BThaber Issue 1074 (English)

WEEKLY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMY NEWSPAPER

Turkey’s longest serving Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry Binali Yıldırım who is familiar with the development and the problems of the IT sector raised expectations of the ICT professionals.

Turkey has improved a lot in ICT but as many countries acted more quickly on this issue and came to more advanced levels, our country almost stayed in the same place in the rankings. Turkey needs investments and strategies guiding the future instead of strategies for a period of time. It is important to utilize the technology as well as developing it. Thus, Turkey’s development will be with the technology, especially information technologies. We can develop the information technologies by both consuming and producing.

BThaber has had similar thoughts since the beginning and will continue to reflect these opinions. There are many steps that need to be taken on IT. We will remind some of the steps in this article.

Now, Turkey has a prime minister with a familiarity of informatics. Being the Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry for 13 years, Binali Yıldırım knows the development and the problems of the IT sector and this raised the expectations of the ICT world. So what are the expectations from the new prime minister?

Expectations for ‘Turkey 4.0’ Will the taxes decrease?

One of the major players in the development of this country and the business world is communication.

Turkey is one of the countries with the highest tax rate on communications. We are even paying the tax of the tax. The tax being so high is mentioned a lot. We have witnessed that Binali Yıldırım was talking about the taxes being high during period of his ministry. Binalı Yıldırım is now more powerful in the new cabinet. The Prime Minister is expected to play an active role in lowering the communication taxes.

How will the fiber infrastructure be improved?

The Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım’s approach is known about fiber infrastructure. This approach is phrased by him as: “The speed in traffic brings disaster; the speed in internet brings fertility.” Regarding the insufficient development of fiber infrastructure, he reproached the active operators clearly. The operators see the local government and their competitors as the source of the problem. In short, everyone wants the fiber is that he focuses more on the area.

world should be supported and the way should be paved for them.

Software and service potential should come into action Turkey is late in the hardware production.

However, we have the potential to enter between the major players in the world in the software and service delivery fields. This potential needs a number of mechanisms to act and to be supported and only a prime minister who knows informatics can mobilize it.

Digital transformation and Industry 4.0 Digital transformation is developing gradually with the introduction of information technology in business and social life. Today we are living the 4.0 stage. All the companies and institutions regardless of area of activity must carry all of their processes

to the digital environment to be able to compete. We have successful organizations and companies in this issue, however when we look at the national average, our situation is not very encouraging.

Looking at SMEs, we are faced with a more serious picture.

Let’s raise awareness for R&D and innovation On the basis of the development of the countries lies R&D and innovation. It is obvious that we are not a cultures country in terms of innovation. Although some steps have been taken in this regard, the R&D and innovation awareness has still not been established.

Turkey needs international cooperation on these issues. For the creation and development of this cooperation, the business

Education and coding The most important element in terms of the sustainability of Turkey’s development is education. Important steps were taken in this regard with the FATİH Project. Today, Android and iOS-based, not producing but only consuming generation of technology is being raised. This generation must gain qualification to develop new technologies and applications. Expanding the coding education to all schools is one of the major expectations.

Another dimension of the education issue is creating the qualified staff. We have a young population, but immediate steps need to be taken in order to improve the quality of the population and to raise the intermediate staff.

Data center base Turkey One of the areas where Turkey has an important capacity is data centers. A series of regulations and support is needed for data centers that enable us to take action regionally and globally. There is no obstacle to the increase of data center investments when the needed support is given.

Academytech continues taking steps for abroad Exporting more than 50 countries in the field of technology education Academytech continues to grow through new investments. Being only body authorized in CCIE Training in Turkey, Academytech CEO Özcan Yıldız said: “We have grown our business with every opportunity evaluating the demand from abroad. We opened an office in Madrid, Spain’s capital. We provide services to all neighboring countries in the same way via Dubai. With our 5 offices located in 3 different continents, we have trained more than 100 institutions in more than 50 countries

including the Dominican Republic, China, Costa Rica and Nepal. With the support of our global partner Cisco, we cooperated in the field of education with countries such as Colombia, Nigeria, Costa Rica, UAE, South Africa, Russia, Nepal, India, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Afghanistan. We provided services to many institutions in many countries such as Sierra Leone in the West Africa, where most people would have a hard time to show it on the map. Besides Turkish, we able to provide information technology trainings in 6 different languages being English, Arabic, Persian,

Spanish and Russian. Now, we further raise the bar and increase our investment.” Özcan Yıldız reminded that they received the Deloitte Technology Fast50 award in two consecutive years and said: “This success has further increased our self-confidence.

On the other hand, we have developed a unique product in the IOT area. This product received $ 1 million investment in R&D over the past 2 years.

Henceforth, our R&D efforts will continue to increase.”

