July 10, 2025

The Academic Thesis Program (ATP), which was launched in the cooperation between the Council of Higher Education and the Presidency of Defence Industries, and which includes support for undergraduate and graduate theses in the field of AI, has borne its first fruit.

The projects of successful students were exhibited at the event held at ASELSAN. In addition to Prof. Erol Arcaklıoğlu, CoHE Executive Board Member, sector experts, representatives of defense industry companies, human resources officials and academics will come together and have the opportunity to meet with students one-on-one, and it will be aimed to increase interaction and cooperation.

Within the scope of the ATP and the Defense Industry Artificial Intelligence Talent Cluster (SAYZEK) activities, it is aimed to overlap the academic studies carried out in the field of artificial intelligence at universities with the needs of the sector and to bring talented students to the sector.

421 applications were submitted to the ATP from 119 universities and 58 programs. Of these, 258 were related to undergraduate and 98 to master's theses. In the program, 99 mentors from 20 different companies advised the students.

The first 40 students who received high scores in the applications received compulsory and voluntary internship opportunities at companies such as ASELSAN, TAI, ROKETSAN and HAVELSAN.

Students will also benefit from additional rewards such as candidate engineering, project support, academic publication incentives and international conference participation.

Gazi University, Yıldız Technical University, Sakarya University, Yozgat Bozok University and Fırat University were the top five universities to apply to the program.

ATP will continue to be carried out in the new period.