June 3, 2014 04:39 UTC

Turkcell Academy Takes Mobile Education to the Next Level with Coursera Partnership

ISTANBUL--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- On January 14th, 2014, Turkcell (NYSE: TKC, BIST: TCELL), Turkey's leading telecommunications and technology company, started a new phase in mobile education in Turkey by relaunching its Academy as a free and public digital learning platform. Turkcell Academy now takes its course offerings to the next level with its partnership with Coursera, one of the world's leading digital learning platforms.
With this partnership, Coursera's rich pool of learning opportunities will be available for free to the public in Turkish language, overcoming a significant barrier that users who are not fluent in English face when accessing online courses. Turkcell Academy users will benefit from the knowledge generated in the most prestigious universities
of the world, including Stanford, Princeton, Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities. More than 600 Coursera offerings cover an impressive span, ranging from finance to psychology, game development to music theory.

A fast growing digital learning platform Banu İsci Sezen, Director of Turkcell Academy, emphasized Turkcell Academy's fast growth as a digital learning platform. "When digitizing Turkcell Academy, we had already made the decision not to limit the content with our own knowledge. In line with this approach, we continously expanded course offerings with valuable partnerships. Through our partnership with Coursera, we will make content from the world's leading academic institutions available to all Turkcell Academy users free of charge," said İsci Sezen. "Users from all walks of life and educational backgrounds will have access to high quality, up-to-date, valuable information." A model for reaching millions through online learning

"Mobile technology, now a part of daily life for more than 6 billion people across the globe, is becoming an ideal channel for reaching new audiences and disseminating knowledge that can change lives and communities," said Daphne Koller, Co- Founder and President of Coursera. "This is why we're delighted to work with Turkcell, a company that shares our vision for an educated future and has the means to help us reach potentially millions of Turkish-speaking learners. We hope this partnership, and our work to localize content with organizations and institutions like Koc University, will become a model for how we can scale learning in other regions of the world."

Providing access to the knowledge of world's leading academic institutions

In addition to its partnership with Coursera, Turkcell Academy carries content from leading international and Turkish academic institutions. Users can benefit not only

from Turkcell's unique content but also from MIT's entrepreneurship courses, Khan Academy's "Learn" program, and Papagei's English courses. Turkcell Academy provides preparation courses for Turkish high-school graduation and university entrance exams as well as for public service entrance exam.
Turkcell Academy's courses can be accessed on www.turkcell.com.tr/Akademi. English-language content is available with Turkish subtitles. Some of the courses are only available to Turkcell customers while others, including the current courses from Coursera, can be accessed free of charge by the general public.

ABOUT TURKCELL: Turkcell is the leading communications and technology company in Turkey, with 34.8 million subscribers as of March 31, 2014. Turkcell is a leading regional player with its approximately 70.1 million subscribers in nine countries as of March 31, 2014. It has become one of the first among the global

operators to have implemented HSPA+. It has achieved up to 43.2 Mbps speed using the Dual Carrier technology, and is continuously working to provide the latest technology to its customers. Turkcell Superonline, a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkcell, is the first telecom operator to offer households fiber broadband connection at speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps in Turkey. As of December 2013, Turkcell's population coverage is at 99.49% in 2G and 86.17% in 3G. Turkcell reported a TRY2.9 billion (US$1.3 billion) revenue with total assets of TRY21.5 billion (US$9.8 billion) as of March 31, 2014. It has been listed on the NYSE and the BIST since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey. Read more at www.turkcell.com.tr

You can now follow the most up-to-date Turkcell developments on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/TurkcellNews

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