President Ilham Aliyev, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attending TEKNOFEST Festival in Istanbul (UPDATED)

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Republic of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan are attending the TEKNOFEST Aerospace and Technology Festival in Istanbul, Report informs referring to AzerTag.

President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva arrived at the venue of the festival by the Togg car, which is another sign of Türkiye`s technological development.

The festival participants lining up along the road greeted the presidents and first ladies with flowers and prolonged applause.

Then, a photo was taken.

First, Prime Minister of Libya Abdul Hamid Dbeibah addressed the event.

Then, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a speech.

Following the speech of the Azerbaijani leader, President Ilham Aliyev and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid the foundation stone in an online format for the residential complex consisting of a thousand houses, a school, a mosque and other infrastructure facilities to be built by the Azerbaijani government in Kahramanmaras province where the earthquake occurred.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked President Ilham Aliyev for the houses foundations of which were laid in Kahramanmaras.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev with a commemorative banknote made to mark the 100th anniversary of great son of the Turkic world, Great Leader Heydar Aliyev.

The Turkish President then made his speech.

The speeches were followed by a ceremony to award the winners of a competition held as part of the TEKNOFEST.

They posed for photographs together with the competition winners.

They also watched manoeuvres of Kizilelma unmanned aircraft in the sky.

Board Chairman of Baykar company Selçuk Bayraktar presented keepsakes to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Prime Minister of Libya Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

x x x

Organized for 6 years and gaining an international dimension in its fifth year, the 2023 edition of TEKNOFEST kicked off on April 27 for a technology-developing Türkiye, with the vision of the National Technology Initiative. Co-organized by the Turkish Technology Team Foundation and the Ministry of Industry and Technology in partnership with about 120 stakeholders, including ministries, public and private sector institutions, academic institutions, and media companies that play a critical role in the national technology ecosystem of the fraternal country, the festival will run until May 1.

TEKNOFEST, which continues to grow and gain strength every year; millions of technology enthusiasts are expected to visit for 5 days, full of technology, science, aviation-flight shows, exhibitions, summits, workshops, technology competitions, award ceremonies, stage shows and events.

TEKNOFEST is an excellent platform where young people's dreams are transformed into projects and projects become initiatives. Having been held at Istanbul Airport for the first time in 2018, TEKNOFEST has become the world’s second largest festival in terms of the number of daily visitors with 550,000 participants and has achieved to be the world’s third largest festival in terms of overall attendees.

If the first edition of "TEKNOFEST" organized in 2018 brought together 4333 teams and 20,000 participants, this year more than 1 million competitors and more than 333,000 teams are competing in 41 different competitions and 102 subcategories.

On 26–29 May 2022, TEKNOFEST was held in Azerbaijan – for the first time outside Türkiye. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan, first ladies Mehriban Aliyeva and Emine Erdogan, as well as the Nobel Prize Laureate Aziz Sancar attended the opening ceremony of the TEKNOFEST Azerbaijan Aerospace and Technology Festival, which was held for the first time in Baku.

Some 300,000 visitors attended TEKNOFEST Azerbaijan. The festival included three international events and eight technology competitions.