Thanks to Eminay Yurtseven for the write up on a most successful event for startups in Turkey.

For more information on the MEA DPE web team please refer to: The Developer Platform & Evangelism team for Web Strategy in Middle East & Africa

On the afternoon of April 16^th, Microsoft Turkey DPE team hosted another great startup engagement: Innovate!2010 Istanbul Pitch Slam.

Produced by Guidewire Group, the world's leading analyst firm focused exclusively on startups and emerging markets, Innovate!2010 is a global competition to identify and promote the world’s top 100 most promising technology startups via a series of over 20 regional Pitch Slam events. At each Pitch Slam, semi-finalists in the competition are evaluated by a panel of expert judges using Guidewire Group's proprietary G/Score™ assessment methodology. And, each startup receives invaluable feedback from the panel of expert judges.

The Innovate!2010 Pitch Slam in Istanbul featured 8 semi-finalists who gave rapid-fire pitches about their startups. The event hosted by Microsoft Turkey is supported  by StartupWeekend.org, Ozyegin University, Webrazzi and Sevenice in addition to Guidewire Group. The panel of judges included Kaushal Chokshi (Chairman and Founder, Quickstart Global), Arda Kutsal (Founder and Editor, Webrazzi), Sam Rosenbalm (Director of Community Development, Emerging Business Team, Microsoft), Cem Sertoğlu (Founder and Managing Partner, Young Turk Ventures), and Memet Yazıcı (Head of Asset Management, RHEA Investments).

The eight semi-finalists competed in the Pitch Slam, and Anneysen.com was selected as the winner – guaranteeing itself a spot on the prestigious Innovate!100 list. Anneysen.com is a communication, information and support portal specifically catering to the needs of mothers.

The runners-up of the Istanbul Pitch Slam semi-finalists were:

Iletken: Social recommendation technology solution that distributes the most relevant content to individual users.

Karniyarik: Online search engine for products and services in the local market place with an extremely simple and friendly approach to search.

Kade Systems: Serves military, security, automation, retail data monitoring needs through vision technology.

Nefius: Helps users find, aggregate and customize information from a variety of sources.

RotaSoft: Augmented Reality technology for mobile and desktop devices.

Sordu.com: Live communication platform and a marketplace for experts to share their knowledge with people.

Sentio: Develops off-the-shelf technology and easy-to-use software tools including digital signage, CRM and ERP solutions.

The full videos of all semi-finalist pitches from the event can be found at Istanbul Pitch Slam Videos

Innovate!2010 is a terrific opportunity for startups to dramatically accelerate their revenue opportunities, competitive position and market awareness. We are thrilled to provide the Turkish start-ups with international exposure opportunities through Innovate! 2010 event and look forward to many more similar activities to accelerate local innovation and start-up progress in Turkey.