Global Program To Empower Turkish Women Entrepreneurs

29 of the finest Turkish Women Entrepreneurs recently successfully graduated from the 10,000 Women Entrepreneurs Program organized by the Özye?in University. The aim of the program is to empower and encourage Turkish women entrepreneurs to become more engaged in Turkey’s business community. Right now the number of women entrepreneurs are not very significant yet.

Those who joined the program are already reaping the rewards as the program introduced the women entrepreneurs to more opportunities for global expansion and communication networks. The businesswomen were also able to meet experts of different business fields to help them.

Some of the women entrepreneurs share their experience. Hale Halime Toroslu, one businesswomen, an owner of a firm that imports drugs, said that the “ project provides an incredible communication network. The meetings and conferences which I attended in the framework of this project provided me the chance to meet with experts whom I could not have met otherwise.” She even shared that one of the products her company imported was able to help a patient with a lung transplantation surgery done for the first time in Turkey. “It is important for those who cannot afford to go abroad for such operations,” Toroslu said.

Another female entrepreneur participating in the project, Nazan Kurtulu?, said that on the program, entrepreneurs were not granted money but were shown the way to reach the resources they needed. “Before I started this project, I did not know where to apply when I needed capital for setting up a business,” she said. “Now I know many development agencies which support entrepreneurs like us.” she said.

It was in 2009 that the project started and the first batch of graduates were the 29 businesswomen that took part of the graduating ceremony last July 15. The ceremonies were held on Istanbul’s Anatolian neighborhood of Kandilli.

The project aims to reach 340 female entrepreneurs in total over the new three years, and 10,000 women across the world in five years.