About a year ago, we were living an entirely different world. Most probably, we had many predictions and expectations about the near and distant future. However, the sudden occurrence of the pandemic, which rapidly became a global phenomenon, assumed extraordinary dimensions and caused sweeping impact.

Surely, epidemic diseases cause short-, mid- or long-term devastation on the one hand, while transforming societies on the other. Just as we are now experiencing. One of the most important lessons this disaster taught us has perhaps been prompting people to reflect on the kind of world they wish to live in. Even though we are not yet able to foresee the outcomes of Covid-19 in this respect, we are well aware that from now on, nothing will be the way it used to be. But, in my opinion, the effects of the transformation it brought about, especially on our daily lives and technology, give us some important clues about the future.

Maintaining our transformed habits is very important

2020 has been an extraordinary year. Necessities such as observing social distancing rules, using facemasks, washing our hands often and avoiding crowded indoor environments unless necessary, have caused considerable changes and restrictions in our ways and habits of living. However, such restrictions have also made a positive impact. We observed that the protective measures and practices adopted during the pandemic helped reduce the number of not only COVID-19 cases, but also other respiratory diseases. I believe that it is important for us to maintain this pandemic-induced cultural transformation in the future as well. Because, the studies being conducted reveal that the measures taken do help reduce the number of flu cases, but that vaccination is still important. Since the population immunity has been reduced due to the pandemic-induced restrictions and different practices, some comments are being made to point to the likelihood of a sharp increase in the number of flu cases after the pandemic. Thus, maintaining the newly acquired habits regarding acts of close physical contact such as hugging and shaking hands is important to protect ourselves, as well as our loved ones against the risks.

The Brave ‘Digital’ World After the Pandemic

One of the most significant pandemic-related changes has definitely been observed in the area of digitalization. Using digital technologies is now the only way to sustain life, as well as economic activities. We have seen how important it is to work, produce, and communicate remotely, in short, to move everything we can to the digital environment. Most importantly, we have seen that this was possible. We have also witnessed a reduction in the human-related impacts on climate change, as well as its reflections on the nature. Millions of people have been able to recover the time they used to spend in heavy traffic everyday. We have been able to complete tasks more efficiently, in a shorter time, and with less error.

Indeed, at this point, Turkey stands on the threshold of a critical opportunity to be ready to respond to the requirements of the new world. Accelerating investments in digitalization and new technologies is very important on Turkey’s path to becoming an advanced manufacturing economy.

It is very pleasing to see that significant investments and undertakings are taking place in this field in our country. For example, founded by the Turkish Metal Industrialists Union (MESS) to carry Turkey into the next industrial revolution, MEXT represents one of the most substantial investments made in this area. As the world’s largest digital transformation and competence development center, MEXT will surely be an important milestone in Turkey’s digitalization journey.

As Siemens Turkey, we are among the digitalization partners of MEXT, providing support with our innovative technologies. Assuming a powerful position in the new digital world will be enabled by the increase in the number of such centers as MEXT. Therefore, I believe that it is highly important that the leading organized industrial zones (OIZ) of our country should take action and establish similar centers to support digital technologies and innovation for the future of our country. We need to proceed with brave and rapid steps to carry our country to a powerful position in the new digital world and increase the number of investments like MEXT, as well as innovative enterprises. Only then, we can create more value for the society and human life, shaping the required infrastructure to build a future today.

The fifth generation of mobile communication (5G) will certainly trigger a remarkable change in our lives. What first comes to mind is faster mobile communication, but this is only a minor aspect of 5G. Companies will be able to establish much more perfect and uninterrupted connection between machines, while also making production facilities and internal logistics a lot more efficient, autonomous and flexible.

Before discussing what 5G is or how it will affect our daily lives, I would like to indicate the concept of wideband or high-speed networks. The humankind has always attached priority and importance on building roads, constructing bridges even at the first stages of our common civilization in order to bring geographies and cultures closer. This was how we could ensure communication, improve trade, converge and connect people, incidents and ideas. I believe it is important to use the same perspective to evaluate the popular high-speed and network connectivity issues related to 5G.

