Fire Up

  Fire-Up, which focuses on improving the entrepreneurship and social innovation skills of university students by adopting the concept of 'entrepreneurship as a mindset, was launched in 2020 with the partnership of Boğaziçi University Bright Center for Entrepreneurship and İTÜ GİNOVA Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center. 19 students from Boğaziçi University completed the program in which 500 applications were received, and 100 students participated. In the program, students were enabled to develop projects that would create change in the campus in line with their sustainable development goals. Stanford University 2017 UIF Fellow Zeynep Çelik contributed invaluable contributions to the program content, and 2019 UIF Fellow Fatih Gözükara was extremely instrumental and helpful in the functioning and communication of the program, and he played a key role in achieving success in the first year of the program.

  In the program organized every year, students selected by the jury, including Boğaziçi University Bright Center for Entrepreneurship Center Director Assistant Professor Oğuzhan Aygören and İTÜ Assistant Professor Zeynep Beyazıt, provide an eight-week intensive, hands-on entrepreneurship and innovation training. Teams of students are expected to develop and implement projects to improve campus life throughout the process. During the program, with the active support of mentors from different fields of expertise, it is aimed to both keep the learning processes of the students alive and contribute to the success of the projects.

At the end of the eight-week period, four students from ITU and four from Boğaziçi University are selected as a result of the interviews organized by a jury that includes important people from the entrepreneurship ecosystem and are eligible to be nominated for the 'University Innovation Fellowship' program organized by Stanford University d.school. In the continuation of the process carried out in partnership with Stanford University, students are accepted to the program after passing the interviews organized by Stanford University. 

  In the coming years, it is planned to expand the program's scope throughout Turkey and improve the educational content with the support. For this purpose, METU Entrepreneurship Center has been included in the program that started in 2022. Thus, the students of the three leading state universities of Turkey will have the opportunity to work together to produce a joint project with the Fireup program, and they will be included in the international network together with the Stanford University UIF program. In addition, Fire-Up is a workshop area where Bright can try new training methods, new creative approaches, and new teamwork types to be added to the knowledge pool. Every year, it creates the effect it wants to create on itself with the volunteer work of the previous year's graduates and its changing and developing system.

You can watch the program called "Entrepreneurship as a Mindset"

Fire-Up Manifesto

"We believe students can achieve anything they set forth.

We are change makers!

With our efforts, we can influence the future.

When necessary, we can be a leader and direct the team, cooperate and become one with our teammates.

We adapt to the changes and become part of the change.

We are burning with our never-ending desire for learning.

We are carrying out this movement that brings us together, from artists to scientists.

Now the world needs us; we know it.."