The OSTİM Foundation, whose core mission is to ensure, monitor, protect, develop, guide, and supervise the sustainability of established and future organizations and the tangible and intangible assets of OSTİM without deviating from their planned goals, held its 21st General Assembly Meeting.
“Education is one of our main priorities.”
Presenting the 2016 Board of Directors Report to the General Assembly, Gülnaz Karaosmanoğlu, Director of the OSTİM Foundation, stated that the Foundation, established with the resources and intangible heritage of OSTİM, works to create and ensure the sustainability of an ecosystem of education, research, development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and cooperation to increase the management, production, innovation, and technological capabilities of businesses in Ankara and Turkey, especially those in OSTİM.
Karaosmanoğlu, also providing updated information about OSTİM Technical University, said, “Our OSTİM Technical University, themed Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, has received approval from the Council of Ministers and has reached the parliamentary stage. The human capital development efforts that OSTİM has carried out by mobilizing all its resources will become much stronger and more dynamic with the university, serving all of Ankara. In this context, our preparation and collaboration efforts have begun for OSTİM Technical University's Continuous Education and Vocational Technical Training Centers, Project Office, and SME Consulting Services.”
Karaosmanoğlu noted that Ostim Technopark, one of the foundation's establishments, is continuing its establishment efforts with its stakeholders and is also continuing its search for new investors, adding, "We believe that OSTİM Technopark, which we have partnered with and benefited from the cooperation and experience of the OSTİM Organized Industrial Zone, will be an important leading organization in providing access to new business models and collaboration tools for the region's SMEs."
OSTIM and the OSTIM Foundation in the Next 50 Years
In his article titled "Questions for the Next 50 Years," included in the 2016 Activity Report, Orhan Aydın, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the OSTİM Foundation, referred to OSTİM's 50th anniversary and shared his observations regarding the innovations most likely to occur in the next 50 years.
Orhan Aydın, citing examples of numerous innovations such as meteorite mining, the possibilities offered by nanotechnology, re-hydro fuels, self-driving cars, stress-level-indicating clothing, and environmentally friendly jets, stated, "These are the most likely predictions to come true! This means that technologies related to these innovations are already being used somewhere in the world. Therefore, we have two questions before us."
Aydın concluded his article with a series of noteworthy questions and answers: “The first is; ‘Will we be consumers or producers of the technologies of the next 50 years?’ To be consumers, no further question is needed, but if the answer is to be producers, then the other question is; ‘How?’ Our answer is; therefore, universities, technoparks, vocational training, entrepreneurship, and the OSTİM Foundation to keep them alive.”
At the 21st General Assembly, the 2016 balance sheet, income statement, and audit committee reports were discussed. The accounts and reports were voted on separately and unanimously approved. The meeting also reviewed and finalized the 2017 work program and estimated budget, and revised amendments to the foundation's charter in light of current developments.
