TEKNOFEST Southeast sets record with more than 1.5 million visitors

Selçuk Bayraktar announced the figure at the closing ceremony in Şanlıurfa.

The Turkiye Times Editorial DeskOctober 04, 2026, 05:52 PMUpdated: October 05, 2026, 10:12 AM

TEKNOFEST Southeast sets record with more than 1.5 million visitors

TEKNOFEST Southeast, held at Şanlıurfa GAP Airport, ended with a closing ceremony at which TEKNOFEST board chairman Selçuk Bayraktar announced a record turnout. "We became one heart with 1.3 million citizens in Şanlıurfa. We set a record by hosting more than 1.5 million visitors at all TEKNOFEST Southeast events," he said.

Speaking after the festival, Bayraktar said about 200,000 people took part in the competition events and that hundreds of thousands of students were brought to the festival grounds together with their schools. "The generation raised in this region will leave its mark on the world in every field of technology and will come forward with its works," Bayraktar said, adding that next year's TEKNOFEST schedule has not yet been finalized and will be decided after talks with the board of directors and relevant institutions.

Elvan Kuzucu Hıdır, chair of the T3 Foundation's board of directors, said technology competitions were held in 62 categories as part of TEKNOFEST, that more than 1.6 million young people applied and that about 20,000 reached the finals. Hıdır said that, relative to the city's population, the Şanlıurfa festival had one of the highest turnouts among the 15 TEKNOFEST events held over nine years. TEKNOFEST Secretary-General Mehmet Ali Nart said the festival has hosted more than 12 million visitors in nine years.