The center of the textile industry Bursa witnessed a strong current of entrepreneurship. With the support of the T.C. Ministry of Commerce, and under the organization of Uludağ Textile Exporters' Association and Uludağ Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters' Association, TechXtile Start-Up Challenge entrepreneurship program took place with its fourth edition this year where the finalists received their awards at the ceremony. While Eylül Er was ranked as first in the Level Up category, Yusuf Furkan Ergür was the title holder of Scale Up category. In the Innovation League, the Most Sustainable Project Award was presented to Polyteks Tekstil and the winner of the league was Kipaş Mensucat.
The award ceremony that hosted by UTİB Chairman of the Board Pınar Taşdelen Engin and UHKİB Chairman of the Board Nüvit Gündemir took place with the event sponsorship support of BUSİAD, DOSAB and TETSİAD. At the award, TİM President Mustafa Gültepe, BTSO Board of Directors President İbrahim Burkay, the President of Textile and Ready-to-Wear Exporters' Associations within Turkey, and UTİB and UHKİB Board Members and a number of guests marked their attendance.
Taşdelen Engin: “We Met Very Talented Entrepreneurs”
Conducting the opening speech of the event, UTİB Chairman of the Board Pınar Taşdelen Engin reminded about their endeavors to transform the event that started as R&D Project Market 14 years ago to the entrepreneurship program called TechXtile Start-Up Challenge by complying with the reality of the century in 2019. While emphasizing on the Turkey as a nation that has a regard as the spot of textiles and ready to wear, Engin, ‘’To bring in our industry to the frontline in the global competition environment, we should continue our work without slowing down in R&D, design, innovation, branding, production ways considering the ecology and that is environmentally-friendly. The industry is in need of young brains that are capable of producing and developing. We met with a number of skilled entrepreneurs within the last four years at TechXtile Start-Up Challenge. Also, we experienced a huge excitement and happiness by sharing the same atmosphere with many entrepreneurs during this four year. With each entrepreneur we met, talked to, listened to and with each of them that we could have a chance to witness their excitement, our hope and motivation regarding our bright future for our sector increased.’’ Nüvit Gündemir, Chairman of the Board of Directors of UHKİB, said, “Interest to our competition, which we organized fourth time this year, continues to increase with a rise every passing year. We are happy if we are to contribute to the entrepreneurship ecosystem.”
Gültepe: “I Follow the Work of UHKİB and UTİB with Appreciation”
TİM President Mustafa Gültepe said, “Our ancient city, Bursa, also adds value to our country's economy with its production base advantage. Many sectors from automotive, ready-made clothing to textiles and machinery achieve production here, create added value, and export to nearly 200 countries and regions. Bursa is also among the top three cities with the highest export volume of 16 billion dollars. Last year, Bursa exported more than three billion dollars of textile and ready-made clothing. Of course, the share of UHKİB and UTİB in this success is great. I, in the representation of our Presidents Nüvit and Pınar, would like to express my gratitude to all our exporters. I also follow with great pleasure the work of UHKİB and UTİB to bring new entrepreneurs to the sector, to develop their design capacity and to benefit from the power of innovation. In today's world, initiatives that can track the codes of design, innovation and change for this reason, make a big difference.”
Kipaş Mensucat is the Champion in the Innovation League
In the first stage of the event, Kipaş Mensucat won the first place in the TechXtile Innovation League, which was held for the ninth time this year, in which companies participated with their innovative work, with its Ballistic Vest Fabric project that pushes you back when experiencing a hit. The second grand prize of the event, was given to the by Polyteks with its project named Green Solutions in Polyester Yarn in the Most Sustainable Project Award.
In addition, awards were given to Aster, Bossa, Elyaf, Kipaş Mensucat, İskur, Küçükçalık, Polyteks, Spinteks, Tepar and Yünsa, which were ranked amongst the Top 10 (Companies ranked in alphabetical order) Akbaşlar, Almaxtex (Yeşim Group), Barutçu, Fetih, Işıksoy and Ozateks were given Mansiyon Awards.
