Women entrepreneurs awarded
Saturday, April 19, 2008
With so many women dressed in dark power suits, high heels and with their hair meticulously styled, it could have been a scene out of �The Devil Wears Prada.� Yet, this was the awards ceremony for the second �Turkey's Women Entrepreneur Awards,� handed out Thursday evening at Istanbul's Hyatt Regency Hotel.
The first person to take the stage before the announcement of the winners was Garanti Bank Deputy Director Nafiz Karadere. He explained how they had organized the competition and cited figures comparing women entrepreneurs in the United States, Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and Turkey. He said one of the factors that had initiated the competition was that they had met many women entrepreneurs while traveling through Anatolia with Garanti Bank. He added that over 800 women had applied to the competition.
Karadere also explained Garanti Bank's special service, �Support Package for Women Entrepreneurs.� He said that 2,303 women have benefited from this package.
The minister in charge of women's affairs, Nimet Çubukçu, also attended the awards ceremony. She said such competitions were very important and congratulated all the women who participated.
Çubukçu's speech was followed by the presentation of jury members, the evaluation criteria and a short film that featured the 10 finalists telling their stories.
The first to receive her award was Esma Kıvrak, the founder of Palmet Rugs. She received the social entrepreneurship award in the competition, organized by Garanti Bank and Ekonomist magazine in collaboration with the Women Entrepreneur's Association of Turkey (KAGİDER). Kıvrak is seeking to revive traditional rug making in Uşak and has opened rug-weaving courses where more than 1,000 women have learned the trade. She exports the rugs to the United States and seven European countries.
Öznur Uysal of Sit-Design Furniture, who placed third, followed Kıvrak on stage. Uysal created her own brand of living room furniture, made of textiles and leather, as well as interior furnishings for yachts. Uysal has been exporting her products to various European countries and has partnerships with two factories in China.
Sema Elmacıoğlu, from Elmacıoğlu Textiles, won second place in the competition. She, too, has created her own brand. Her company produces felt and padding, which is used as stuffing in the furniture sector. These products proved to be cheaper and of higher quality than traditional stuffing materials.
The first place winner in the competition was Emel Aksoy Gündemir, of Emel Fishnets. She had started off in the business of weaving fishnets at the early age of 17, in order to help her parents. She switched to mass production methods in 1995 when, not being able to meet the high demand, she imported weaving machines from Japan. Currently, Gündemir is the owner of two of the five factories in this sector.
The award statue, shaped like a high-heeled women's shoe with skyscrapers forming the heels, is in keeping with the concept of the competition.
© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr
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