Trendyol hosts e-commerce hackathon at TEKNOFEST 2024

By Sibel Morrow

ISTANBUL (AA) – Trendyol, in collaboration with the T3 Foundation, organized its first-ever e-commerce hackathon as part of TEKNOFEST Adana, the company announced in a statement on Sunday.

The event, held at the "Villages of Tomorrow" digital center in Türkiye’s southern Adana province, brought together 16 teams over two days to develop technologies aimed at helping local producers transition to e-commerce.

The winning team, "BazLLaMa Is All You Need," was awarded the top prize by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Meanwhile, the team "Sebil" which came second, and "Kermit" third will receive the prizes by Selcuk Bayraktar, Chairman of the T3 Foundation and Baykar, during the closing ceremony of TEKNOFEST.

The top three teams received cash prizes of 100,000 lira, 80,000 lira, and 60,000 lira, respectively.

Throughout the festival, Trendyol’s booth offered several interactive experiences, including AI workshops and virtual reality demonstrations. The booth also received prominent visitors including the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Türkiye, Said Sani ez-Zahiri, and Selcuk Bayraktar.

In addition, Türkiye's first astronaut, Alper Gezeravci, was honored with a commemorative t-shirt by the National Technology Collection, inspired by Gezeravci and the Turkish Space Agency.

- Supporting local producers through technology

The hackathon aligned with the mission of the "Villages of Tomorrow" project, which focuses on promoting sustainable rural development. Participating teams utilized technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and multimodal AI to create solutions that help local producers access international markets.

"Villages of Tomorrow" is one of Türkiye’s most comprehensive rural development initiatives, launched by Trendyol and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The project equips local producers with knowledge in smart agriculture, value-added product development, and e-commerce. Digital centers under this initiative are operational in Adana, Izmir, and other cities.

"The determination of the young people participating in TEKNOFEST will help Türkiye lead in the technology sector," Trendyol Group President Caglayan Cetin, was quoted as saying in the statement.

Recalling that Trendyol has been a partner of TEKNOFEST for the past three years, Cetin said the e-commerce hackathon aligns closely with the company’s "Villages of Tomorrow" project, which has now expanded to five cities in collaboration with the UNDP.

- Expanding Türkiye’s global reach through technology

Cetin further emphasized the role of technology and digital services in the growth of local businesses, highlighting Türkiye’s high production quality and Trendyol's efforts to bring these products to global markets through e-export.

"Trendyol currently supports hundreds of thousands of producers and sellers on its platform. So far, we have helped 120,000 producers begin exporting. Thanks to these efforts, a local producer from a village can now receive up to 50% of their orders from international customers. Our goal is to strengthen Türkiye’s export power by investing in international markets and continuing our growth in an increasingly digital world," he added.