Yıldız noted that they continue to work for the promotion of Turkey and added: “We see our company

as Turkey’s culture and information technology ambassador. We have full confidence in Turkish engineers. Nobody is born as a computer scientist. But the tremendous opportunities wait for us when we grow ourselves as a computer scientist. Who will make us the most competitive among other countries is the youth in the informatics sector. In 2016, ICT staff is among the top 10 ‘skills gap’. The qualified employees in the ICT field are hankered for. Our overseas investment in the framework of our corporate social responsibility approach is very meaningful for us, as well.”

The target of your point of view should be ‘accurate design’!

The chance to being proactive in cyber security lies in this center Turkey’s first Cyber Fusion Center that detects the cyber-attacks from all over the world before they occur opened on 17th May in Ankara with the participation of Defense Industry Undersecretary (SSM) İsmail Demir. SSM Demir stated that: “Being located only in a few countries around the world, the Cyber Fusion Center of Turkey gives power to the country in cyber security. Detecting the cyber-attacks before happening is very critical.”

STM General Manager Davut Yılmaz highlighting that with the new generation Cyber Fusion Center, we go beyond the traditional methods and added: “Different disciplines are brought together,

working with artificial intelligence mechanisms we developed in the fusion center. It is a product of a new generation cybersecurity perception and it is a first in many angles for our country.”

Cyber fusion is combining data from different sources, which are analyzed via new generation of artificial intelligence algorithms and machine learning approach is used in progress.

This aspect is not about preventing attacks like the classic understanding of cyber security, but it is about identifying the attack patterns to establish a relationship between all relevant parameters, and acquiring a proactive concept to be ready

for more possible attacks.

STM Cyber Fusion Center will not only identify the known cyber threats, but also detect the not revealed, complex attacks and threats that use advanced methods and be able to take measures. Vulnerability management at the center, cyber threat intelligence, threat defense operations, cyber operations center and incident response management capabilities will be enabled and in particular, the center will make sure the top-level managers taking the initiative in the management of cyber incidents; combined with innovative war games methods while ensuring the implementation of modern cyber security approach.

İş Bankası is in Silicon Valley Türkiye İş Bankası opened up to the world via its subsidiary software company SoftTech with the MaxiTech brand.

Undertaking the bank’s digital base in the Silicon Valley MaxiTech opened on the 13th May in San Francisco’da açıldı with the participation of İş Bankası General Manager Adnan Bali, Deputy General Managers Hakan Aran and Yalçın Sezen, as well as SoftTech General Manager Şerafettin Özer.

The General Manager will be Burak Arık and MaxiTech will be operating in İTÜ Arı Teknokent’s San Francisco office.

Founded in Silicon Valley,

MaxiTech will enable İş Bankası to have the opportunity to closely monitor the high-tech and Fintech companies and İş Bankası and SoftTech employees will be taking part in MaxiTech office at certain period of times and directly participate

in the innovation projects.

Developing cooperation with universities in Silicon Valley is among the objectives, while MaxiTech is aimed at the creation of new markets for the software produced in Turkey and contributing to software exports.

Traditional financial world is in an effort to respond to evolving customer expectations in competition with an innovative Fintechs.

On the basis of the win, there is ‘design-oriented thinking’ that go beyond the standard CRM data and be able to empathize.

Intel Global Business Development Director Ege Ertem told us about the design-oriented details to consider, what to and what not to do about the financial sector, whether Fintechs are a threat to the financial sector or they are the self-development opportunities for the sector: “Every threat actually brings the opportunity. How you use it determines it.

Threat, because the bank’s turnover falls, smaller and ‘non-bank’ companies with 10-20 people initiatives take one of the services and products you provide in your bank and offer those to a certain customer base in a very targeted manner.

With the focus, they do better product positioning from a bank. There are thousands of companies with this innovative style.

To help the bank in this case, start-ups and Fintechs are emerging to make the job faster. The basis of the design thinking is this.

Customers are numbers.

How much money do they have, how old they are, which schools they went to, where they live? People may fit into the same category as but be very different from one another and have different needs.

Therefore, you must not now evaluate the situation with conventional criteria.

Banks need deeper data analysis, building artificial intelligence. Fintech companies in accordance with regulations in Turkey do not attack the turnover of banks. However, as a Turkish bank I can use the creative products in the US and surpass my opponent. Because with the cognitive tools and

artificial intelligence in the world, we are experiencing an explosion of products that can bring the banks forward from every angle.

Therefore, banks in Turkey, despite regulations still must follow Fintech oriented developments. This followup is trying to maintain the competition in the sector in Turkey and the market share in the United States.

The banking system in Turkey is very firm and on this issue we are ahead of the US and Europe. There is a sector that constantly investing in the IT infrastructure and employing the most valuable staff. Therefore, everything is ready and this is a new phenomenon.

I think the banks are evaluating the issue and it will be a very positive development for Turkey as soon as the button is pressed. The time is right and I think they will do it. I hear that there are a number of efforts are being made already.”