GEBKİM Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School Students Also Achieve Success in Entrepreneurship

GEBKİM Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School joined the GençBizz High School Entrepreneurship Program, which enables high school students to connect with the business world and learn entrepreneurial culture during their education. İLKİM, a company founded by 5 female students in the 10th grade at GEBKİM MTAL, advanced to the semi-finals after passing the selection process among companies participating in the program this year. The students at İLKİM, who are candidates to join the ranks of future female entrepreneurs, are continuing laboratory experiments with the support of Chemistry Teacher M. Salih Alçın to create a natural vitamin patch containing B12, C and D vitamins—a first of its kind. The GençBizz High School Entrepreneurship Project is a program conducted in cooperation with the Young Success Education Foundation, Eastern Marmara Development Agency and Provincial National Education Directorates, in which high school students aged 14-18 are guided by their mentors and gain knowledge about establishing and managing companies. The program also encourages students to develop new projects. The program brings important benefits to young people as a learning-by-doing economic education initiative in which high school students establish their own small-scale companies with zero capital, produce and sell real products and services within school premises, manage them, participate in national and international fairs, and eventually liquidate their companies at the end of the program. GEBKİM MTAL first participated in the program with 4 companies in the 2019-2020 academic year. İLKİM, one of these companies, successfully completed the program last year as well.   The GEBKİM MTAL 10th grade students who founded İLKİM—Azra Karaoğlan, Bengisu Gümüşkanat, Berra Yıldırım, Elif Beyza Günaydın and Zehra Terzi—are carrying out their work under the mentorship of Design Technologies Field Teacher Yasemin Akyel from the beginning of the project. Bengisu Gümüşkanat, a GEBKİM MTAL student and CEO of İLKİM Company, successfully passed the international entrepreneurship exam conducted at the end of the program and earned the right to obtain the Entrepreneurial Skills Pass (ESP) certificate, which is valid in 20 countries. ESP is an international competency certificate that demonstrates students aged 15-19 have gained real entrepreneurial experience and possess the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to start a business or gain successful employment. ESP gives students an edge in university admissions, internship and recruitment processes.  

Women will shape the future of the chemistry sector

GEBKİM MTAL and İLKİM Company are continuing their projects in the 2020-2021 academic year. They advanced to the semi-finals with the first 70 companies after passing the selection process among 280 companies participating in the program this year. The GEBKİM MTAL 10th grade students—Azra Karaoğlan, Bengisu Gümüşkanat, Berra Yıldırım, Elif Beyza Günaydın and Zehra Terzi—aim to create a natural vitamin patch containing B12, C and D vitamins, achieving a first with the company they founded. In the vitamin market, which has grown significantly with the pandemic, there is no patch-form vitamin applied by adhesion. İLKİM Company initially set out with the idea of developing a patch-form vaccine for people with needle and vaccination fears. However, they realized that vaccine production under pandemic conditions requires advanced expertise, so they focused on producing vitamin patches. They are now conducting laboratory prototype work with the support of Chemistry Teacher M. Salih Alçın. GEBKİM MTAL's advanced chemistry laboratories, equipped with all necessary facilities, provide a suitable environment for students to carry out their work. The Young Success Foundation, which acts as a bridge between the business world and education in order to ensure that young people have an entrepreneurial mindset and actively participate in business life, appointed Cemal Uygar Umay from ABBOTT Pharmaceuticals as a mentor to the İLKİM students who advanced to the semi-finals. In this way, students receive training on various topics from sales and marketing to business development under the guidance of their mentor. Bengisu Gümüşkanat, CEO of İLKİM Company, also came in second in the "Equal Opportunity Through Educational Technology" GençBizz e-challenge competition, which was attended by 50 students selected from the companies that advanced to the semi-finals. GEBKİM MTAL company İLKİM will apply to compete in the GençBizz Turkey finals after obtaining its authorization certificate in the coming days.