Turkish ICT companies and researchers met with European counterparts and the representatives of the European Commission in the ICT 2nd Call Networking Event which took place in TuR&Bo Office on 22nd of May, 2007 in Brussels. The Networking Event was organized by TUBITAK and Turkish Research and Business Organizations (TuR&Bo) in order to build international cooperation between the Turkish and European institutions within the EU 7th Framework, Information and Communication Technologies area.
ICT 1st Call is closed. Almost 122 Turkish institutions have presented project proposals for the ICT 1st Call as a coordinator or partner and nearly 50- 60 of these institutions were SMEs. This Networking Event aimed at increasing the cooperation between the participants working in ICT sector by giving them the opportunity to meet with different partners in order to share ideas, create project proposals and build consortiums for the ICT 2nd Call.
The Networking Event gathered 57 participants from different countries. Turkish companies such as TAGES, Arcelik, Beko, Vestel, Eczacibasi, STM as well as universities such as Istanbul Technical University, TOBB-ETU presented their R&D interests and potential contributions in the projects. Besides the 12 ICT National Contact Points, more than 20 companies from different countries, such as England, Italy, Netherlands, Estonia, Iceland, Israel, represented their institutions in the meeting. Also the representatives of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Help Desk gave information to the participants on the IPR issues within the 7th Framework Programme.
Leyla Arsan, TAGES CEO, gave information on the R&D activities, expertise fields, and FP7 visions of TAGES and Eczacibasi Bilisim. She also presented EU funded EASIER project (Engaging regional SMEs within the ICT sector in EU research) that aims to assist SMEs for engagement in European RTD activities and connects ICT SMEs through regional networks. Under this project, 16 partners from 12 European countries, including TAGES, TBV and Tubitak from Turkey, assist and motivate ICT SMEs on project ideas to increase their RTD potential.
The Networking Event has been a step to build networks between the Turkish and European companies for cooperation in the ICT sector before the closure of the ICT 2nd Call on 9th of October, 2007. TAGES continues to support ICT SMEs to increase their contribution to the FP7 projects in the ICT 2nd call. ICT SMEs can get support for the FP7 participation by registering to the Easier project database from the following address.
Please contact Selen Akcali for further information.
