ITU Redefines Engineering in its 250th Anniversary

As ITU prepares to celebrate its 250th Anniversary, it brings a new perspective to engineering education with the motto “Transform the Future”.

As Istanbul Technical University prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its establishment, it announced the extensive activities to be held throughout the year with a press conference. The meeting, hosted by our Rector Prof. Dr. İsmail Koyuncu, was attended by leading names from the worlds of culture, arts, sports and business, such as Sarıyer Mayor Şükrü Genç, Feryal Gülman, Neviye Aksoy, Harun Erdenay, Çağla Kubat, Aslı Elif Tanuğur Samancı, who are graduates of ITU.

In his speech, our Rector Prof. Dr. İsmail Koyuncu shared ITU's “250th Anniversary” goals and future vision with the guests: “As you know, in 2023, our Republic will be 100 years old. We are very excited about this. What makes 2023 even more special for us is that we will also celebrate the 250th anniversary of ITU. From the 1773 Mühendishane-i Bahri Hümayun to Istanbul Technical University…”

ITU redefines engineering with the motto “Transform the Future”

Prof. Dr. Koyuncu stated that ITU has a very important historical mission; in this sense, it has always borne the responsibility of being a pioneering, guiding and leading university that determines the future and said: 

“In line with our goals, we will act on three main topics that reveal the vision of our university while ‘Transforming the Future’. These are active learning, impact-oriented R&D, and technological and digital transformation models. In fact, we have taken the steps that laid the groundwork for this vision with many studies we have carried out in recent years. Moreover, we are endeavoring to bring this initiative not only in our country, but also in Europe and the world. ITU is a leading university which shapes engineering education across the European geography within EELISA (European Engineering, Learning, Innovation and Science Alliance), a European University consortium.”

Special Activities and Events for the 250th Anniversary

Prof. Dr. Koyuncu stated that they have been preparing intensively for almost two years for the activities planned as “250th Anniversary Activities” and gave information about the work done: 

“ITU Documentaries series, which is currently being carried out intensively, occupies a very important place among the 250th Anniversary Activities. Of course, it was not possible to tell the story of a well-established institution like ITU in a single documentary. For this reason, we designed it as a series. With our ITU Documentaries series, which consists of a main documentary and 12 thematic documentaries, we aim not only to tell our university’s history, deep-rooted past and present as well as its contributions to our country, but also aim to reveal its strength in education and R&D and its vision for the future. We have also completed the high-resolution scanning and digitization of 4,157 books published by ITU printing houses. These publications can be accessed through the digital archive of the ITU Library. We have also taken various steps to revive publishing, which is one of the important traditions of ITU. This effort has started to bear fruit and our publishing house has already published seven new scientific works. Another important project is the Alumni Archive project. The work of transferring the information of all our graduates to digital medium continues. Another project we launched for the 250th Anniversary is our ‘250 Thousand Saplings in the 250th Year’ campaign. In this context, we are carrying out afforestation work in 81 provinces of our country. In addition to these, we organized many sports events and these events will continue in 10 different branches next year.”

250th Anniversary Enthusiasm

Prof. Dr. Koyuncu stated that they put a special emphasis on belonging to ITU in order to better explain the power and impact of ITU at the universal level in the 250th Anniversary and proceeded as follows: 

“In fact, the most important point that we aim and try to highlight with all these efforts is: To feel the rightful pride of being a member of ITU, belonging to a family of two and a half centuries... We want to show the journey of ITU from the past to the present, especially to all our students who pursue their education under the roof of ITU today, to our academicians and administrative staff who work for ITU, our valuable alumni, the companies and public institutions we cooperate with, in short, all our stakeholders, and we want to make everyone feel the ‘250th Anniversary spirit’ and enthusiasm.

Istanbul Technical University, which has an interdisciplinary perspective where R&D, technology and digitalization is at the forefront, produces permanent solutions for sustainability and global problems, and brings to the fore a method aimed at raising entrepreneurial students, is also the architect of many innovations in our country. While developing technology at the highest level from engineering to architecture, from artificial intelligence to robotics, at the same time, new forms of learning and experiencing it has built, its leadership in R&D and technology, its international achievements, the active cooperation models it has developed with its stakeholders, and its strong alumni network has always kept it a few steps ahead.”