T-DEB Companies Preparing for the Discovery Trips to the UK

It’s a wrap for phase one of T-DEB! And that brings along a number of updates to share and some exciting news about the phase two (Discovery Trips to the UK) that is in full swing right now.

As announced in the last blog post, Tekiu delivered a series of workshops in Izmir, Ankara and Istanbul, bringing together 300+ participants after a competitive application process.

Organised around the three T-DEB themes (environmental challenges, health & life sciences, and smart cities & digital economy), these workshops in Turkey familiarised potential participant companies with the objectives of the project while conducting needs-assessment roundtables to inform the project’s direction.

Workshops were enriched with lively discussions thanks to participants from a wide array of sectors such as water treatment, smart traffic management and assistive medical technologies. That diversity is now reflected in the final line-up of T-DEB companies.

It is a blessing in disguise that there was more interest in the project than the project could possibly accommodate. That, of course, meant that a delicately deliberative selection process had to be initiated. Right after the workshops, T-DEB selection committee spent a couple of weeks reviewing each and every company, rigorously ranking them by themes.

With recent updates,T-DEB website is now dedicated to the impressive list of T-DEB companies taking part in the Discovery Trips to the UK later this year, producing innovative solutions to societal problems in all three areas.

One of the T-DEB companies working in the area of smart cities is YGA– their innovative product WeWalk is a revolutionary smart cane developed to help the visually impaired navigate complex urban environments, which was recently featured in a live interview on CNN.

Biokido, a MedTech company, applies AI and image processing technologies in its flagship DORA Motion: a system that enables surgeons to reach and easily manage the radiological images of the patient with only a few hand movements without touching any surface, without any colleague’s help or any device during the operation. Another company in this T-DEB theme is RS Research, a pharmaceutical company developing next generation nanomedicines based on innovative drug delivery platforms for targeted cancer therapy.

Browsing through the profiles will make you realise that T-DEB companies come in different sizes. AquaMatch, a water treatment company with founded in 1989, has over 300+ employees and has recently emerged as one of the most prominent suppliers of water purification projects in Europe and the Middle East. They are looking for UK partners to exchange R&D experience on technologies such as zero-liquid discharge water treatment systems, among others.

Seeking partnerships in sheep and goat genetics/farming technologies with the potential UK partners, Er-Gen is a leading Turkish company in innovative assisted reproductive technology, breeding strategies, smart farming technologies and functional foods from sheep and goats. They have recently developed a synthetic Dam Line (Anarom) using 9 sheep breeds and accomplished great improvements in the crossbreeding of Romanov Sheep, also known as the ‘Lamb Machine’

Discovery Trips to the UK will be an excellent opportunity for UK businesses to get to know these Turkish companies and many others you will find in the T-DEB database.

Enthusiasm of innovative Turkish companies you will meet actually tells a wider story. The Turkish innovation ecosystem is performing well above the EU average—its performance relative to the EU has increased by 15.1% between 2010-18, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard 2018.

If you have never collaborated with Turkey before, you will find that it is a relatively familiar territory for UK businesses: the EU  (and therefore the UK) and Turkey are currently linked by a Customs Union agreement, and as a result, Turkey has significantly harmonised its laws with the EU’s legal framework that is very familiar to UK businesses. A whopping number of 2,500 UK companies are currently operating there, ranging from small businesses to global companies such as Vodafone and Aviva.

If you are interested in finding out more about T-DEB, please get in touch with the team!

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T-DEB Project

Published at
January 23, 2019