Professional networking

The U.S.-Türkiye Business Council will hold its inaugural Next Generation Fellowship Forum on Monday, October 26, 2026, at the Westin New York Grand Central, with virtual participation also available. The published schedule runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT at 212 E 42nd St, New York, NY 10017. According to the official event announcement, council Chair Hamdi Ulukaya will open the program with a fireside conversation. The gathering is designed around professional connections between the United States and Türkiye, with announced discussions ranging from employment and academic opportunities to entrepreneurship. It is also the inaugural convening for a broader fellowship initiative, rather than simply a stand-alone conference carrying a fellowship name.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced that initiative on September 9, 2026, identifying the October 26 gathering in New York as its official launch. Its launch announcement describes a two-year professional network connecting Turkish students and early-career professionals in the United States with companies, universities, trade associations, and civic organizations. The announcement and the event listing therefore describe different stages of the same project: the September announcement established the initiative publicly, while the October forum is intended to bring its participants and prospective institutional partners together. Neither document presents the gathering as a guarantee of employment, an internship placement, or an individual scholarship award.

A Two-Year Network Behind the Launch

The Chamber says two fellows working full-time at its Washington, D.C., headquarters will lead the effort in cooperation with universities, corporate partners, and community organizations. That structure gives the project an organizational base beyond the New York event, although the September announcement does not provide a detailed calendar for the ensuing two years. It also distinguishes the people administering the initiative from the larger network of students and professionals it seeks to connect. The two staff-based fellows should not be mistaken for a published limit on forum attendance or network participation. The announced model is a sustained professional network, with the October gathering serving as its starting point rather than its complete program.

The fellowship’s program page provides additional detail about its intended direction. It describes connections between students and young professionals in the United States and companies in both countries, with an emphasis on career growth and lasting professional relationships. Working with universities and private-sector companies, the initiative aims to provide exposure to professional development, internships, and employment in either market. These are stated objectives, not published placement results. The distinction is important for understanding what is being launched: an effort to build relationships and access to professional opportunities, rather than a fixed list of jobs or a single academic exchange with uniform terms for every participant.

The Chamber places the initiative within a substantial student community. Its program page reports that 9,413 Turkish students studied in the United States during the 2024–25 academic year, a 5.7 percent increase that it describes as the strongest growth rate in more than 15 years. Those figures are the organizer’s stated background for the fellowship, not a count of people registered for the forum or a forecast of participation. They also refer to a completed academic year, rather than enrollment in October 2026. Used within those limits, the figures help explain the population the Chamber hopes to reach without suggesting that all Turkish students share the same professional plans or eligibility for particular opportunities.

An Agenda Covering Careers in Both Countries

The forum’s announced subjects make clear that its professional focus runs in both directions. One discussion area concerns career opportunities in Türkiye; another concerns U.S. immigration, visas, work authorization, and pathways for foreign professionals. A separate strand addresses scholarships, academic programs, internships, and careers for American students interested in Türkiye. Taken together, these topics describe more than a U.S. job-search event for Turkish graduates. They encompass different educational and professional transitions across the two countries. The published outline identifies those areas of discussion, however, without supplying the names of particular scholarship schemes, academic partners, employers with vacancies, or immigration categories that speakers will examine.

Entrepreneurship and professional experiences spanning both markets are also on the event agenda. The organizer says panels will feature executives, industry figures, and professionals whose careers have involved both countries. That combination places company-building alongside employment and education, rather than treating entrepreneurship as interchangeable with looking for a position at an established business. The public outline remains thematic: it does not identify a startup competition, an investment fund, or a financing commitment associated with the forum. Similarly, the inclusion of cross-market career accounts signals an opportunity to hear professional experiences, not evidence that the same route will be available to every attendee. Those distinctions keep the announced content separate from benefits that have not been promised.

Ulukaya is the named opening participant in the event description, which identifies him as the council’s chair. The September launch announcement also identifies him as Chobani’s founder and CEO and describes him as keynoting the proceedings. The more specific forum listing calls his opening appearance a fireside conversation. These descriptions are compatible and do not establish that two separate appearances are scheduled. In the Chamber’s announcement, Ulukaya frames the initiative around investing in future leaders and strengthening relationships between the two economies. That is the organizer’s rationale for the project; the forum is still forthcoming, so its eventual attendance, discussions, and professional outcomes cannot yet be reported as completed results.

Attendance and Registration Details

The organizer offers both in-person and virtual attendance, while its registration form asks applicants how they would like to participate. The form collects first and last names, an email address, a company or university, and a job title. It specifically instructs people currently in school to enter Student in the job-title field. Those instructions show how the registration process accommodates students as well as people already employed, but they are not a complete statement of admission eligibility. The form’s attendance question should likewise be read as a choice of participation format, not as a published explanation of which sessions will be streamed or how remote attendees will interact with speakers and other participants.

The same registration page includes a CC email field for an assistant or staff member who should also receive event messages. Its publicly accessible text does not specify admission cost, a registration deadline, attendance capacity, recording availability, or detailed virtual-access arrangements. Those omissions should not be converted into assumptions that admission is free, registration is unlimited, or recordings will be distributed afterward. They are practical details that remain to be clarified through the organizer’s communications. The confirmed distinction is narrower: people may attend physically or virtually, and the form asks which option they prefer. Travel and scheduling decisions should rest on that published information and any subsequent confirmation, rather than on features not stated in the available material.

What Is Established—and What Remains Open

The fellowship’s official program page offers continuing points of contact beyond the forum itself. It lists E. Janset Batibay as director of the Next Generation Fellowship and Claire Miller as its manager, alongside council Executive Director Jennifer Miel. It also provides a mailing-list signup, a fellowship LinkedIn group, and a link to the council’s LinkedIn presence. These are published ways to follow the initiative, not evidence of acceptance into a selective placement or entitlement to a particular service. They also separate ongoing fellowship communications from the event registration process: following the network and selecting an attendance format are different actions, even though both concern the same initiative.

The clearest established news is therefore the October 26 launch and the network it is intended to introduce. The forum announcement supplies the venue, hours, participation formats, opening speaker, and subject areas; the September announcement establishes the two-year structure and Washington-based leadership; and the program page explains its professional-development aims. Together, those materials support a picture of an organized effort to connect emerging talent across the two countries. They do not yet establish a roster of participating employers, a full session timetable, individual placement terms, or measurable results. For prospective participants, the forum is an announced entry point into that developing network—not a completed account of what the fellowship will ultimately deliver.