The global cotton community heads to Türkiye this October for the International Cotton Association's annual trade event . Istanbul 2026 takes place on 14–15 October at the Hilton Istanbul Bomonti, bringing together more than 600 delegates to discuss Cotton's Next Chapter.
Gen10 CEO Richard Williamson and Head of Business Development Brett Anderhub will be there throughout, and would be glad to meet. Get in touch to arrange a time.
Where we left off: Dubai 2025
At last year's event in Dubai, Joe Nicosia of Louis Dreyfus Company used his keynote to address cotton's loss of market share to polyester. He called for the industry to work with media, governments and health organisations to challenge microplastics. The Make the Label Count campaign set out where EU environmental labelling rules fall short for natural fibres, and traceability and supply chain transparency came up in conversation after conversation. (You can read our full Dubai 2025 round-up here .)
A year on, those conversations are evolving, but still just as relevant.
Why cotton's next chapter matters to us
Gen10's story started in cotton. Richard began his career as a cotton trader and saw first-hand how much of the trade ran on paper and spreadsheets. In 2000 he started building the technology he knew traders needed and founded Gen10. Four years later, we brought the first electronic cotton contract to the ICA.
Since then, CommOS has grown to support more than 100 commodities, all based on the system flexibility built to manage cotton's unique combination of bale-level quality data, pricing structures, and complex logistics.
The conversations we're looking forward to
Registered delegates can find the full Istanbul 2026 programme in the ICA App, so check it out before you travel.
We are looking forward to discussing traceability, sustainability and labelling again this year, as it remains a critical concept in the industry and provides cotton traders with the information they need to make better-informed sourcing and pricing decisions.
We also expect AI to be part of many conversations, both on the stage and off it. Across commodity markets, at all the events we have attended in the last 12 months, firms are working out where AI can genuinely help their teams, and sharing their experiences to help others in their AI journey.
Every conversation is a data conversation
Data management might not be obvious on the agenda, but it underpins every one of these conversations.
Certification data often lives outside the trading system, either in the Better Cotton Platform or in separate spreadsheets and reporting lines. But it has an impact on pricing, on what can be sold as certified, and on which bales can be allocated to certain contracts. If your sustainability data is stored apart from contracts and positions, it means traders are making decisions without a useful source of commercial information.
Merchants have tracked quality bale by bale for decades. Certification data should sit in the same place, recorded against the contracts and bales it relates to. Then allocations can be checked against quality and certification together, and claims can be traced back with ease, as the company has a readily-accessible record of every bale and its full lifecycle in one place.
Connected data is essential if your company wants to get the most from AI, too. To answer a question like "which certified bales can fill this contract?", it needs quality, certification, contract and logistics data in one connected system.
For many merchants, that information is still spread across separate systems, spreadsheets and inboxes. The firms best placed for cotton's next chapter will be those that manage their contract, quality, logistics and certification data in one place, so it’s ready to use, instantly traceable, and informs trading decisions.
Istanbul's place in the chain
Türkiye is one of the world's largest cotton consumers and importers, and one of Europe's biggest suppliers of textiles and apparel. It's where cotton from around the world is spun, woven and made into products for European brands, and where merchants' records become brands’ sustainability labels.
Meet Gen10 in Istanbul
Richard and Brett will be at Istanbul 2026 on 14–15 October. Whether you want to talk about traceability, certification, AI or simply how the trade is changing, they'd be glad to meet. Get in touch to arrange a time.