Microsoft raises 2,500 Turkish software developers

A total of 2,500 trainees graduated from Microsoft Istanbul's academy for software developers in the last eighteen months in a move to make Turkey a technology developer rather than merely a consumer, Microsoft Turkey’s chief said.

Explaining that some 800 applications were produced at the academy in the first half of 2013, Microsoft Turkey’s CEO Tamer Ozdem noted 130,000 people attended the academy since its beginning.

There are around 50 million Internet users in Turkey, and more than 67.2 million use mobile Internet -- numbers higher than the European average. The size of the software market is $1.2 billion in Turkey, while the total exports hit $479 million in 2012, according to figures from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

"Only 2,500 people graduated out of this number," Ozmen said. "We will study on the low level of graduation."

Lectures on computer programing and social networks are divided into three levels, followed by exams after each level.