It would be appropriate imagining 5G as a global wireless network designed to connect all public / private domains and manufacturing sites – from government offices to residences, plazas and municipalities, from automated shelf systems to robots, etc. Today, many of the machinery and tools in production facilities are still connected via cables. However, with the new 5G communication standard to become operational in 2020, this will definitely change soon. At first, the data rate will be 1 to 5 gigabits per second and eventually increase up to 20 gigabits per second. This is a huge leap to increase the data rate by 10 to 20 times compared to the previous LTE.

While offering us opportunities for faster communication, greater business development and trade, 5G also brings along a security risk, in a very similar way as the roads and bridges do. That is exactly the point where cybersecurity emerges. We need to put new approaches forward to be able to keep the economic traffic secure. Cybersecurity is no longer a matter of hardware and software. Given the recent recent publicly reported global cyberattacks, it is vital to adopt a human-focused approach and to reflect this approach in our corporate culture if we want to prevent any potential risks.

I am one of those who believe that the internet is a great structure for free flow of information. However, we shouldn’t ignore the value of data as we focus on the value of the content. Yes, we sometimes do exactly that. According to BARC independent research company, as the revenues of corporations using Big Data increase by 8 to 10 percent, total costs fall 10 percent as well. Even if we put aside the extra employment to be created by data-focused jobs, time savings alone will result in focusing more on core functions of the business world and producing more creative results. Thus, 5G offers very valuable

No matter our focus is, our true goal is always to seek the new and to search for innovations. 5G will contribute greatly to the quest and support the emergence of the “new”. Therefore, we need to be ready for this development and to take action in terms of finding out how to benefit from the opportunities of 5G and how to adapt to the new world.

No matter how concrete are your precautions, the existence of them in any sphere of life does not guarantee you feeling safe. In fact, the world of cybersecurity is full of such mistaken thoughts. For example, the state of believing that hackers or hacks do not target you simply because you have not yet been hacked is called “security delusion”.

Today, the variety of cyberattacks that an institution might face increases in proportion to the developing technologies. Taking a closer look at such new threats, we see that tiny sensors that can connect to the internet thanks to Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) remind us of a new responsibility to pay attention to. Here, it is not only our personal data that is under threat. Our whole way of life can be adversely affected, interrupted, or even life can come to a halt in extreme cases of cyberattacks.

The following figures may give us an opinion on how serious the issue is: Cyberthreats caused more than 500 million Euro loss globally in 2016 alone. When the number of connected devices reached 8 billion in 2017, communication among these devices increased 30 percent in one year only. Considering that the number of such devices is expected to exceed 20 billion next year, we can easily understand why the World Economic Forum’s 2018 report classifies cyberthreats as the biggest problem of the business world in developed regions.

We have all witnessed in the past few years how large-scale cyberattacks like Petya and Wannacry affect the economy, as well as powerplants, digital factories, autonomous cars, or even healthcare institutions, all of which are vital for our daily lives. To avoid becoming a victim to such disasters, we need to establish a safety philosophy, then adopt and absorb this philosophy at every level – from individuals to societies.

It is in the nature of humans to break rules and laws. We can implement regulations and use sophisticated technology to shield us from selfish criminal attacks, however only to a degree. As laws can be broken, so can be security measures and encryptions by those who want to harm the society. For this it is essential to create awareness, collaborate and make the impact of security an essential aspect of education in our society. 

Charter of Trust, a cybersecurity initiative, lays the foundations of our responsibility. This initiative that we announced during the Munich Security Conference a year ago has made great progress with the approval of the 10-article charter by 16-member institutions who agreed to collaborate in the future.

Simultaneously with the announcement of the charter, we established a cybersecurity ecosystem of 1,300 people. On the other hand, we have special practices to increase the security level of our products and develop new solutions for our customers. Since Siemens suppliers are also within this scope, there are binding provisions for them in all new contracts. These provisions define the minimum requirements for cybersecurity. Last October, we took another important step by accepting 17 minimum provisions for digital supply chains as well. While doing these, we adopt an approach to simplifying processes for our company, our customers and our suppliers, rather than making things more complicated.

