Istanbul Information Society Watchdog Group, which has been initiated on January 20, 2012 by Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV) with the collaboration of Sabancı University, TÜBİSAD and TAGES and supported by the Istanbul Development Agency, completed its first recommendations document. This study consists of the first wave of the recommendations of the Istanbul Information Society Watchdog Group on the development of Istanbul with ICT and development of ICT with Istanbul.
Within the scope of Istanbul Information Society Watchdog Group, it is aimed to carry out several activities to watch the competitiveness of Istanbul by supporting to be an Information Society and the development of ICT sector by R&D and Innovation. In order to realize such activities, it is preferably aimed to establish a new, effective, transparent and democratic watchdog mechanism with the collaboration of public bodies and institutions, civil society and universities in order to develop R&D and Innovation of Istanbul ICT sector. In this context, Istanbul Information Society Watchdog Group has been established to make advocacy to the public institutions which manage the processes of policy making in Istanbul and to develop policies and suggestions for making new regional and national policies by also contributing to the Digital Agenda of Europe 2020. As a result of the studies of the group on developing policies and suggestions, the first recommendation document which will guide the development of the policies was completed. In this study, a detailed evaluation has been made considering the Istanbul Region ICT Sector Requirements Analysis Report and its appendix: Requirement Analysis Table. Due to the evaluation, 5 main priorities and the initial comprehensive recommendations thereof have been established which will help to Istanbul ICT sector to be more competitive. These priorities are:
- User Driven Collaboration
- Transformation of academic knowledge into product with industry collaboration
- Investment in incremental innovation and disruptive innovation
- Measuring the efficiency of R&D results
- For Istanbul and ICT: Intelligent Transport Systems
Istanbul Information Society Watchdog Group prepared the following Requirements-Solutions Table in order to classify the main requirements and proposed solutions in terms of the type of the solutions that the Watchdog Group would be able to present such as the Direct Solution, Supporting Solution and Watching.
At this step, the reasons to determine the priorities and the related problems thereof have been stated; hence comprehensive recommendations have been defined. Watchdog Group will work on and detail these recommendations. At the following steps, required regulations, support and incentive mechanisms and resolution models related with the recommendations will be presented.
This study has been also shared with the EC. Leyla Arsan, Bülent Erbaş, Haluk Gökmen and Erdem Gülgener who are the members of the Istanbul Information Watchdog Group met Mr. Mario Campolargo, the Director of Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures, and Mr. Viorel Peca, Head of Unit, Networked Media in DG Information Society on the 22nd and 23rd of May, 2012. The group presented their recommendations on Istanbul and ICT sector. The EC officers were impressed by this study and especially, they emphasized the importance of the study on measuring the efficiency of R&D results and they stated that this study could be shared at political level.
Please visit the website of Istanbul Information Society Watchdog Group project for more information:
http://istanbulbilgitoplumu.org/
You can also find the recommendations document in the link given below:
http://istanbulbilgitoplumu.org/storage/Istanbul ICT Watchdog Group_White Paper_1.pdf