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Turkish App Developers Code the Night Away at Turkcell's Marathon Launch
[April 09, 2014]

Turkish App Developers Code the Night Away at Turkcell's Marathon Launch


ISTANBUL --(Business Wire)--

Turkcell (News - Alert) (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL) Turkey's leading telecommunications and technology company launched its App Marathon this weekend with an intensive coding event. 153 young developers, chosen from a pool of 600 applicants, coded for 25 hours under the leadership of 42 mentors, and are now embarking on a 6-week-long journey to develop their apps.

153 developers at Turkcell's App Marathon Coding Weekend took more than 200 selfies. More than 1600 ...

153 developers at Turkcell's App Marathon Coding Weekend took more than 200 selfies. More than 1600 cups of coffee and 960 slices of pizza helped them survive the intense work. (Photo: Business Wire)

With its App Marathon, Turkcell will lead 153 developers, organized in 62 teams, in their effort to develop applications that will facilitate the lives of Turkish app users and contribute to the society in solving social, environmental and economic issues. Under the umbrella concept of "Improving Lives with Technology", the teams will develop apps in 7 categories: Education, Health, Mobile Finance, Transportation, M2M, Business World and Social Responsibility. The teams will be supported by their mentors throughout the process and participate in a final competition at the end of 6 weeks. Successful teams will have the opportunity to be business partners with Turkcell and the winner of the marathon will get a chance to visit the Silicon Valley.

Among the 153 developers are a student from Mozambique and a Turkish resident of Canada who is working on a French-English dictionary. Two teams consist entirely of female students who are in the first year of theircollege education with the financial support of Turkcell's "Snowdrops" program.



The vision to create a mobile software movement in Turkey

Koray Ozturkler, Turkcell's Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, underlined Turkcell's commitment to solving problems through technology and building an ecosystem around this ideal. "We have launched the App Marathon with the vision to create a mobile software movement in Turkey, and to encourage youth to achieve their potential. The enthusiasm and passion that I have witnessed during the marathon proves that Turkey can indeed be one of the leading countries in the mobile app market in the coming years." said Ozturkler in his address to the participants of the coding weekend.


Turkcell's App Marathon is part of "Developers for the Future". Launched in September 2013, the project aims to improve technological literacy and the software development landscape in Turkey. The community already boasts 15 thousand members who receive free online training in mobile software development for iOS, Android (News - Alert) and Windows Phone. Turkish speakers can access the project website and become members at https://gelecegiyazanlar.turkcell.com.tr/.

ABOUT TURKCELL: Turkcell is the leading communications and technology company in Turkey, with 35.2 million subscribers as of December 31, 2013. Turkcell is a leading regional player, with market leadership in five of the nine countries in which it operates with its approximately 71.3 million subscribers as of December 31, 2013. It has become one of the first among the global operators to have implemented HSPA+. It has achieved up to 43.2 Mbps speed using the Dual Carrier technology, and is continuously working to provide the latest technology to its customers. Turkcell Superonline (News - Alert), a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkcell, is the first telecom operator to offer households fiber broadband connection at speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps in Turkey. As of December 2013, Turkcell's population coverage is at 99.49% in 2G and 86.17% in 3G. Turkcell reported a TRY11.4 billion (US$6.0 billion) revenue with total assets of TRY21.3 billion (US$10.0 billion) as of December 31, 2013. It has been listed on the NYSE and the ISE since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey. Read more at www.turkcell.com.tr

You can now follow the most up-to-date Turkcell developments on twitter by clicking on the link below.
http://twitter.com/TurkcellNews


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