Entrepreneurship Policies Discussed at TEPAV The conference was inaugurated by TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu and US Ambassador Ricciardone.
ANKARA – TEPAV carried out an Entrepreneurship Policy Conference on Tuesday, 13 November 2012, with the participation of representatives from private and public sectors as well as the academia and civil society.
The conference organized in the context of the Global Entrepreneurship Week was inaugurated by TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu and US Ambassador to Ankara, Francis J. Ricciardone.
Hisarcıklıoğlu stressed that Turkey’s platforms for economic cooperation with the US has been growing rapidly and that the majority of the ongoing work was based on enhancing entrepreneurship in Turkey and its region. Noting that 22 out of 48 poorest countries in the world were Muslim, he stated that it wasn't oil and natural gas resources but entrepreneurship that brought prosperity.
Hisarcıklıoğlu: “A mental revolution is necessary to foster women entrepreneurship”
Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Any country that is willing to prosper has to enhance and encourage entrepreneurship” and accentuated that Turkey has to enhance women and youth entrepreneurship and that the boards established under the auspices of the TOBB worked to this end. He expressed that women constituted half of Turkey’s population whereas only 70,000 out of 1.5 million entrepreneurs were females. Stressing that Turkey needed a mental revolution to encourage participation of girls in education and women in labor force, he drew attention to the unequal treatment of parents to their daughters concerning education. He said, “Anything that is unfair is destined to collapse.”
US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Joseph Ricciardone stated that only 6 out of every 100 people in Turkey were entrepreneurs. He added:
“Nearly half of the 78 million Turks are on-line, giving Turkey the fifth largest Internet penetration in Europe. Like Turkey itself, Turkish entrepreneurs have a global outlook and confidence in their ability to compete internationally. The Turkish Government’s management of the economy is making Turkey a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, as is evident from the significant amount of attention international media give to Turkish entrepreneurship. However, in order to reach its goal of becoming a top 10 economy by 2023, Turkey must further expand its innovation sector to compete head-to-head with the world’s most dynamic economies.”
Raising awareness on role models to encourage women entrepreneurship…
Referring to the need to support woman entrepreneurship, Ambassador Ricciardone stressed that highlighting and raising public awareness of successful entrepreneurs would encourage girls and thus foster entrepreneurship. He added that entrepreneurship was an important part in advancing Turkish-American friendship.
The opening session was followed by three panel sessions with the titles “Do We Have an Entrepreneurship Policy in Turkey” “Fostering Entrepreneurship as a Tool for Development and Competitiveness” and “Government: Supporting or Hindering Entrepreneurs” and a keynote speech titled “Social Entrepreneurship: Ventures to Address Global Challenges.”