I would like to once again emphasize that the most important component in cybersecurity is humans. To me, the most valuable contributions of the Charter of Trust are the trainings. We devise trainings to increase employee awareness on issues varying from basic information such as strong passwords to multi-level security measures like access authorizations and encryption. However, cybersecurity should be more than an internal practice for companies. Therefore, we aim to make it a part of high school and university curricula. Thus, we will equip young people with the tools they need in order to design security in the digital world.

In the last 20 years, technology has become a major force that radically changes our lives, beyond its automation-based and task-focused structure. And digitalization shows that technology has the potential to create even larger impact on social life compared to our daily lives.

The “Digitalization for Prosperity” panel to which I also attended as a speaker during the Uludağ Economy Summit in March 2019 summarizes this transformation with a great title. The prosperity mentioned here is an extensive concept. It covers everything from our inner peace to improving corporate efficiency, achieving abundance in a country, and solutions to today’s problems.

As I said during my speech there, digitalization has woven a web around every moment and area of our lives with invisibly thin but robust bonds. To say it in the simplest form, our personal assistants on mobile phones or smart speakers are in fact nothing but applications running on the cloud. Systems such as these evaluate the data we generate almost as frequently as breathing, make predictions based upon these data, and provide the opportunity to transform business processes thoroughly. Next generation applications that we create by using these technologies may even transform an entire industry.

On the other hand, thinking that private companies have the greatest responsibility in digitalization may come to mean missing the holistic scale of the issue. Certainly, education will be one of the architects of a social transformation. Today, as we identify the requirements for the future, we have already taken steps such as coding and digital literacy trainings to raise digital individuals who can meet these foreseen requirements. From now on, we will draw the roadmap for curricula and training models to benefit from Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies.

Another important issue is healthcare. Applications that require individual monitoring can currently be performed via smartwatches and bracelets. Solutions such as remote contact with doctors especially in regions with limited access to healthcare services or storing the data on cloud have already started to be practiced. Now, an important transformation is on the way to predict illnesses that create a burden on healthcare and even social security systems and to rearrange the processes of the healthcare system.

Equal opportunities for the increasing population

Euromonitor states that sixty percent of the global population will be living in cities by 2030. As this transformation takes place, smaller settlements will become urbanized, cities will turn into megacities through immigration, and number of cities with population higher than 10 million will increase to 39.

That is where Smart City practices will come to the aid to local authorities and citizens. Sensors placed in every corner of the city and on vehicles will enable much higher standards for the daily life in all areas from traffic to air pollution, natural disaster measures, and town planning.

Thanks to complete digitalization, i.e. building an end-to-end digital structure, equal opportunities will become an attainable target, rather than an ideal. Thanks to this equality we will be able to make sure that not only gender inequality in working conditions will be bridged, but also opportunities will be allocated equally. However, next generation technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things, as well as the Digital Transformation that benefits from the progress of these technologies will give us a present that is more important than all: sustainability. And this is what we need the most as we worry about the distribution and lack of natural resources and pursue a possibility of life on other planets…

Today is 23 April National Sovereignty and Children’s Day – one of the most exciting and happy days for our nation. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, dedicated the very day that the Turkish Grand National Assembly was established to children and this is a significant example of his vision. It is also a very valuable to us, because just as the Assembly laid the foundations of our Republic, children shape the world and steer the future.

To understand what the world will be like in the future, we need to look at today’s children. What they do, what they are interested in, what games mean to them… These indicate how the world will be like tomorrow. And the future comes in a hurry.

Today’s children cannot imagine a world without the concepts, technologies and devices that previous generations could not even dream of. They grow up and develop with technology. Their perspectives, systems of thought, approaches are fed by the infinite opportunities of technology, especially the digital technology. That is why they can cross borders a lot more easily. When the opportunities of digitalization are combined with their powerful imagination, great works and inventions emerge. Writing codes, developing robots, inventing things, creating their own online media are natural parts of their lives.

