The Position of ICT in the Adaptation Process to the European Union

Article: Leyla Arsan writes on the importance of innovation for the ICT in the adaptation process of Turkey to EU. The article of Leyla Arsan, the CEO of TAGES, titled ‘The Position of ICT in the Adaptation Process to the European Union’ is published on BT Haber, on September 4th 2006. In the article Arsan explains the importance of ICT referring to the EU strategies; the Lisbon Strategy and i2010
The article of Leyla Arsan, the CEO of TAGES, titled ‘The Position of ICT in the Adaptation Process to the European Union’ is published on BT Haber, on September 4th 2006. In the article Arsan explains the importance of ICT referring to the EU strategies; the Lisbon Strategy and i2010. In these strategy documents, priority areas are defined in order to strengthen the global position of EU in the ICT and to realize the digital evolution. These priorities are; investing on knowledge and innovation, creation job potentials especially for SMEs, being sensible on globalisation and ageing, creating an effective and integrated European energy policy. For the achievement of these objectives ICT has an important role to play via creation of a sole space of knowledge, support to innovation and research, and inclusion.

Arsan points out that the most important issue for Turkey need to develop and progress on is R&D and innovation.

In the article, Arsan also mentions the expected tendencies in the ICT in 10 years, determined by the IST Advisory Group’s report communicated in March 2006 titled ‘Overview of European Technology Platforms in Information and Communication Technologies’. The report defines the tendencies of the 2005 as health, public, service and education sectors. It is therefore highly possible that the ICT expenses will be invested in these sectors in the next 10 years. Furthermore, the report underlines that physical and on-line inter-operational cross-synergy will be constituted more often, and that the innovation will emerge on integrated areas between media, hardware and software. ‘ICT topics on which the majority of research will be carried out are mentioned as e-care services, energy, environment, technological services for transport, new e-learning forms and semantic applications, security, collective working and networking platforms, and digital media’.

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The report classifies the new generation not by ‘product-service’, but by functionality:

Networked, Mobile, Seamless, Scalable
Embedded into everyday life Invisible ‘new form-fitting’ solutions
Intelligent, Personalised
Content and Experiences, Visual, Multi-modal

The ISTAG report constituted a reference for the determination of ICT strategies of the FP7, the Community programme on R&D to which Turkey will equally participate. Leyla Arsan emphasizes FP7 opportunity for Turkey. ‘We had benefited from the FP6, but we had not seen it as an opportunity. FP6 ensured us to take a step forward for integration the EU and for innovation, as well as it created awareness and trained us on participating to this kind of works. FP7 provides much more opportunities. We have to act collaboratively in the sector in order to enhance our participation to this programme’

Lastly, Arsan mentions that TUBITAK, TBV and TAGES work for involving the Turkish ICT SMEs to the research projects in Europe by collaborating with the European ICT SMEs and researchers. European ICT database is constructed in this context, which consists of approximately 400 ICT SMEs’ data from 12 countries. Arsan invites all the institutions working in the field of ICT to register to the database and to meet with their European colleagues, as it is an opportunity not to be underestimated. Arsan also invites all the Turkish ICT SMEs to participate to the ‘ICT Conference on Research and Technology Development’ which will be organized in İstanbul on 29-30 January 2007. This conference will be the greatest conference of the sector in Europe where the FP7 will be launched, and attendance of 200 ICT SMEs from Europe, contribution of European Commission directors, technology platforms’ presidents and European Investment Fund representatives are expected. Project ideas will be presented within the 15 networking sessions that will be organized on special topics.

Please click here to read the whole article in Turkish (Pdf)