With the February-March Hello Tomorrow Challenge kicking off in Istanbul on January 28th, among others cities across the world, there’s one more can't-miss tech event in the city on the Bosphorus.

International visibility is one benefit the Hello Tomorrow organizers believe their conference can offer startups and entrepreneurs (not to mention the €100,000 awarded to the first place winner, and €15,000 for four runners up): PR rep Julie de Pimodan says “the idea is to have a global impact, and that participating startups will “compete at the international level, with global visibility thanks to 50 ambassadors around the world and top level jury and acceleration program as part of the challenge.”

Also notable is that business savvy is not one of the main qualities organizers will look for in selecting participants and finalists. “Judges will look at how creative the idea is,” de Pimodan continues, “we don’t mind finding those crazy geeks who are too geeky and don’t have a lot of business sense, because we will be there to support them and help structure their business models.”

Overall, the goal of the event will be to “focus on the changemakers who are tackling the questions of tomorrow,” namely, according to the Hello Tomorrow Challenge website, in the fields of energy, biotech and medtech, IT and communications, hardware robotics, and big data.

The application deadline for startups is January 30^th. Click here for more information and to apply.