D, start-ups and technology will play an important role both in advancing their own personal careers and in making our state a respected and prestigious country in the international arena.

Regarding the project, Young MÜSİAD President Furkan Akbal said: “In our term, which we declared the year of transformation and action, we brought many projects to life; we introduced a large number of our local member companies to the national market and many of our national member companies to the global market by means of our international programmes. With the qualified and visionary approach to training that we have adopted, we have covered significant ground in terms of personal development. In addition, in line with the work we have carried out and the reports we have prepared, we observed that our country is a serious entrepreneurship base and that, compared with many countries, the number of our entrepreneurs is also considerably high. However, as a result of our research we also saw that private sector investment in young ventures is not at a sufficient level, that many of our entrepreneurs cannot find the investment they need, and that for this reason many promising ventures fail to succeed. In order to fulfil the responsibility falling to us as Young MÜSİAD in eliminating this deficiency in our ecosystem, we have undertaken important work in this field. One of these efforts was our Entrepreneurship Bridge project. With this project we received applications from hundreds of our entrepreneurs, we held interviews and, as a result of these interviews, we selected 12 successful ventures and introduced them to international investment networks. Following the meetings, we received many positive opinions both from the investment networks and from our entrepreneurs. God willing, this project we have organized will bring beneficial results and will contribute both to our entrepreneurs and to our country's entrepreneurship ecosystem. I congratulate all our entrepreneurs once again,” he said.

Mustafa Demir, President of the MÜSİAD United Kingdom Branch, which is a project partner, said: “As the host, the projects of our entrepreneur brothers who came from Türkiye excited us; when we look at the projects, they are both successful projects and projects that will contribute to both countries.”