As adults, our responsibility is to support such conscious and productive children. That is why I am very enthusiastic and proud of our projects aiming to help children confidently prepare for the future. For instance, our employees support the robotics and mechatronics initiatives at Darüşşafaka High School and encourage young students to think more innovatively. We have provided voluntary engineering support to Darüşşafaka Robotics Club, namely Sultans of Turkey, for a robot that won the FRC Robotics Competition in the USA. In addition, our engineers at Siemens Turkey give coding trainings to the female students at Darüşşafaka and support them in their career paths as voluntary mentors.

Encouraging more female students to study engineering is another initiative that we adopt and put great emphasis on. With the Female Engineers Project held in cooperation with our Diversity Council and Turkish Education Foundation (TEV), our female engineers offer mentoring to young female engineering students to support their theoretical knowledge with experience and practice.

We attach great importance to the projects for the children and young individuals, because we know that we need to take responsibility for all children to build a better world. We need to support them and help especially those with fewer means to confidently preparefor the future. I hope such initiatives continue in a larger scale not only at Siemens Turkey, but also in the business world and throughout the country.

Happy 23 April National Sovereignty and Children’s Day to all children!

Today, we frequently discuss the role of new digital technologies in transforming almost all industries and current ways of doing business by creating new areas of practice. Among these, one of the most interesting to me is healthcare, because it’s focus is directly related to improving the quality of human life. Many game-changing new innovations are expected in this area and we have already started to see the first examples of these. Let’s take a look at the benefits that Siemens Digital Twin technology, which we attach great importance to, offers to healthcare.

First of all, let me briefly explain what Digital Twin means. The example of digital twin technology is a paradigm or model of new trends where sophisticated SW and competences in data analytics with AI can improve the quality of our life. Siemens Digital Twin technology ensures building a virtual version of a factory before physical construction and offers a simulation of all production phase. Thus, research, testing and production processes of companies and institutions become a lot faster, more efficient and economical. All the digitalization projects in which we employed Digital Twin technology have so far provided great efficiency and savings in the business processes of our stakeholders. Examples of these are available in Turkey in various sectors. 

In addition to accelerating and facilitating processes, Digital Twin also enables boutique production and customization. Obviously, the concept of “customization” becomes more and more important. Customized solutions are not only about preferences or tastes; they can be of vital importance in areas such as healthcare. Our expertise in digitalization and our Digital Twin technology reinforce our practices in this area and create a base for future applications in healthcare. And future possibilities in healthcare truly thrill us.

Perhaps very soon, we will be able to generate digital twins of “customized” organs such as the heart and lungs, or of tissues and even individual cells. Such simulations will help healthcare professionals to understand how different individuals react to different treatments. Operations will first be performed on digital twins and anything that might go wrong will be identified in advance. Here the gathering and analysis of data with new AI applications plays a crucial role in all aspects of our life. 

We all know that early diagnosis and early monitoring of any precursors that precede healthcare issues is of essence. Digital twin will provide significant benefits in this area as well. Through sensors, we can continuously send data to our digital twin on the condition of our organs and thus ensure early diagnosis of a potential health problem. For instance, metastases that may occur in the post-treatment process of cancer patients can be very rapidly identified with this method. And ultimately, totally customized medical care can be offered through affordable and almost real-time models to help diagnosis and treatment.

An example to the possible transformational impact of digital technologies on the healthcare industry is Siemens Healthineers Digital Heart Twin. Siemens Healthineers developed an artificial intelligence platform to generate a 3D physical structure of the heart by using its electrical and physical data. Aiming to support surgeons in treatment plans, the digital heart twin can serve as a vehicle to use artificial intelligence in diagnosis and treatment. 3D-printed digitally-intelligent heart twin enables simulations so as to help doctors run some tests before surgery. That means a cardiologist, before entering the OR, can simulate and monitor on his computer screen how the patient with congestive heart failure reacts to the treatment; by means of placing the electrodes of a pacemaker on the 3D digital heart twin that simulates the patient’s heart cells as well as its electrical and physical qualities.

Although the Digital Twin technology is in a development stage in the healthcare industry, it has a great potential to offer significant new developments and treatments in a very short time. And, of course, widespread adoption of this technology in the industry means many opportunities for both the patients and the healthcare professionals in terms of improving the quality of life.

