Abduljalal Lawal
Founder, Anadolu Gateway & GoldBazarr
Abduljalal Lawal is the founder of Anadolu Gateway and GoldBazarr. Ghanaian-Nigerian by background, he spent nearly a decade living and studying in Turkey — high school at Uluslararası Murad Hüdavendigar in Bursa, then Computer Engineering at Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi in Samsun. He immersed himself in Turkish culture and business from the inside, reaching mother-tongue fluency in Turkish while building an autonomous robotics startup accepted into the BIGG entrepreneurship programme. Back in Ghana with 3+ years of direct field operations: he managed a Turkish furniture factory in Accra with 20+ staff — overseeing cash flow from owner to staff, order intake, customer relations, manufacturing coordination, showroom, social media and digital branding, all while the Turkish owner operated remotely from Turkey. He simultaneously co-founded Relax Care wellness centre inside an Accra shopping mall: negotiating and securing the space, sourcing professional equipment, building the team from scratch, and managing full business operations on-site throughout the operational period. GoldBazarr is what that decade made possible: a platform run by someone who has lived, studied, and done business on both ends of the corridor — in Turkish, when it matters.
The Journey
From Turkey to Ghana,step by step.
Bursa — International Foundations
High school at Uluslararası Murad Hüdavendigar — a school with students from 72 countries. The first chapter of life in Turkey, and the beginning of a Turkish fluency that would later remove every translation risk from a business conversation.
Samsun — Engineering & Robotics
Computer Engineering at Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi, and an autonomous robotics startup that built a working prototype and was accepted into the BIGG entrepreneurship programme. A first taste of building something from zero in a second country.
Samsun — MMG & Community
Management committee member at MMG Samsun (Mimarlar & Mühendisler Grubu) — organising conferences, hosting student delegations, and building the kind of local network that doesn't show up on a CV but matters when you're a foreigner trying to get things done in Turkey.
National Stage — TEKNOFEST, Bilişim Vadisi & Euritech
From the lab to the national stage: TEKNOFEST, Türkiye's Silicon Valley (Bilişim Vadisi), and the Euritech conference — speaking, exhibiting, and competing alongside Turkey's top engineering talent. Proof that the work in Samsun held up at national scale.
Accra — Building the Corridor
Back in Ghana: Managing Director of a Turkish company's full Ghana operations in the furniture sector, co-founder of Relax Care — a wellness centre in an Accra shopping mall — and finally, the founding of Anadolu Gateway: the corridor infrastructure behind both GoldBazarr and the wider Turkey–Ghana trade relationship.
Gallery
A decade in pictures.
