“TÜSİAD-TBV 9th eTR Awards” were presented to the winners with the ceremony held at TBMM

 

During the award ceremony, the winners were selected by means of electronic voting by the jury. Accordingly, the award winners in "Categories for Public Institutions" are as follows:

 In 'Public e-Services to Citizens' category, Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Undersecretariat of Treasury General Directorate of Insurance was awarded for its “OTOKONTROL 5664” project;

In 'Public e-Services to Business Community', Turkish Standards Institute was awarded for its “BelgeNET” project; 

In 'Public e-Services to Public' category, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Finance General Directorate of Public Accounts was awarded for its “Public Personnel Expenditures Management System" project. 

 

The award winners in "Categories for Local Governments" are as follows:

In Large Scale Municipality Category, General Directorate of Konya Water and Sewerage Administration (KOSKI) was awarded for its KOSKI Mobile Business Follow-Up project;

In Medium Scale Municipality Category, Fatih Municipality was awarded for its "Fatih Mobile" project;

In Small Scale Municipality Category, Karasu Municipality was awarded for its "Karasu Smart City" project.

 

Apart from these categories, Special Awards were given by TÜSİAD-TBV eTR Executive Board to Küçükçekmece Municipality for its “Small Gains” project and to Yeni Mahalle Municipality for its "New Card" project, from among applications that support modern government concept and adopt principles such as transparency and social responsibility. 

 

At "TÜSİAD-TBV 9th eTR Awards” ceremony, Cemil Çiçek, President of TBMM, Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications, Cevdet Yılmaz, Minister of Development, Faruk Eczacıbaşı, Chairman of Board of Directors of TBV, Erman Ilıcak, Member of Board of Directors of TÜSİAD, and Erkan Akdemir, CEO of Avea, made speeches. 

 

In his speech, President of TBMM Cemil Çiçek expressed his contentment since eTR awards became a tradition. President of TBMM Cemil Çiçek stated that internet supports the development of the relations between individuals, government and citizens like a magic wand, and mentioned that the e-State applications facilitate citizens' access to information depending on the improvements. Mr. Çiçek expressed that 1/3 of the population in Turkey are internet users, that more than 30% of this group connects to internet at least once a day, and the use of mobile phones is equal to the population of Turkey. President of TBMM Cemil Çiçek mentioned his belief that government offices will become government portals in future, pointed out that production of information technologies is as important as their usage in order to have a say in the competitive environment on earth, and emphasized the importance of eTR Awards for their contribution in the expansion and recognition of e-State projects.

 

In his speech, Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communication, said that it is aimed to provide fast information highway access at houses by 2023, and it is planned to provide 100 megabit access in this scope. He also added that this speed could go up to 1 gigabit. He expressed that the figures related with informatics and internet use change very rapidly in Turkey, and e-State reaches 11 million citizens with 39 institutions, 292 services and 145 thousand daily hits. He mentioned that Turkey has now become a county that reaches, accesses and speaks. 

 

In his speech at the ceremony, Minister of Development Cevdet Yılmaz stated that the public sector, private sector and the citizens, which make up different dimensions of e-State, are all very important, and development in any field could be achieved with a holistic approach. He mentioned that the rate of computer use in Turkey was 5.7% in 2002 and this rate increased to 46.4% in 2010, and that this is an important data for transformation into an information society.

 

Faruk Eczacıbaşı, Chairman of Board of Directors of TBV, said: “The modern applications that commenced with e-State and will continue with e-Transformation will come back to our county as savings, efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, as Turkish Informatics Foundation, we consider e-state and its extension e-transformation an opportunity to enhance the efficiency of our country's economy, and thus increase the speed of our country in global competition. Innovative e-state applications can originate from Turkey. We expect Turkey, which has a brilliant economy, to present a mobile social networking e-state project to European Union, which has a population of 500 millions. Next year, when we will celebrate the 10th year of eTR awards, we want to congratulate a Turkish e-State project on winning a European Union e-State Award. As a final point, I believe that this meeting is an appropriate place to emphasize my opinion on a relevant matter: In an environment with such a large social agreement regarding the new Constitution process, we believe that necessary arrangements have to be made to expand the medium of freedom for announcing and propagating the freedom of though and expression by means of internet and new media tools, and to prevent the prohibition of access to internet sites in a way that damages the principle of proportionality.”

