Forum offers entrepreneurial views on crisis

The 9th International Entrepreneurship Forum, organized jointly by Turkey’s Sabancı University and the U.K.’s University of Essex, began Thursday in Istanbul, with a focus on the global economic turmoil and related social issues.

Aiming to provide a platform for researchers, policy makers and practitioners amid the increasing interaction between businesses, institutions and governmental bodies, the forum addresses the impacts of the crisis on entrepreneurship and the creative use of technology. The forum, which ends Friday, is supported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, its Local Economic and Employment Development program and the National Innovation Initiative.

During the opening speech of the forum, Nakiye Boyacıgiller, dean of the faculty of management at Sabancı University and the co-chair of the conference, championed the role of the university in developing an entrepreneurial and innovative culture.

Outlining the university’s progress, she stated that Sabancı University founded Inovent, the first technology-commercialization office in Turkey. She also commented on the technopark venture, which opened in 2005. “We are very strong in research,” she said, referring to discovery as a vital aspect of entrepreneurship.

Technology key to venture creation

The forum’s central theme included the significant role of technology in “the generation of entrepreneurial opportunities for new-venture creation,” as well as the possibility “of new organizational forms emerging from cross-border linkages.”

Speaking at the opening session, Jay Mitra, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship Research at the University of Essex, and the co-chair of the conference, said that the International Entrepreneurship Forum, established in October 2000, is “a triple-helix forum to exchange the wealth of learning and experience on entrepreneurship with a view to developing joint platforms of activity.” It aims to ask whether entrepreneurship is more than small-business management, analyze the wider dynamic of different stakeholders, and empower economic, social, cultural and personal creation, he said.

Cemil Arıkan, the director of research and graduate policies at Sabancı University, made a presentation on Turkish entrepreneurship. In terms of innovation performance, Turkey is a moderate grower among the countries playing catch-up, together with Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia, according to the 2008 European Innovation Scoreboard.

Turkey is low performing in terms of human resources, while it is growing in terms of finance and support, he said. Private investments seem low but linkages and entrepreneurship are not bad, he added. The country’s growth performance in the aforementioned categories for the period of 2002 and 2008 seems promising.

Describing the recent steps taken in Turkey, he cited the National Innovation Strategy of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, or TÜBİTAK, the National Innovation Initiative and the Innovation Foundation, the first nongovernmental organization in the field. Citing the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a not-for-profit research consortium, he also said that Turkey is among the efficiency-driven countries in a group that sees innovation-driven economies as the final phase of development.

Turkey ranks 40th on the global entrepreneurship index, said Zoltan Acs, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Public Policy at George Mason University in the United States.

Some of the other speakers of the forum included Mehtap Özkan, founder and managing partner of Golden Horn Ventures, Bülent Çelebi, founder and chief executive officer of AirTies, Pier Carlo Padoan, deputy secretary-general of the OECD, Yavuz Emre İyibilir, managing director of İş Private Equity and Marko Curavic, head of the entrepreneurship unit at the European Commission.