HackZone Scale Up Acceleration Program, powered by Allianz Turkey and Hackquarters, kicked off on June 10th, 2021. The 6-month long program will give startups access to benefits like Allianz’s investment network, region-wide market access, training, mentoring support, tech stack, and PoC Partnership opportunities, which began with an up-and-coming online event.

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The kick-off started with an opening speech by Kaan Akın, CEO & founder of Hackquarters, in which he stated, “The current position of tech entrepreneurship is auspicious in Turkey. Many startups are getting suitable investments and are scaling up to different countries. I hope we, as Hackquarters, can be a part of this. Insurance is one of the largest industries in the world. Allianz is one of the biggest companies in this field, so their support of startups from Turkey is an excellent source of motivation.”

Tolga Gürkan, CEO of Allianz Turkey, continued with the Innovation and Digital Growth Strategy of Allianz. Gükan stressed on the challenges for Program, gamification, enhancing customer loyalty, and digital health solutions. He mentioned, “We are aware that it’s not possible to offer our customers the value they deserve and compete in the new world with the old insurance logic. It’s essential to be simple and fast, exactly what we’re working on every day as Allianz.” 

Allianz Turkey Innovation Office Manager, Hümeyra Boztunç contributed to the event by giving details on the benefits of the Program. She touched upon the opportunities that can emerge from the collaboration of startups and corporations, and how valuable is mentors’ contribution from the Allianz’s side. 

The program went on with the five startups selected for the HackZone Scale Up Acceleration Program;

B2Metric, an adaptive learning solution that takes raw customer data to create actionable insights for optimized marketing results with AI.

Co-one, an AI-based, gamification supported, crowdsource, and mobile data annotation services.

Diyetkolik, a meeting platform that supports people in healthy eating and living a healthier life. It is also a technological platform that enables dieticians to serve their services at industry 4.0 standards.

OtoKonfor, a platform that brings together all the after-sales automobile services needed for the automobile.

Uservision helps brands empathize with customers. We provide a platform where brands could quickly reach their target audience and get explicit, subconscious, and implicit insights. Where google analytics provides analytics at a dashboard, we provide the voice of the consumer.

The event concluded with an insight on the startup ecosystem in France presented by Cecile Lavigne, Internal Investment Manager of Business France. Lavigne expressed the key strengths and tangible benefits France provides for startups. She added “For the past two years, France received the most foreign investment in Europe, surpassing Germany and the UK. With reforms like lowering taxes and providing R&D tax credit, France is becoming more and more appealing for innovation. We’re working to slowly become a startup nation.”

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