 

Erman Ilıcak, Member of Board of Directors of TÜSİAD and Chairman of Technology, Innovation and Information Society Committee, mentioned that everyone investing in e-State and working on e-State projects deserves credit as those paving the way to information society, and drew attention to following points: "The improvements in information technologies strengthen the concepts of 'more efficient service' and 'more democratic governance'. With 89%, Turkey has a higher average than EU27, which have average 82%, in transferring the services to electronic medium. However, our household internet use rate, which is 43%, is far below the EU average of 73%… We consider the transformation of Turkey into an information society and establishment of a modern public administration concept as very significant objectives."

 

Erkan Akdemir, CEO of Avea, mentioned that the "e-State" seeds sown by TÜSİAD and Turkish Informatics Society 9 years ago bear fruit today, and said: “We have the opportunity to open the gates of e-State to 72 million citizens. We have to make use of cloud computing technology in every field in order to provide e-State services via internet in a more measurable, fast, cost-efficient and secure way. In this way, the coordination between all kinds of information, access channels and applications within e-State can be achieved much more easily. It will be possible to significantly decrease the costs of adding new applications and institutions to the structure and the costs of operating. As the telecom group we are affiliated to and as Avea, we are ready to provide consultancy about "cloud computing" to all public establishments and institutions without any commercial concerns whatsoever. Our R&D center, which is the first and only licensed center in GSM sector, is open to every institution and establishment that wishes to add technology to its business. We say now is the time to 'carry the state over the clouds'. Turkey has to take its place in the digital age not as a spectator but as a play maker.”

 

Beverly Godvin, Director of Federal Citizen Information Center at US General Services Administration, who participated in "eTR Awards Ceremony" as a special guest, made speech on the e-State applications in USA. Godvin shared her experiences about transparency, participation and cooperation in these applications with the participants in the ceremony. 

 

The Jury of eTR Awards consisted of the following persons (in alphabetical order by surnames): ERAY AKDAĞ, TÜSİAD Ankara Representative; ÖZCAN AKDENİZ, Ankara Regional Director of Index; ŞAFAK ALPAY, Member of Board of Directors and Chairman of Executive Board of Interpromedya Inc.; Dr. ALİ ARİFOĞLU, Deputy Director of METU Informatics Institute and Chairman of e-Government Research Center; EMİN SADIK AYDIN, Chairman of Information Society Department of Ministry of Development; TAŞKIN BABUL, Control Engineer of Trabzon Cadastre Directorate; Assoc. Prof. Dr. KÜRŞAT ÇAĞILTAY, Faculty Member of METU Computer Education and Instructional Technology Department; ÖZLEM DALGA, Bloomberg HT Economy Director; AKIN DİNLER, Artvin Municipality Data Processing Officer; ERDEM ERKUL, Microsoft Turkey Public Affairs and Social Responsibility Director; ABDULLAH RAŞİT GÜLHAN, Chairman of SİNERJİTÜRK Efficient Business and Collaboration Platform; KEMAL KARAKOÇAK, Consultant to TBMM President; AYDIN KOLAT, TBV Ankara Representative; ÇAĞDAŞ MERSİNLİOĞLU, Topographical Engineer at Küçükçekmece Municipality Data Processing Directorate; MUHAMMET POLAT, Investigating Judge at Ministry of Justice Data Processing Department Directorate; Prof. Dr. ŞEREF SAĞIROĞLU, Faculty Member of Gazi University Engineering Faculty Computer Engineering Department; KADİR ŞİMŞEK, Yenimahalle Municipality Data Processing Department Director; MEHMET TAHMAZOĞLU, Mayor of Gaziantep Şahinbey; SADIK YAMAÇ, TBMM Deputy Secretary General.

 

eTR Awards were first given in 2003 by TÜSİAD and TBV, with the purpose of accelerating the competition-enhancing, knowledge-based and e-Services-oriented transformation of Turkey in EU harmonization process.

 

For detailed information: www.etrodulleri.org
 

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