We established the Akbank Transformation Academy with the aim of digitalizing our SMEs and strengthening them financially. This academy, where we offer the opportunity to take action for financial and digital transformation through seminars, customized training programs, networking and collaborations that give our SMEs the opportunity to catch the agenda, ensures that all our SMEs benefit from a variety of training programs. In this context, we conducted training programs in Ankara, Bursa, Balıkesir, Çanakkale and İzmir.
One of the collaborations we organized within the scope of the Transformation Academy was Türkonfed. SMEs play a key role in Turkey's adaptation to the green transformation process initiated by the European Union. Based on this, we implemented the Green Transformation Project for SMEs in order to increase the awareness of enterprises in Anatolia with the cooperation of TÜRKONFED and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and with the support of Akbank. In parallel with Sustainable Development Goals such as accessible and clean energy, industry, innovation and infrastructure, responsible consumption and production and climate action, at the meetings we held in Kocaeli, Adana, Gaziantep, Elazığ, İzmir, Samsun and Ankara hosted by TÜRKONFED member federations and associations, we carried out comprehensive studies on why green transformation is important and how institutions should be prepared.
In addition, we have announced the results of the workshops we organized in these seven provinces within the scope of the “Green Transformation Project for SMEs” in the Report on Risks, Opportunities and Expectations in Green Transformation.
In addition to the workshops, we became a supporter of the "Importance of Green Transformation for SMEs" panel of the "I Can Manage My Business" project, which was implemented in 2019 with the support of 30 banks and e-money institutions in cooperation with TÜRKONFED, VISA and UNDP. In this context, we organized trainings in Çanakkale, Van, Ordu, Eskişehir and Malatya. We interacted with our SMEs through a total of 12 events on sustainability.
This year, we also organized conferences on e-commerce and e-export with Worldef company in Gaziantep, Konya and Denizli. We came together in Adana with SMEs who want to export to Germany or improve their exports. We stood by our SMEs with 9 events on e-commerce and e-export, lasting 25 days in total.
In addition to these, we continued our cooperation to grow SMEs. We offer special advantages to SMEs that are Turkey's leading marketplaces, Hepsiburada supplier. In cooperation with Akbank, we held the Hepsiburada My Business Partner Meetings in Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul, which attracted more than 1,000 participants. As Akbank, we presented the development of e-commerce and general economic data, as well as the free and discounted banking services we offer to Hepsiburada suppliers in detail, to event participant SMEs.
We organized a total of 67 online and physical events that lasted 85 days for our activities with the companies we cooperate with in 2022. We have contacted approximately 45 thousand SMEs in all our programs.