Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Mehmet Büyüksimitci, after greeting the Council members in his opening speech, conveyed the developments in TOBB on issues concerning the sector since the previous Council meeting held in March.

Büyüksimitci noted that the distribution of duties of TOBB Commissions and Councils was made and expressed his happiness to be together with TOBB Türkiye Software Council in the new term. Büyüksimitci stated that the Council had an intensive period in 5 months with the commissions within its own structure, as well as coming together regularly with the relevant public institutions, Software Inventory Project, Draft Domestic Goods Communiqué for Software Products, and thanked the members of the Council for their efforts.

Mehmet Büyüksimitci shared the information that a protocol has been prepared with the General Directorate of National Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Technology for the preparation of National Occupational Standards (UMS) and National Qualifications (UY) within the framework of the needs of the IT sector. Finally, Büyüksimitci reminded that they are also excited to bring the first artificial engineer to the software sector, and informed that TOBB University of Economics and Technology (ETU) opened the first artificial intelligence engineering department in Türkiye, and that graduate Ata Turan graduated with the title of Türkiye's first artificial intelligence engineer as well as being the first in the university, leaving the faculty of medicine.

In his opening speech, Council Chairman Ertan Barut, after greeting the Council, gave information about the flow of the agenda and the activities of the past period, the projects carried out with public institutions that we follow as the Council and with which we are in constant communication, and the legislation we are working on.

The agenda item was followed by the informative presentations of the invited guests. First, İmran Gürakan, CEO of TEKMER, the first KOSGEB-supported Technology Development Center, talked about the importance of entrepreneurship, R&D and innovation. Pointing out that large companies can miss the importance of entrepreneurship by becoming cumbersome as they grow, he said that they are working hard to increase entrepreneurship in Türkiye as it increases living standards and contributes to the national economy. In his presentation, Gürakan also touched upon sustainable development goals and gave information about society 5.0, a new definition. He pointed out that at a point evolving from the hunter society to the information society, technology is now at the highest level with Industry 4.0, but its integration with society has been missed. He informed that the whole world is now talking about society 5.0, that is, how we can integrate an increasingly aging society with the information society without ignoring global goals.

After Gürakan's presentation, Dr. Onur Yüksel, General Manager, made an informative presentation about TOBB UYUM, the Mediation and Dispute Resolution Center operating within TOBB. He pointed out that they developed the TOBB UYUM modeling for the development of mediation and arbitration in Türkiye, and that they are the largest institutional dispute resolution organization in Türkiye in commercial, consumer and labor-employer disputes. In his presentation, Yüksel gave information about the advantages of mediation for the business world and the public, the services provided by TOBB UYUM and country examples.

- Creating Software Inventory

Dr. Aydın Kolat, Chairman of the Software Inventory Project Committee, briefly gave information about the processes of the Software Inventory Project. He said that the main purpose of the work, which will proceed in 3 phases, is to create an inventory of Türkiye's software ecosystem, and that it will probably turn into an informatics inventory in the future. On the other hand, İlker Tabak, Chairman of the Domestic Software Committee, also established within the Council, gave information about the Software Industrialist Capacity Report, the Draft Communiqué on Domestic Goods in Software, and the 12^th Development Plan ICT OİK Studies. Finally, within the scope of the committee work, information was given about the work of the Software Export Committee.

Afterwards, Mr. İrfan Keskin, Deputy Director General of National Technology at the Ministry of Industry and Technology, gave a briefing to inform about the activities carried out in coordination with the Council and to receive the views of the sector. He stated that the software inventory project initiated within the body of the Software Council of Türkiye will be a product inventory for IT products and that they attach great importance to the work in terms of the emergence of “NACE code, company inventory, product code, product inventory, occupational code, manpower inventory”. On the other hand, he mentioned the work on the Draft Communiqué on Domestic Goods in Software Products, Türkiye Software Strategy and Action Plan Workshop Program, Regulation on Public IT Service Procurement and Talent Transfer.

During the meeting, Furkan Civelek, Head of the Digital Transformation Coordination Department of the Digital Transformation Office (DDO) of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, gave information about the work carried out on open source. Stating that the preparatory work for the Circular on the Use of Open Source Software in the Public Sector, published in the Official Gazette dated July 29, 2023 and numbered 32263, took 1.5 years together with TUBITAK ULAKBIM, he expressed his thanks to the members for the support they received from the Turkish Software Council at this stage. He stated that the purpose of the Circular is to use open source software in the public sector (except for exceptional institutions) instead of commercial software as much as possible, if technically and economically rational, so that public institutions will not only save costs due to license fees, but also contribute to the development of the software ecosystem. Speaking about the progress of the process within the scope of the Circular, Civelek shared that public institutions should examine their existing infrastructures within 8 months, make an inventory of commercial license software that they think can be replaced with open source software and prepare a preliminary analysis report on them. Afterwards, the analysis report should be forwarded to DDO, and DDO will forward the analyzed and finalized reports to the Presidency of Strategy and Budget and allocate funds accordingly. Lastly, Civelek shared his expectations from the sector and stated that if the competencies of the public institutions are not sufficient for the work to be carried out within 8 months, they expect the sector to be the driving force to receive support in consultancy and integration for compliance with the program. He stated that it is important for companies in the sector that can provide support in this regard to visit public institutions and introduce themselves, and that they expect the information of companies that can provide consultancy to be communicated to them through the Software Council. He stated that they will also need professional support in the process of evaluating the analysis reports from public institutions, and that they can convey the companies that the sector can direct and contact by filling in the “stakeholder information form” prepared by the Council.

Within the scope of the agenda item, Hürol Karlı, Head of the Department of Informatics, Software and Communication Services Exports, General Directorate of International Service Trade of the Ministry of Trade, gave information. After stating that they are continuing the “Software Export and E-Turquality” programs that will cover Anatolia with the software council to increase the exports of the software sector, he shared the current software export figures.

Finally, an informative presentation about TSE Informatics and Mirror Committee was made by Software Engineer Bahar Polat. In her presentation, Polat first gave a brief information about the International Standardization Committee and European Standardization Committees. Afterwards, she mentioned 10 mirror committees in the field of informatics and gave information about the membership process to the committees.