Selçuk Bayraktar, chairman of Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar, addressed young participants at the Teknofest Southeast event held at Şanlıurfa GAP Airport, delivering a motivational message to the festival's youth audience.
Why it matters
- Bayraktar described the Teknofest generation as a youth that 'achieves the difficult when told they cannot, and writes history when told it is impossible.'
- He characterized Teknofest youth as the embodiment of courage and of Turkey's fully independent future, reinforcing the political-industrial narrative behind the country's technology drive.
The visit is part of Teknofest's strategy to expand beyond its traditional hubs and bring aviation, space and defense technologies to young people in Turkey's southeastern Anatolia region. Bayraktar's appearance at the regional edition underscores the personal role Baykar's leadership plays in the festival's outreach. Teknofest, Turkey's largest technology festival, is widely seen as one of the most important platforms feeding talent into the country's defense and technology ecosystem.
Why it matters for Turkey
Bayraktar is not only a corporate figure but the architect of the systems — the Bayraktar TB2 armed drone and the Kızılelma unmanned combat aircraft — that turned Turkey into a significant drone exporter and symbol of indigenous defense capability. Taking Teknofest to Şanlıurfa reflects a deliberate effort to broaden the social base of Turkey's defense industry beyond its western industrial centers, cultivating the future engineers and technicians seen as essential to Ankara's stated goal of a fully independent defense sector.
x.com:@teknofest