Bayer offers grants, mentorship, training support, and cooperation opportunities to entrepreneurs with its G4A Turkey Startup Acceleration Program.
The 2021 applications of the program continue until March 21
As a “Life Sciences” company by Bayer, the Turkish leg of the Startup Acceleration Program, which is carried out globally to support the digital initiatives and entrepreneurship ecosystem in this field, will be the fourth of G4A Turkey this year. Initiatives selected for the program that entrepreneurs who offer innovative digital solutions in the field of health, agriculture, radiology, and environmental health (pest and rodent control) and who have passed the idea stage, have a lean product, a prototype, or an advanced enterprise, will be supported by grants of ₺60 thousand, mentorship, collaborations, and a 100-day online training program.
With these opportunities offered to entrepreneurs, Bayer contributed ₺2.5 million to the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Turkey in three years. Startups selected for G4A Turkey 2020 last year were Albert Health, DestekBizden, ENBIOSIS, Elegan Technology, Hevi AI, Virtual Reality in Radiology Education, SOYL-GEL and Wiseupsolutions. They developed their products through this program.
What has G4A Turkey provided to startups?
Recai Serdar Gemici, Co-Founder of Albert Health, who helps chronic patients to manage their treatment with artificial intelligence-based voice health assistant and telehealth technologies, stated that the G4A Turkey Program supports’ strengthen the value proposition for pharmaceutical companies. He added saying, “We have received very effective assistance in developing collaboration models with pharmaceutical companies. In this context, with the support of the Bayer Women’s Health business unit, we provided free online medical consultations to 1000 women. Through Albert Health’s Health Assistant application, users could make an appointment on the day and time they wanted and talk to the gynecologist of their choice for free and with video. Therefore, we implemented one of the most effective telehealth applications during the pandemic period. On the other hand, we contributed to the treatment of oncology patients with the cooperation we realized with Bayer Oncology. Oncology patients were able to receive one-to-one counseling about psychological support and nutrition by meeting with psychologists and dietitians online, under the guidance of oncologists.”
With its platform consisting of startups, the DestekBizden project provides the sustainability and social responsibility projects of corporate companies, as well as the monitoring and reporting of these projects with software, provides the equipment and protective product needs in hospitals during the pandemic period, by developing products and producing them instantly with fast manufacturing technologies. Isilay Artut, the entrepreneur of the project, talks about the contributions of the G4A Turkey program as follows: “We had the opportunity to work with many mentors both in the field of health and in different verticals throughout the program in order to scale and make the value created by the project sustainable. Thus, while strengthening our business model, we met new people to join our team thanks to the strong network offered by the program and we had the opportunity to meet with our potential customers. We rolled up our sleeves to continue our journey as a social impact and innovation platform. We always feel the support of Bayer on this road.”
Sukru Ozsurekci, Founding Partner of Elegan Technology, which produces artificial intelligence solutions in the field of hematology, comments on the program: “We have been included in the G4A Turkey Program with our artificial intelligence and blood test automation device HEM-AI. We have obtained very key information such as the management of regulatory processes that we cannot find on other platforms, especially with the field experiences of the mentors involved in the program. We also had a vision of the strategies required to become a global brand.”
ENBIOSIS, which offers a personalized diet approach to the treatment of chronic diseases by making sense of the bacteria in the human intestines with artificial intelligence technology, has opened an office in England by moving its business model to the global ecosystem with the support it received during this period. Omer Ozkan, CEO of ENBIOSIS, comments on the program: “As part of the G4A Turkey Program, regular meetings with mentors every week supported our business development strategies at home and abroad.”
Hevi AI, presents artificial intelligence-based solutions in the field of medical imaging, detects stroke and cerebral hemorrhage in less than a minute with MRI and CT images in case of emergency, informs the physician, and aims to increase the chances of patients to receive treatment. Deniz Alis, Co-Founder of Hevi AI, stated that the program helped them accelerate: “Thanks to this program, we have gained significant experience in clinical work, pricing, and sales in the field of health.”
SOYL-GEL offers solutions for sustainable agricultural practices and produces gel-based water and active substance reservoirs in the soil. Senem Seven, the Founding Partner of SOYL-GEL, noted that the program is very important in terms of bringing them together with potential applications and said: “The program that led us to conduct greenhouse and field trials has made a great contribution to advancing the technology level of our product.”
Dr. Nuran Akyurt, Co-Founder of the Virtual Reality Business Idea in Radiology Education, which provides the education and experience to work comfortably in hospitals with the Virtual Reality business idea and digital infrastructure in Radiology Education, evaluates the program as follows: “As a female entrepreneur, the program gave me national and international vision and improved my perspective.”
Kemal Durkaya, Founder of Wiseupsolutions, which carries out the registration of the company, product name, logo changes, and related domains in this context, increases the digital awareness of public institutions and private companies with mobile and artificial intelligence technologies in the process, speaks about the G4A Turkey Program: “G4A Turkey has contributed a lot to us in order to create a new brand, to explain what is wanted to be given about the solution and to establish new business models. During the 3-month mentoring process, we saw that the solution we have put forward has a high probability of taking place in the global market, so we made radical changes. We have brought the idea developed by our initiative, now called Turkey Digital Idea, to a new vision and mission, and brought it to the establishment stage in Estonia as “Wiseupsolutions”.”
You can apply to the Startup Acceleration Program G4A Turkey 2021, whose applications continue until March 21, through the website g4a.health/turkey and get detailed information from the website. You can also follow Bayer’s social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube).
Source: Webrazzi / Translated by Irem Yildiz