The winners of the Ideas Contest, which was launched as part of the We Heal the Future program, one of the social investment programs of Abdi İbrahim, which has been operating in the Turkish pharmaceutical industry for 110 years with the aim of improving life, were determined under the umbrella of social innovation. “My Hospital Friend İDA” won the early stage initiatives, while the initiative named BIODIF was awarded the special jury award in the Healing Ideas Contest. Among the advanced initiatives, the social enterprise named “PONS”, which offers wearable ultrasound technology, ranked first.
The Healing Ideas Contest, organized by Abdi İbrahim, the uninterrupted leader of the Turkish pharmaceutical industry for 20 years, to support social innovation in health, was realized in partnership with Ashoka Turkey, Impact Hub Istanbul and Mikado Sustainable Development Consultancy, the important organizations in this field in Turkey and the world. The winners of the Healing Ideas Contest were announced at a hybrid ceremony held at Abdi İbrahim Tower on February 28, hosted by Göksemin Gökalp Özdemir. Dr. M. Oğuzcan Bülbül, Public Relations and Corporate Communications Director at Abdi İbrahim, and Serra Titiz, Founder, Mikado Sustainable Development Consultancy opened the ceremony in which approximately 600 people participated online. Afterwards, Ali Özüer, AbdiBio Group Chairman gave a speech about Abdi İbrahim’s steps in the field of biotechnology and emphasized the importance of innovation.
A panel titled “An Important Stakeholder in the Development of the Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem: Private Sector” was also held at the ceremony. In the panel, Serra Titiz, Founder, Mikado Sustainable Development Consultancy, Dr. M. Oğuzcan Bülbül, Public Relations and Corporate Communications Director at Abdi İbrahim, Tuba Gökcan, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Manager at Anadolu Efes, Rana Birden, Head of Corporate Communication and Public Relations, Kale Group, Hayri Telekoğlu, Marketing & Central Sales Director, TEB Private Banking, and Şahika Özcan Ortaç, Corporate Communications Manager at Zorlu Holding shared their activities in the field.
At the end of the process where nearly 100 applications were evaluated, the mobile application “Hastane Arkadaşım İDA” (Hospital Friend İDA), which aims to overcome the fear of hospital and medical procedures and increase the psychological resilience of children struggling with chronic diseases, won among the early stage social enterprises. “BIODIF”, a biotechnology initiative that produces vitamin-containing alternatives, was awarded the special jury award. The winner of advanced social enterprises was PONS, which offers wearable ultrasound technology that can perform medical imaging for better, faster and more sensitive remote monitoring of critical illness and women’s health problems.
While 75,000 TL was given to the winning advanced startup PONS, early stage ventures that make it to the finals prepared for the final day by receiving the mentoring support given by Ashoka Turkey and Abdi İbrahim professionals during Intensive business development trainings throughout the incubation program conducted by Impact Hub Istanbul, accompanied by networking supports and coaching talks. The first year of the program was completed by giving a monetary award of 35 thousand TL to IDA, a social enterprise, my Hospital Friend, selected by the jury among the social entrepreneurs who made their presentations before the jury on the final day, and a special jury award of 10 thousand TL to BIODIF.
“We bring health and innovation together”
Dr. M. Oğuzcan Bülbül, Public Relations and Corporate Communications Director at Abdi İbrahim said that they aimed to further expand the impact of the Healing Ideas Contest, which they held for the first time this year. He said, “While contributing to the development of many ideas and social enterprises by calling on large masses with the “Social Innovation Program in Health”, we aim to develop our own business and expand our sphere of influence by supporting these initiatives, as well as bringing brand new solutions to our sector. I congratulate the winning social enterprises and wish them success.”
Dr. M. Oğuzcan Bülbül continued as follows, “As Abdi İbrahim, our goal is to provide the public with accurate information in the field of medicine and health through our social investment programs, to raise awareness of science in the country, to support social innovation and entrepreneurship in health, to lead innovations in the health sector, to spread the spirit of volunteerism in employees and the value chain. Within the scope of these goals, as a company, we gathered our social investment programs under 4 headings. We started to develop projects under each heading that we determined as health and sports, social innovation, science awareness among young people and volunteering. With our “We Heal the Future” program under the title of social innovation, we will lead and support the formation of an ecosystem in which ideas and initiatives that will contribute to our field, health and pharmaceutical industry develop, strengthen and increase social benefit-oriented ideas, understand the potential of social entrepreneurship, and contribute to the start-up ecosystem. We aim to be more integrated and take more advantage of the opportunities offered by Industry 4.0.”
