Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) hosted the “5th Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence Summit.”
Organized for the 5th time this year in collaboration with BTK Academy and Huawei Turkey, the Huawei R&D Coding Marathon brought together young people in the fields of Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence. Students competed in teams to develop innovative projects.
In his speech at the opening of the summit, Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan emphasized that Turkey will not just be a spectator but one of the leading countries in its digital transformation process.
Drawing attention to the fact that artificial intelligence has become an inseparable part of daily life, Sayan stated that profound changes are occurring in areas such as health, finance, transportation, and education. Recalling that artificial intelligence successfully passed the medical licensing exam in Japan, achieved high scores on the bar exam in the US, and reached higher accuracy rates than experts in cancer diagnosis in China, he said, “The developments we are experiencing today show that artificial intelligence is transforming every area of life.”
Touching on Turkey's digital vision, Sayan noted that 5G infrastructure works will be completed by the end of 2025 and citizens will fully start using it in 2026. He also announced that, for the first time in Turkey, IoT communication services over low Earth orbit satellites have been authorized by BTK in the near future, emphasizing that this will provide uninterrupted communication in many areas from agriculture to disaster management.
Highlighting the importance of BTK Academy, Sayan mentioned the ongoing efforts to train artificial intelligence engineers, data scientists, and cybersecurity experts. In cybersecurity, he stated that Turkey's digital borders are protected by USOM and SOME teams.
President Karagözoğlu: Artificial Intelligence is Critically Important Against Cyber Attacks
BTK President Ömer Abdullah Karagözoğlu also spoke about the importance of artificial intelligence at the opening of the summit. Touching on the importance of cybersecurity, Karagözoğlu said, “We are conducting many studies to contribute to and grow the cybersecurity ecosystem. The National Cyber Incident Response Center established within our institution, together with Cyber Incident Response Teams, protects our cyber homeland day and night without interruption. At the same time, we continue our efforts to raise cybersecurity awareness and train tomorrow's cybersecurity and informatics experts.”
Referring to the ongoing efforts to prepare our youth for the digital world of the future in line with our “Turkey Century” vision, Karagözoğlu said, “I am pleased to announce that BTK Academy has started offering 10 more completely free and certified trainings. Among these trainings, AI-based ones stand out particularly. With our expert trainers, we closely follow the latest developments in artificial intelligence and aim to lead Turkey's AI ecosystem. At this point, our greatest hope is our youth.”
BTK Human Resources and Training Department Head Mustafa Ermiş, who made a greeting speech at the program, stated, “Adopting the ‘National Technology Move’ vision put forward by our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as our guide, we proudly reach more than 2 million 770 thousand users on this path we embarked on in 2017. So far, we have provided classroom training to thousands of students in 68 provinces under 312 different training topics. We have organized workshops and employment trainings for university students and recent graduates in more than 32 provinces. On the online side, we have created Turkey's largest domestic and national education platform with 326 trainings exceeding 166 thousand minutes in 12 categories.”
At the end of the program, the successful teams in the marathon were announced. Awards were presented to the winning participants by the protocol members.