İSTTELKOM

In the meeting on “Smart City Management and the Vision of Urbanism in the Digital Age”, the work being conducted by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in its Digital Journey was shed light on.

With its 16 million residents and around 4 million daily visitors, Istanbul, which is more populous than 23 countries in Europe and 130 countries in the entire world, is one of the cities that has integrated the concept of “smart city” into urban life. In the meeting on “Smart City Management and the Vision of Urbanism in the Digital Age”, the work being conducted by IMM (Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality) in its Digital Journey was shed light on.

According to a report published by the United Nations, 68 percent of the world’s population shall live in urban areas by 2050, and cities shall face more universal, social and economic challenges in the future. This requires much more efficient use of existing resources to meet the service expectations and comfort of people living in the cities. At this point, the effective use of technology is of great importance.

While technology makes our lives easier thanks to the devices and services we actively use, it also makes many services faster, more comfortable and accessible in the background. Smart Cities are one of the concepts that utilize technology most intensively and comprehensively.

By using limited resources effectively with the help of technology, Smart Cities offer an understanding of urbanism that creates solutions for the problems and needs that may be encountered today and in the future, adds value to human life, improves the quality of life, and respects the environment and nature. While ensuring that its services are carried out more efficiently with less cost, in addition to providing more effective services to the residents, the Municipality brings a new dimension to urbanization and urban life.

This invisible aspect of municipalism supports us at every stage of our urban life, starting from the moment we turn on the light in the morning. It touches our lives in many different areas that we are or are not aware of, from public transportation to traffic control systems, from waste collection to street lighting. Istanbul is undoubtedly one of the cities, where we can see the benefits of this the most. With its 16 million residents and around 4 million daily visitors, this city, which is more crowded than 23 countries in Europe and 130 countries in the world, has to discover ways to use its resources in the most efficient way to keep its residents happy. 90 thousand IMM staff are working day and night for this.

IMM Claims the Summit in Smart Urbanism

In order to reveal this invisible aspect of municipalism, with the participation of the IMM and the managers of its subsidiaries and with the support of Fortinet / Exclusive Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise / AMD and VMware / Data Market, the “Smart City Management and the Vision of Urbanism in the Digital Age” event was held at IMM Başakşehir Data Laboratory.

During the event, the following people shared the details of works conducted by IMM Subsidiaries in relation to Smart Urbanism: EROL ÖZGÜNER, Head of Information Technology Department of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality; NİHAT NARİN, IMM Subsidiaries Technology Group President and General Manager of BELBİM AŞ; YÜCEL KARADENİZ, General Manager of ISTTELKOM; MESUT KİZİL, General Manager of ISBAK; HAKAN ORHUN, General Manager of İspark; ÖZGÜR SOY, General Manager of Metro Istanbul and Head of IMM Subsidiaries Transportation Group; YÜKSEL YALÇIN, General Manager of İstanbul Enerji; TAYFUN İŞBİLEN, Head of ISKI Information Technologies Department; MERT CIĞIZOĞLU, Bimtaş Smart Urbanism and GIS Chief; ŞEREF CAN AYATA, Head of IETT Information Technologies Department.

EMRE TEZBAŞAR, Fortinet Regional Sales Manager, EMRAH GÖNÜLER, Account Manager, HASAN BOLELLİ, Systems Engineering Regional Manager and BORA KÖSE, Business Development Manager focused on Smart Cities and Security. On the other side, FURKAN ÇELEBİ, Corporate Customer Sales Manager of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, talked about the technological infrastructure of Smart Cities; TÖRE DUMAN, Senior Business Solutions Strategist of VMware, and FATİH CEM ATALI, Deputy General Manager of Data Market Technology Services, emphasized the importance of cloud informatics in Smart Cities.

IMM Provides Services to 20 Million People

In his speech at the meeting, EROL ÖZGÜNER, Head of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Information Technologies Department, pointed out the fact that the official population of Istanbul exceeded 16 million as of May, and that this figure reached 20 million with the unofficial population and visitors. ÖZGÜNER said: “We see the impact of the huge population on the city in terms of transportation and access to services. This imposes a responsibility on us to manage big data. Together with our subsidiaries, we have a big data platform. Here, after classifying the data, we carry out a process on data analytics. We created our own blockchain engine. We have IMM Metaverse infrastructure in Zemin Istanbul. We are expanding this even further with the new ways of use. With the help of technology, as IMM, we aim to embrace the city’s residents wherever we touch them and also aim to improve their quality of life.”

We are Shaping the Future under the roof of our Smart City Vision

In his speech, Nihat Narin, IMM Subsidiaries Technology Group President and General Manager of BELBİM AŞ, shared the details of the services they offer under the roof of their Smart City vision. After emphasizing that, as IMM, they manage a large ecosystem, Narin said that this ecosystem is at a central point in terms of financial, employment and social responsibility aspects. “We are aware that in order to be efficient in such a large metropolis, we have to do a lot of work by utilizing few resources. This awareness requires us to put digitalization, agile business models and sustainability in the centre of our works”. Narin continued his words as follows: “Our goal is to make life easier for Istanbulites and to beautify Istanbul. With the Smart City vision, our goal is to manage our resources and services efficiently and to offer the most advanced technologies to the residents of Istanbul.

We are a Solution Partner in the Journey to Digitalization

During the event, Yücel Karadeniz, General Manager of ISTTELKOM, shared the details of ISTTELKOM’s journey of transformation into a system integrator and its activities. Karadeniz said: “As İSTTELKOM, we started our journey with telecommunications and turned into an ICT company. Subsequently, we added the qualification “System Integrator” to our career. Today, we serve as a strategic solution partner in the digitalization journey of IMM and its subsidiary companies.”

You can read all the details and results of the meeting in the “IMM’s Digital Journey” appendix, which shall be distributed free of charge together with the July 2022 issue of Capital magazine.