How Turkey Is Building a Mobile Software Market

As many as 153 developers at Turkcell’s App Marathon Coding Weekend took more than 200 selfies, over 1,600 cups of coffee and 960 slices of pizza that helped them carry out the intense work.

Turkcell (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL) Turkey’s leading telecommunications and technology company launched its App Marathon this weekend with an intensive coding event.

In the event, 153 young developers, chosen from a pool of 600 applicants, coded for 25 hours under the leadership of 42 mentors, and are now embarking on a 6-week-long journey to develop their apps.

With its App Marathon, Turkcell will lead 153 developers, organized in 62 teams, in their effort to develop applications that will facilitate the lives of Turkish app users and contribute to the society in solving social, environmental and economic issues.

Under the umbrella concept of “Improving Lives with Technology”, the teams will develop apps in 7 categories: Education, Health, Mobile Finance, Transportation, M2M, Business World and Social Responsibility.

The teams will be supported by their mentors throughout the process and participate in a final competition at the end of 6 weeks. Successful teams will have the opportunity to be business partners with Turkcell and the winner of the marathon will get a chance to visit the Silicon Valley.

Among the 153 developers are a student from Mozambique and a Turkish resident of Canada who is working on a French-English dictionary.

Two teams consist entirely of female students who are in the first year of their college education with the financial support of Turkcell’s “Snowdrops” program.

“We have launched the App Marathon with the vision to create a mobile software movement in Turkey,” said Koray Ozturkler, Turkcell’s chief corporate affairs officer.

Turkcell’s App Marathon is part of “Developers for the Future”. Launched in September 2013, the project aims to improve technological literacy and the software development landscape in Turkey.

The community already boasts 15 thousand members who receive free online training in mobile software development for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Turkish speakers can access the project website and become members.