Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal, President of TÜBİTAK, attended two summer schools organized at TBAE as part of the Horizons of Science series. Considering basic science-oriented processes as our common excitement, our President attended the summer school on "From Quantum to Space: Ideas and Applications" between June 25 and July 4, 2019 and "Gravitational Waves: New Challenges and Opportunities" held between July 7-14, 2019.
Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal stated that there is a great interest in our scientific and educational community in these summer schools, which are held with the participation of very valuable professors from the world's leading universities, and expressed his pleasure to see distinguished students from various universities of our country and neighboring countries come together in these schools. Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal said that he knows very well that it is very difficult to organize events at this level and thanked the organizers and everyone who contributed.
Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal said, "Turkey is already a country that uses technology and produces technology to a certain extent. However, what is important is the production of knowledge-based technology, and the source of this knowledge is only basic science." In this context, Mr. President said that he believes that the production of qualified knowledge is one of the important challenges facing Turkey, and that he has made an intense effort to put basic sciences at the top of the agenda in all the positions he has held today and in the past. Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal also stated that he is aware that this is not enough, and emphasized that it is a promising development that our students have returned with gold medals from world olympiads in basic sciences in recent years.
Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal gave instructive examples from his scientific experience gained in his career journey as a materials engineer and explained how important basic science is for a successful career and said that he hoped these examples could be a guiding light for young researchers. Emphasizing that the series of education and research schools and popular evening talks will continue in the coming periods and will be at the top of TÜBİTAK's agenda, Mr. President then listened to the popular evening talk on "The First Image of a Black Hole".
