Akana

Team Akana is a team composed of 4 high school girls from TUBITAK Science High School founded in September, 2023. Since then, the team worked mainly on the plastic pollution in the seas and oceans and its effects. In that direction, their first project, Custic (Cuscuta-Plastic), is a environmentally friendly, edible and biodegradable plastic made from a fully parasitic plant, Cuscuta. Cuscuta grows on and kills the plants and is mainly native across Anatolia and affects the agriculture, which is one of the main sectors of the region. From that perspective, they wanted to address this issue along with the plastic pollution. They have participated in various competitions with Custic and earned many titles and won prizes, such as, participating in the regional finals for the GenU Challenge by Unicef, placing 2nd nationally in the Solve for Tomorrow Competition by Samsung and winning the prize worth of 80.000 Tl, and lastly getting selected to compete as a finalist in the finals for Teknofest.