Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan attended the International Istanbul Smart Grids and Cities Congress and Fair. Sayan stated that smart cities should make people's lives easier.
The International Istanbul Smart Grids and Smart Cities Congress and Fair ICSG 2021, which addresses the “Smart Grids and Smart Cities Concept,” began in Istanbul. Speaking at the opening of the program, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan said, “We are rapidly advancing toward an era where everything is ‘smart,’ where not only people but increasingly more machines and objects are connected to each other than humans. It is predicted that by 2025, there will be 100 billion different connections worldwide, with only 10% of these connections being between people. This means that the world will evolve toward smart solutions in many areas.”
Noting that cities are also benefiting from this situation, Sayan stated that global mobility will reach 67% by 2050. Sayan said, “The ‘National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan General Directive,’ published under the initiative of our President Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the end of 2019, the ‘National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan’ prepared and published by our Ministry of Environment and Urbanization within this scope, and the ‘National Smart Transportation Systems Strategy Document and 2020-2023 Action Plan’ prepared by our Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and published with the approval of our President, serve as important guides and driving forces in our country's smart cities journey.”
Deputy Minister Sayan: We Will Produce 5G and Beyond Communication Infrastructures with Domestic and National Capabilities
Expressing that the most important issue in the process of a city becoming smart is the “Internet of Things,” Sayan said, “The Internet of Things can be defined as an infrastructure that connects physical and virtual objects based on information and communication technologies, enabling advanced services. Mobile technologies are particularly prominent in the development of smart cities. Our country's investments in this area continue without slowing down. Infrastructure investments reached 16.7 billion TL in 2020 and continued to increase despite the pandemic process, recording an approximately 30% increase compared to the previous year. The number of machines communicating with each other in our country exceeded 6.5 million.”
Sayan stated that the integration of electronic communication infrastructures with other sectors has made security even more important and added: “In this context, as the Ministry, together with BTK and our other stakeholders, we are conducting important studies on producing 5G and beyond communication infrastructures with domestic and national capabilities. As a reflection of the National Technology Move initiated by our President, we are conducting end-to-end domestic and national 5G studies with our operators and producer companies operating in the sector. We are pleased to obtain concrete results from these studies. R&D processes and prototypes of products such as 5G New Radio, Core Network, Network Management System, and Radio Link have been prepared. We plan to hold our meeting on June 23, where the prototypes developed within the scope of the project will also be demonstrated. Actually, we had planned this event in May, but we had to postpone it by about a month due to pandemic control measures. Hopefully, on June 23, we will share the products developed within the scope of the project with the public. As a result of the studies, we will activate our 5G networks using domestic and national products with known and controllable end-to-end security mechanisms.”
Deputy Minister Sayan: Turkey is Among the Leading Countries in Smart Cities
Once again emphasizing the importance of domestic and national production at this point, Sayan stated that although information and communication technologies are used similarly in many countries, smart city applications can vary according to each country's, each city's own needs, capabilities, and infrastructure. While smart cities offer many solutions with the help of technology, it is important that their focus is not technology, but people. Using technology as a tool to support improving citizens' quality of life is key to the success of smart city applications.
For the increase of our smart cities; we need to focus on practical and economical solutions, utilize our domestic and national resources effectively by benefiting from technology at the highest level. Our goal should be to improve the quality of life in our cities,” he said.
Pointing out the sensitivity of sharing knowledge and experience on this matter, Sayan concluded his speech by saying, “Turkey is among the leading countries in the world in smart cities. The common goal of smart city applications is to provide less costly, more efficient, more effective, and environmentally friendly services. The more we can improve and facilitate people's quality of life with smart city studies, the higher we can maintain the level of ownership of this work. We believe in the importance of knowledge, the benefits provided by collective wisdom, the importance of consultation, and that common goals can only be achieved with the ownership of all stakeholders.”