Asım Kocabıyık, the Founder and Honorary Chairman of Borusan Holding always prioritized progressiveness, innovativeness and entrepreneurship in his business throughout his life. These were the values that helped position Borusan among the leading groups in Turkey and he engraved these values to the corporate culture and philosophy at an early stage of the company’s 80 years of history.

He believed that education was the first pre-requisite to catch up with the period and in his own words, he “felt the positive results of the educational reforms of the republic throughout his life”. As a result of his focus on education, he established Asım Kocabıyık Culture and Education Foundation in 1992 to institutionalize his work on this field. In the next years, the Foundation structured its activities under the name Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation and integrated them under a broad framework covering education, music and visual arts. The Foundation continues to work today with the aim of keeping the greatest heritage of Asım Kocabıyık alive.

We are pleased to celebrate our 33rd anniversary today and continue our activities in line with our mission as Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation.

The chairman of the board of directors at Borusan Holding and the founder of Borusan Sanat, Ahmet Kocabıyık laid the foundations of Borusan Sanat in 1997 with inspiration from Asım Kocabıyık and his love for music. He believed that arts shall accompany education for a more civilized life and for Turkey to keep pace with its age. The reason he focused on classical music was its universal language and its ability and depth to unite people in the same world by crossing both time and borders. We continue to share the pleasant outcomes of his vision with art lovers not only from Istanbul, but throughout the world. Our wish is to always take a step further…

Borusan Sanat focuses on Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra founded in 1999 and I had the honor and pleasure to have been the chairman of this institution. It has recently completed its 26th anniversary and has proven its worth when we consider the quality of the works it produced and it’s achievements in such a short period of time.

In the field of visual arts, Borusan Contemporary has organized exhibitions, events, trainings and similar activities utilizing the Borusan Modern Art Collection and integrated these with various exhibitions and activities focused on media arts. In addition, it achieved yet another breakthrough by establishing a new and different arts platform based on the museum concept created at Istanbul office of Borusan Holding.

We, the people of Borusan, learned from our founder and father Asım Kocabıyık that education and arts are indispensable for a developed society. We regard it as our responsibility to grant a future to our children and youngsters where they can demand their basic rights and freedoms, where people are united and can benefit from the positive outcomes of both the liberating and unifying nature of arts.

The foundation has placed some lasting works such as schools, dormitories, guest house for teachers and similar grants at the disposal of the public and it has prioritized projects and scholarship programs aimed at social and individual development in the recent years.

We carry out activities for youth, women and the world of culture and arts in order to bring this country to a modern and bright future following the principles of Atatürk and I believe with all my heart that we will take our activities even further and I wish many successful years to our Foundation.

Zeynep Hamedi
Chairperson
Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation