Turkcell

Becoming a deeper part of the ecosystem

Climbing higher together

On top of this, Turkcell has coordinated five projects internationally – CAP, DEMWatch, CarCode, PARFAIT and eWatch – and Serkan highlights the latter two in particular. With eWatch, they gained the opportunity to work with big industrial companies in the Netherlands and Belgium, including Barco and Philips, and applied this experience to gain further access to smart health projects with further programmes. “This puts together the stones to climb higher,” continues Serkan. “And in PARFAIT, we had the opportunity to work on data in IoT with companies from Türkiye, France and Romania. In addition to the international collaboration, this was a great way to grow our internal ecosystem in these countries: companies get to know each other and have discussions for new collaboration. Not all proceed to projects, but we always keep in touch. So, ITEA projects are a great way to strengthen our network in technology and innovation.”

A shared vision and mission

“Ultimately, our vision is superior digital services for a better future and our mission is to add value along our customers’ digitalisation journeys, enriching their lives – both in Türkiye and throughout the world,” Serkan concludes. “Software innovation is a driving force in enabling our company to adapt to changing market dynamics as well as to improve efficiency and enhance the customer experience. As technology advances and industries become increasingly digitalised, the importance of software innovation will only grow. The bottom-up approach of Eureka programmes like ITEA therefore means a special role for industrial companies like Turkcell. ITEA presents powerful instruments for building up and realising collaborative RD&I projects and supporting the ecosystem with a strong methodology. This helps the consortia to maintain a strong baseline for the projects and enforces them for both technological and innovative progress and commercialisation and exploitation strategies. We appreciate the vision and mission of ITEA, which plays a crucial and multifaceted role in supporting industrial and economic development, advancing society, fostering innovation and addressing challenges.”