BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Alumni

SECTOR
Information Communication & Technology (ICT)

HEADQUARTERS
Turkey

REGION OF INITIATIVE
Eastern Europe & Central Asia

SDG CONTRIBUTION

RELATED NEWS

Digital Operator Turkcell joined Business Call to Action in July 2019 with a commitment to provide training opportunities to approximately 4,000 low income women in Turkey and upskill a total of 200 female employees to become tester experts by 2021.

As a digital operator, digital technology and innovation is at Turkcell’s core. Recognizing that it had the ability to help close the gap in female labor participation and unleash the potential of women in the digital workforce, Turkcell partnered with the Union of Chamber and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) in 2017 to launch Women Developers of the Future, a project to promote women’s social and economic empowerment by upskilling them through training. TOBB’s Women’s Entrepreneurs Council located in every city of Turkey helps Turkcell to reach women to train and make them join the project, and also in finding the mentors for women entrepreneurs.

Under this project, Turkcell first provided mentorship and training to thousands of women on mobile application development and entrepreneurship. After completing the preliminary training, the programme then offers two opportunities. Firstly, their Entrepreneurship Journey supports women to develop their own mobile apps and launch a business using these platforms. Secondly, the Tester Journey employs 100 women (of which 80 are low income) to contribute to Turkcell’s strategic product and services by conducting end user tests. As part of the development team, these new employees can carry out the tests wherever they want and report their corrections, innovations and findings. Since January 2018, they reported 5600+ bugs and proposed 400+ new features.