A Türkiye Consultation Meeting on the main theme “The Role of the Public Sector in the National Information Technology Initiative” was organized on Wednesday, 20 March by the MÜSİAD Information Technology Sector Board, hosted by the MÜSİAD Ankara Branch.

A Türkiye Consultation Meeting on the main theme “The Role of the Public Sector in the National Information Technology Initiative” was organized on Wednesday, 20 March by the MÜSİAD Information Technology Sector Board, hosted by the MÜSİAD Ankara Branch. At the program, held with the participation of MÜSİAD Vice President Mehmet Akif Özyurt and Information Technology Sector Board Chairman Fahrettin Oylum, Codevist Co-Founder Fatih COŞKUN, İBB Head of the Information Processing Department Selim KARABULUT, General Mobile General Manager Muzaffer GÖLCÜ, Ministry of Industry and Technology General Director of Incentive Implementation and Foreign Investment Dr. Mehmet Yurdal ŞAHİN, Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih KACIR, General Manager of Agricultural Credit Cooperatives TARNET AŞ. Huzeyfe YILMAZ, General Manager of STM Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik Ve Tic. AŞ. Murat İKİNCİ, Medyasoft General Manager Mehmet İhsan TAŞER and Sabah Newspaper Columnist Dr. Şeref OĞUZ took part as speakers.

Those Who Contribute to Transformation with Courage Will Have a Say in the Future

MÜSİAD Vice President Mehmet Akif Özyurt, who delivered the opening speech of the program, drew attention to the issue of national and domestic production. Özyurt said: “ Today the world is advancing and transforming at a speed we could not even have imagined 20 years ago, and in a direction beyond our dreams. And this is of course happening with the support of technology and science. Those who will emerge strong from this process will not be the ones standing aside and watching, but those who contribute to the transformation with courage. Because only countries that have a share in the transformation can realize the ideal of having a say in the future. Our Türkiye has the strength and the potential to attain this ideal. One of the issues we voice at every opportunity as MÜSİAD is the importance of national and domestic production. Türkiye must now, without losing any time, launch domestic and national production in many fields, above all in strategic sectors, and increase its existing capacities.”

Emphasis on Commercialization

Fahrettin Oylum, who took the floor after Özyurt, noted that hundreds of products are developed in Türkiye every year as a result of R&D work, but that the deserved level has not been reached in commercializing these products.

Drawing attention to the effective use of qualified human resources, Oylum said: “”As in all other sectors, the information technology sector too has taken its share of technological developments and has become a sector in which software turns into a far more effective economic value. In this sector, whose most important raw material is human intelligence, the added value that can be created through the quality of qualified people has acquired a proportionally limitless dimension. Therefore, the productive and correctly targeted use of human resources will make a considerable proportional contribution to the economic gains a country can obtain from the software sector.”

The National Information Technology Initiative Plays an Important Role in Building Our Country's Future

MÜSİAD Ankara President Hasan Basri Acar, for his part, shared his assessments regarding the responsibilities falling to the public sector in the development of National Information Technology. Acar stated: “ In particular, the support that can be given for the localization and indeed the nationalization of foreign-origin products used in the public sector will contribute both to our country's development in the economic field and to its reaching a level where it can compete with leading countries in the field of technology. ”

Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır, who shared his assessments at the panel moderated by Sabah Newspaper economy writer Şeref Oğuz, emphasized that there are around 60-70 thousand software developers in our country and that this number needs to be raised to the level of 240 thousand.

Medyasoft CEO İhsan TAŞER said: “If the tolerance shown to foreign companies were shown to domestic companies, and if the payment discipline applied to them were also applied to domestic companies, there would be no problem left.”

The program ended with the presentation of gifts and a photo session.