TİAD Seeks Young Talent

Turkish Machine Tool Manufacturers and Businessmen Association (TİAD) is preparing to launch the Golden Compass competition, which has become a tradition aimed at bringing future talent into industry and encouraging innovative ideas to emerge. The competition, to be held in two categories, calls for vocational school students to design 3D polymer printers and engineering faculty students from universities to design 3D carbon-fiber printers. TİAD Chairman Fatih Varlık noted that the domestic and national content ratio in machine tools, which are used as primary production assets in manufacturing industry, stands at 15 percent. "By implementing this competition, we are supporting our country in achieving the export targets set for 2023, and we are providing design infrastructure for the manufacture within our country of high-technology production equipment and necessary complementary equipment on which Turkey is import-dependent," he said. TİAD is launching the Golden Compass Competition, a corporate social responsibility project designed to bring students from vocational and technical high schools and engineering departments of universities into manufacturing industry and to enable the development of original designs and products. The competition, which is open to vocational school and engineering faculty students and will be organized in two categories, focuses this year on 3D printers.

Vocational schools will participate with 3D polymer printer designs, while engineering faculty students will participate with 3D carbon-fiber printer designs. The competition will span a seven-month process encompassing education, design, production and evaluation phases.

In the first stage, students and teachers will form groups and prepare theoretical designs according to specified criteria. The prepared theoretical work will be evaluated by jury members who are experts in the field, and 10 schools from each category will be selected to advance to the next stage. In this phase, schools will be provided with workstations and 3D design software to enable them to complete their designs, and they will receive training on this software. The final versions of the designs will be evaluated by the jury again, and each school will make presentations and answer jury questions between 26-27 September. Awards for schools and teams placing in each category will be presented at MAKTEK Eurasia, held in Istanbul and the region's most important machinery event. At the awards ceremony on 28 September, prizes including educational scholarships and other valuable gifts will find their recipients.

Providing design infrastructure to increase domestic production's 15 percent share

Recalling that only 15 percent of demand in the machine tools sector, which is used as a primary production asset in manufacturing industry, is met by domestic machines, TİAD Board Chairman Fatih Varlık stated that through the Golden Compass Competition, a corporate social responsibility project, they aim to strengthen cooperation and connection between civil society organizations, schools and industry. Emphasizing the importance of establishing this link, Varlık said: "To catch up with developed countries, high value-added, original product designs must be created and manufactured in terms of Industry 4.0 applications. Enabling the design of innovative products and pioneering their production are among the most important objectives of this competition. Therefore, we want to ensure the development of innovative products in additive manufacturing, which is seen as the future technology in industrial production. The Golden Compass Competition, on one hand, helps talented young people showcase their work and understand the dynamism of industrial production, while on the other hand, enabling them to establish connections with local engineering and technology development firms. By implementing this competition, we are supporting our country in achieving the export targets set for 2023, and we are providing design infrastructure for the manufacture within our country of high-technology production equipment and necessary complementary equipment on which Turkey is import-dependent," he said.