Trendyol is organizing an e-commerce hackathon at TEKNOFEST 2024

Trendyol, in collaboration with T3 Foundation, organized its first-ever e-commerce hackathon at TEKNOFEST Adana, the company announced in a statement on Sunday.

The event, held at the “Village of Tomorrow” digital center in the southern province of Adana in Türkiye, brought together 16 teams over two days to develop technologies to help local manufacturers transition to e-commerce.

The winning band “BazLLaMa Is All You Need” was awarded the main prize by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Meanwhile, the second-placed team “Sebil” and the third-placed “Kermit” will receive their awards from Selcuk Bayraktar, President of the T3 Foundation, and Baykar, during the TEKNOFEST closing ceremony.

The top three teams received cash prizes of 100,000 lira, 80,000 lira and 60,000 lire respectively.

Throughout the festival, the Trendyol booth offered several interactive experiences, including AI workshops and virtual reality demonstrations. The stand was also visited by distinguished guests, including the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Turkey, Said Sani ez-Zahiri and Selcuk Bayraktar.

Additionally, Turkey’s first astronaut, Alper Gezeravci, was honored with a commemorative T-shirt from the National Technology Collection, inspired by Gezeravci’s work and the Turkish Space Agency.

– Supporting local producers through technology

The hackathon was part of the mission of the “Villages of Tomorrow” project, which aims to promote sustainable development of rural areas. Participating teams used technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), computer vision and multimodal artificial intelligence to create solutions that will help local manufacturers gain access to international markets.

“Villages of Tomorrow” is one of the most comprehensive rural development initiatives in Turkey, launched by Trendyol and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The project equips local producers with knowledge in smart agriculture, value-added product development and e-commerce. Digital centers under this initiative operate in Adana, Izmir and other cities.

“The determination of young people participating in TEKNOFEST will help Türkiye lead in the technology sector,” Trendyol Group CEO Caglayan Cetin said in a statement.

Recalling that Trendyol has been a TEKNOFEST partner for three years, Cetin said that the e-commerce hackathon is closely linked to the company’s “Villages of Tomorrow” project, which has now expanded to five cities in cooperation with UNDP.

– Expanding Türkiye’s global reach through technology

Cetin further emphasized the role of digital technologies and services in the development of local enterprises, highlighting Türkiye’s high quality production and Trendyol’s efforts to introduce these products to global markets through e-export.

“Trendyol currently serves hundreds of thousands of manufacturers and sellers on its platform. So far, we have helped 120,000 producers start exporting. Thanks to these efforts, the local village manufacturer can now receive up to 50% of its orders from international customers. Our goal is to strengthen Türkiye’s export strength through investment in international markets and further development in an increasingly digital world,” he added.