Azerbaijan to hold Teknofest festival annually

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Teknofest is the world’s largest aviation, space and technology festival which has been held annually in Turkiye since 2018 by the country’s Industry and Technology Ministry, as well as the Turkish Technology Team Foundation (T3 Foundation).

Azerbaijan participated in Teknofest for the first time in 2021, and the festival was held in Baku in 2022.

The festival aims to popularize areas, such as aviation, the space industry, and the digital economy, encourage entrepreneurship in these fields, identify knowledge and skills of young engineers through competitions organized within the festival’s framework, and present national technologies to the general public.

Speaking at the second-panel session on the “transition to green energy”, Agrarian Innovation Center representative Anar Jafarov stated that the Teknofest festival is scheduled to be held in Azerbaijan every year.

He noted that Azerbaijani startups showcased a large number of smart solutions during the festival held in Baku on May 26-29, 2022, adding that some of them are already implemented in various sectors, particularly in agriculture.

Back in 2021, products and solutions from ten startups and one local company were displayed for the first time during the festival’s exhibition portion in Azerbaijan’s national pavilion. The Defense Industry Ministry’s local unmanned aerial vehicle was unveiled as well.

In May 2022, the Teknofest festival was held for the first time in Azerbaijan. The event featured air shows, demonstration flights by Azerbaijani Air Force Su-25 attack aircraft, the MiG-29 multi-role fighter jets, as well as Turkish Stars F-5 fighter planes and Solo Turk F-16 aerobatic demonstration teams, Hurkush Fighter trainer aircraft, and ATAK helicopters.

Moreover, within the framework of the festival, over 10 competitions were held: Baku Skills, GreenTech, Socially-oriented technologies, Unmanned aerial vehicles, Sailplaner, AgriTech, CanSat, Robotics, Smart Karabakh hackathon, and European Esports championship.

Residents and visitors of the capital also were able to see and visit a fair of the latest aviation equipment from Azerbaijan and Turkiye and more than 2,000 square meters of exhibition space of leading and advanced technology companies from the two countries.

In August 2022, Azerbaijan was represented at Teknofest 2022 in Turkiye with its own national pavilion of 300 square meters, organized by the Digital Development and Transport Ministry. Sixteen teams, who won at Teknofest Azerbaijan, were participating in the festival to present their projects to visitors. The national pavilion features an AR (augmented reality) booth, TRIFT-VR (virtual reality) simulator, an AR Drone Race simulator, and a Smart Karabakh presentation. Visitors were also invited to take a VR video tour of Shusha city, using VR 360 Shusha view binoculars.

Holding Teknofest in Azerbaijan is a crucial step for young people interested in the study and development of technology.