Today is 23 April National Sovereignty and Children’s Day – one of the most exciting and happy days for our nation. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, dedicated the very day that the Turkish Grand National Assembly was established to children and this is a significant example of his vision. It is also a very valuable to us, because just as the Assembly laid the foundations of our Republic, children shape the world and steer the future.

To understand what the world will be like in the future, we need to look at today’s children. What they do, what they are interested in, what games mean to them… These indicate how the world will be like tomorrow. And the future comes in a hurry.

Today’s children cannot imagine a world without the concepts, technologies and devices that previous generations could not even dream of. They grow up and develop with technology. Their perspectives, systems of thought, approaches are fed by the infinite opportunities of technology, especially the digital technology. That is why they can cross borders a lot more easily. When the opportunities of digitalization are combined with their powerful imagination, great works and inventions emerge. Writing codes, developing robots, inventing things, creating their own online media are natural parts of their lives.

As adults, our responsibility is to support such conscious and productive children. That is why I am very enthusiastic and proud of our projects aiming to help children confidently prepare for the future. For instance, our employees support the robotics and mechatronics initiatives at Darüşşafaka High School and encourage young students to think more innovatively. We have provided voluntary engineering support to Darüşşafaka Robotics Club, namely Sultans of Turkey, for a robot that won the FRC Robotics Competition in the USA. In addition, our engineers at Siemens Turkey give coding trainings to the female students at Darüşşafaka and support them in their career paths as voluntary mentors.

Encouraging more female students to study engineering is another initiative that we adopt and put great emphasis on. With the Female Engineers Project held in cooperation with our Diversity Council and Turkish Education Foundation (TEV), our female engineers offer mentoring to young female engineering students to support their theoretical knowledge with experience and practice.

We attach great importance to the projects for the children and young individuals, because we know that we need to take responsibility for all children to build a better world. We need to support them and help especially those with fewer means to confidently preparefor the future. I hope such initiatives continue in a larger scale not only at Siemens Turkey, but also in the business world and throughout the country.

Happy 23 April National Sovereignty and Children’s Day to all children!

“We believe that it’s every child’s right to access preschool education” says Nalan Yalçın, General Manager of AÇEV, Mother Child Education Foundation.

AÇEV piloted an intensive pre-school program to provide critical early childhood education for Syrian refugee children in last summer. We as Siemens Turkey are proud to support such a valuable project of AÇEV. Following the program, an extensive monitoring and evaluation was conducted and the results revealed that kids benefited from this program showed a remarkable improvement which proved it ‘successful’. Some of this children have never seen their parents home back in Syria. Now they are even more ready for their ordinary school education.

This has been a valuable example to develop further education programs for refugee children. This video talks for itself!

“Freedom begins by saying ‘no’!”

At the weekend I was in a mall, waiting in the cash queue. I saw a mother trying hard to convince her kid to eat. The kid, whose linguistic abilities had recently begun to develop, suddenly said “NO” in force. The reaction of the mother indicated that it was the first “no” of the child. Instantly, the kid shrank his lips (act of rebellion) and the mother’s jaw dropped (astonishment). In that moment, the relationship between the mother and the kid took a new dimension. I should say that it has been an interesting observation for me.

Martin Luther (1453-1546) said that every liberation begins by saying “no”. The liberation that begins with a “no” should be respected and cherished. In fact, this is not only about the relationship between parents and children. Let’s think about it a little: How do we react to “no” as an answer in our society and environment?

First, I have to say that, as a society, we usually perceive “no” as a danger.  However, for every individual who does not want to be tied to a single way of thinking and who is open to innovation and development, “no” requires a constructive approach. Being open to innovation is an innate trait. For this reason, one should be able to tolerate objections in hierarchical relations, friendships, and even love affairs. Fear of “no” as an answer can often leave an impression of a trust issue in those who feel inadequate in life and take shelter in their own worldview, ignoring the new.

As the French diplomat, resister, and writer Stéphane Hessel said, by approaching constructively to “no” as an answer, we can perform our primary task to design the future world no matter how complex it may be and we can let the “new” come to light.