IAB’s UniChallenge Tech, organized with Lenovo Türkiye as its main sponsor, has completed its 8th edition. With the program’s departmental restriction lifted, 26 young people from 17 universities and 11 cities graduated; 16 of the graduates came from universities outside Istanbul.
During the two-week program, 32 experts provided training in digital marketing, media, data, technology, communications and artificial intelligence. Participants developed a media strategy, planned campaigns and prepared advertising materials using artificial intelligence tools based on Lenovo’s real brand brief. As part of the mentoring program implemented for the first time, 6 alumni from previous editions also supported the teams.
The teams that ranked in the top three in the jury’s evaluation gained the opportunity to intern at IAB member companies.
Why it matters
Conducting the program without a departmental restriction shows that access to digital marketing and technology training is not limited to specific academic fields. Working on a real brand brief takes the training beyond theoretical instruction, enabling young people to use media planning, data and artificial intelligence tools within the same process. The participation of alumni mentors allows the program to draw not only on expert instruction but also on the transfer of experience from previous participants. Opening an internship pathway for the top three teams links the evaluation outcome to a concrete opportunity for industry engagement; however, the report does not answer how this opportunity will affect the careers of the other graduates or to what extent the use of artificial intelligence will continue after the program.
Background
Tech is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: over the past 90 days, we have published 6 reports in which this name appeared; the latest was dated September 16, 2026.