One of the biggest and important International ICT Events of Turkey, ICT Summit NOW 2016, brought together many professionals from the business world, public authorities, universities and NGOs in ICT sector on 22-23 November 2016 in Halic Congress Center, Istanbul. Leyla Arsan, CEO of TAGES, gave a speech on “European Digital Single Market and its importance for Turkey” in the section of “IOT and M2M Preparation: Embedded Systems” on the 2nd day of the event.
The international ICT Summit NOW Informatics Summit, which has been held every year since 2000, is the leading business and cooperation event of the country and the region. The aim of the event is to grasp the information technologies by all sectors and to create event platforms for the business world to embrace the cutting-edge technologies and develop different and innovative projects. The theme of this year’s ICT Summit was about Industry 4.0 with digital evolution and the motto was “No way out!”. The Summit started with the speech of Binali Yildirim, the Prime Minister of Turkey.
The Summit had a very comprehensive content which focuses on technology platforms, social meeting platforms and special projects. Regarding the technology and social platforms, the following topics were addressed: big data and cloud solutions with artificial intelligence algorithms, cyber security 4.0 in digital, digital medicine evolutions, ERP solution processes, evolution towards to digital society, Digital Jobs – Digital Earnings, Innovation in the Mobile World, Dynamic Structure of Integrated Digital Marketing, Preparation for IOT and M2M, industry 4.0 in CRM Operations, Women of Digital, Digital Istanbul, New Generation Cities and Intelligent Urban Transformation, ERP Committee and Enterprise Conversion and Call Center Platform. More than 200 speakers took part in the event.
Leyla Arsan, CEO of TAGES, was also one of the speakers and gave a speech on “European Digital Single Market and its importance for Turkey” in the section of “IOT and M2M Preparation: Embedded Systems” on the 2nd day of the event. She first showed the DESI 2016 results (Digital Society and Economy Results) which keep in track of Europe’s digital progress. She then stated that Digital Single Market could contribute €415 billion per year to the economy of Europe and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs especially in the fields of employment, growth, competition, investment, innovation, new markets, new ways of doing business, new opportunities with start-ups. She mentioned about the following main topics of European Digital Single Market: Access, Environment, Economy & Society.
In this respect, the important aspects are as follows:
- Negotiation on the common protection rules of EU data (ePrivacy Directive , contractual Public-Private Partnership on cybersecurity, new eprivacy rules in IoT)
- Reform on telecom rules (a single telecom market, end of roaming and 5G)
- Simplification and improvement of the copyright rules according to the new technologies
- Simplification of the consumer rules for on-line shopping (deliveries, tax regulations, geo-blocking)
- Facilitate innovative entrepreneurs (Startup Europe: http://startupeuropeclub.eu/)
- Increasing digital skills and learning Access and play to on-line content where ever you are (e-books, music streaming sites, video-sharing platforms, gaming applications, etc. Directive on collective management and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses“Licences for Europe“)
- Free flow of data, standards, interoperability, Open Data, Open Government
- European Cloud Initiative https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/%20european-cloud-initiative
Leyla Arsan strongly emphasized: “European Digital Single Market will be the new customs wall including regulations and standards. It is a transmission from physical environment to digital environment. Turkey should be involved in Digital Single Market (DSM) and not to be a market but to be involved in the market.” She stated what Turkey will miss if not involved in the DSM below:
- The Rights in competition with European companies at same conditions (both in commerce and e-commerce)
- Being part of digital structures and legislations of Europe (international law and new bilateral agreements)
- Free roaming in Europe (better economic conditions for businesspersons and for the tourists coming to Turkey which will revive Tourism)
- To prevent illegal commercial transactions by monitoring the VAT, tax and tracking the goods.
Nevertheless, Turkish institutions have not been actively participated in DSM activities so far and not even included its current economic and commercial policies. Turkey should take this opportunity seriously and participate actively in the meetings, workshops and Digital Assembly annual meetings by contributing on the strategy development for its own and Europe’s benefits.
Please follow #digitalsinglemarket hashtag on Twitter and visit the official web page of EC: https://ec.europa.eu/priorities/digital-single-market_en to get more detailed information about digital single market.
TAGES had prepared a report for the harmonisation of Turkey in European Digital Agenda in 2014. The report today, has still the important aspects for Turkey’s public, private sectors, SMEs, citizens, academic institutions and NGOs. The report can be reach at http://dijitalgundemtr.com/
