THE IMPORTANCE OF R&D AND TECHNO PARKS FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

JAKOB SIMONSEN

UNDP Resident Representative to Turkey

Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak again in Forum Istanbul where the mission statement is to build a dynamic future for Turkey by generating solutions to the issues in ahead of us. In this particular session we are talking about technoparks, research and technology as factors to build up knowledge for dynamic economy but I propose not a competitive ….society is fundamentally a society that creates opportunities that both create wealth and build equity in other words a knowledge society is one that will contribute to the attainment of among other things what I stand for the millennium development goals, the attainment of reduction of poverty by half by 2015. One of the goals that the speaker who is now my boss will have this principle objective over the next number of years namely Mr. Kemal Dervis and we are looking very much forward to having his advocacy in that respect.

I want to talk very briefly on basis from our national human development report 2004 which so focused on information and communication technology, basically looking at that in terms of the key role of that sector as a vital factor in obtaining sustainable human development or the millennium development goals as well and I believe part of the same fostering the open information society and importantly bridge the divide in this case digital divide between income groups, geographical regions agenda. If we look at the situation just very briefly in terms of figures to illustrate the situation currently in Turkey based on surveys done both by TUBITAK as well as the state institute of statistics I had just highlighted 3 or 4 indicators here that speak themselves. It basically say that in this country like in others there is a major gender difference, there are significant disparities between low and high income households between regions and between education when it comes to actually access in making use of the information and communication technology. One of the factors here that I find very staggering is actively internet use, the access at 7% which has increased very rapidly but from a very low 1.2% in 2002.

If we look at global positioning on Turkey I would again just prefer to one element, one study which was carried out by the Davos World Economic Forum in 2002 and 2003 in the global technology report where Turkey ranks number 50 among the 84 countries and according to readiness for information society in terms of ownership of computers and internet access again the digital divide is a clear issue in that respect. We obviously see the ICT as an alternative or as a supplement to narrowing these gaps and we are absolutely convinced that Turkey is situated favorably to make optimal use of the new technology to achieve its economical, political and social development priorities and if we look at the progress there is clear signs of progress from our perspective both in terms of political priority set commitment as well as in the different projects that Turkey is now carrying out under the transformation Turkey projects but also and I think that is very important the tying of the Turkish evolution in this to the EU both in terms of the EU accession process as well as the major projects that are going on under the e-Europe initiative where the Turkey’s component of it aims toward inexpensive, fast and reliable internet, investment in people and skills and encouraging the use of internet. Some challenges that have to be conceited, I will not go into them because of time shortness but I would point to two here. One of them is content, ICT is not only a question of infrastructure and hardware, it is a question of content. ICT clearly requires a lot of emphasis on what is becoming on the one hand a global language namely English on the other side we also have to be very clear when we talk about the device that there is a clear and present need to develop content in Turkish, content that cater to the groups that are at the lowest access rate that have the need to be able to not only access but actually use the information that is there. The previous speaker talked about information not used being bad information it is actually also dysfunctional information in that respect.

The other aspect that I’d like to focus on is clearly the need for tripod information the emphasis is on public-private partnerships, the emphasis upbringing the private sector even when we talk about bridging the device. It cannot be done by the state alone, it has to have a clearly back in the private sector and there on the other hand use of the ICT to unleash ……issue. A survey done by Microsoft in the year 2001 it says that in Turkey 53% of SME’s have access to internet but only 23% use pc’s, is that high or low if you compare to China, it is 35% and if you compare to Brazil it is 72% so there is also here a question of cultural adaptation, of getting used to and actually using the ICT to unleash intrepid issue.

Some considerations on policy formulation, again I will not go into them I think they are pretty self-explanatory so I will just very briefly conclude at this point in the following way, that our report the National Human Development Report of 2004 clearly makes