AstraZeneca Trains the Scientists of the Future

AstraZeneca Türkiye, a program called 'Minik Bilim Kahramanları Buluşuyor' run by Bilim Kahramanları Derneği, supported 10 teams from 5 different cities during the 2022-2023 academic year, contributing to the development of students' scientific skills. According to a statement from AstraZeneca Türkiye, the company began supporting the 'FIRST LEGO League Explore Program', which is run by Bilim Kahramanları Derneği and implemented in Turkey under the name 'Minik Bilim Kahramanları Buluşuyor', for the first time in the 2020-2021 academic year. AstraZeneca Türkiye continued its contributions to elementary school children acquiring basic engineering and programming skills during the 2022-2023 academic year through online and physical events, with volunteer participation from its employees. This year, the company supported 10 teams from 6 state schools and 4 Science and Art Centers across 5 different cities with unconditional contributions, enabling 53 students to enhance their science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills with the participation of 18 teachers (coaches and advisors). Through the support of AstraZeneca Türkiye's volunteer employees, children learned basic engineering and programming skills thanks to models they designed with LEGO pieces, and had the opportunity to apply the concepts they learned by operating their own models. In this way, AstraZeneca Türkiye, over a period of 3 academic years, helped approximately 200 students in 15 cities and 13 different institutions, with the support of 56 teachers, achieve scientific gains. [caption id="attachment_155986" align="aligncenter"] AstraZeneca Türkiye Country President Pharm. Serkan Barış[/caption]

'We are pleased to contribute to building our children's future'

During the 2022-2023 season, whose theme was 'SUPERPOWEREDSM: The Energy Journey', students conducted research through models they designed with LEGO pieces, discovering how energy is produced, stored, distributed and used, generating ideas and displaying their work at festivals. At the face-to-face festivals held at the end of the term, conducted without a competitive environment, volunteer AstraZeneca Türkiye employees had the opportunity to observe the entertaining and educational experience gained by the students. The FIRST LEGO League Explore Program, implemented by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and LEGO Education in more than 80 countries worldwide, has been organized in Turkey under the name 'Minik Bilim Kahramanları Buluşuyor' since 2014. Bilim Kahramanları Derneği Board Chairman Prof. Dr. Sıddıka Semahat Demir stated that one of their greatest objectives is to introduce children and young people to science at an early age and to ensure equal opportunity in access to quality education for every child, continuing as follows: 'We are very pleased that AstraZeneca Türkiye has contributed to this goal for 3 years. I thank the entire AstraZeneca Türkiye team for supporting this project that provides children with the opportunity to discover their interests in science, technology and engineering, and for once again highlighting a participatory process by including employee volunteering.'

AstraZeneca Türkiye Country President Pharm. Serkan Barış also made the following remarks:

'We view passing on scientific thinking to future generations as one of our most important responsibilities. We believe that the fundamental path to strengthening our country's position in the world of science and increasing our society's interest in scientific work is to instill scientific knowledge and skills in children. We are pleased to contribute to building our children's future through this meaningful cooperation we have maintained with Bilim Kahramanları Derneği for many years.'   Source