The word “energy” comes from the Greek term “energos”, meaning “active, effective, operating”. In other words, operation of all natural and human-made systems is dependent on energy. As the global population increases and consumption habits change, efficient generation and consumption of such a valuable asset, of course, becomes a critical item on the agenda. That is why I believe that the annual Energy Saving Week celebrated on the second week of every January in Turkey and all awareness efforts for energy efficiency are very important for both individuals and corporations.

As Siemens Turkey, we have many significant practices based upon our energy-efficient products and technologies. In addition to an energy generation portfolio also covering renewable resources, we focus on efficiency in consumption as well. Not only with the efficiency practices at our own facilities, mainly in our Gebze factory, but also with the solutions we offer to our customers, we contribute to improving energy generation and consumption processes in Turkey. I am very much proud and happy to announce that these efforts yielded 260 million TL energy savings in approximately 1,100 energy efficiency projectsin the last four years.

I believe that real progress in civilization is needing less energy for a certain process, not generating and consuming more energy. And this can only be achieved by planning all production operations with a focus on energy efficiency even at the R&D phase. Energy is critical for our planet, just as water or air is. Protecting energy means protecting our future.

It is also important to remember that everything starts with the “individual”. Individual efforts are as much needed as the corporate ones for energy awareness. On the occasion of Energy Saving Week, I would like to thank all Siemens Turkey employees for their attention and care, as members of a company that positions sustainability as a fundamental value.

In my opinion, the best thing about the social media is that it allows feedback and exchange of ideas. I have recently had an experience that supports my belief. In my Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ accounts, I posted an interview from the Siemens Customer Magazine and asked for my followers’ views on “smart cities.”
While some comments identified the “smart city” concept as cities and infrastructures that make peoples’ lives easier, some of them claimed that “smart cities” would bring more chaos. Of course, it is natural to have disagreements on any subject. But I think what we should focus on now is what people expect from technology companies to transform technology into benefits for the daily life.
As far as I can see, the biggest expectation is improvements in transportation, safety, and environmental initiatives. Therefore, it is necessary to focus not only on building technologies, but also on transportation technologies. Among the comments on transportation, I was mostly affected by the loss of lives due to delays of ambulances in heavy city traffic.
There is a very important article on this subject in the November issue of Siemens’ Future and Trends magazine. The article is about an EU project by Siemens and its partners. This project aims to ease city traffic by connecting the traffic lights and the drivers. During the tests, 12 ambulances, 2 electric vehicles, and 20 signaling systems were equipped with various communication units. Every 10 seconds, these communication units send information to certain points on the road via a dedicated WLAN network. For example, when the information on an approaching ambulance arrives, the traffic light turns green as long as it won’t cause a serious effect on traffic. I believe that such technological developments can increase the chance of survival in cases where even seconds are critical. In short, as in everything else, life should be the priority when it comes to smart cities.

Siemens, the company I have been working at for 40 years, is an innovative technology corporation that develops technological solutions for over 160 years to improve the quality of life for all people. And one of the key aspects in the establishment period of Siemens is communication. When our company was founded in Berlin in 1847, it was a leading brand in inventions on communication. For instance, though not directly a Siemens invention, success of the telegraph in its initial years also benefited from the innovative ideas of Siemens.

Communication is important to me not only in terms of Siemens, but also in my personal life. When I was a kid, my grandfather used to tell me stories about the means of communication in the past. I remember having listened to many stories on messages sent via pigeons released from high towers, mounted or on-foot messengers, and town criers. Therefore, communication has always been an enchanting subject to me since very young age.

The generation of our great grandparents told about news being announced in İstanbul by people called “town criers” and these people loudly read the sultan’s edicts on streets, crying out “Hear ye Hear ye!” This means of communication was first used by Mahmut II to establish communication between the administration and the public. Then it was extended to the economy by means of sellers in street markets. Certainly, not all news came from official sources. Even then, sources and quality of the news could sometimes be controversial, yet people did not drown in a sea of information as today.

In the modern world, we have discovered almost infinite opportunities for communication. With the advent of telephones, walkie-talkies, mobile phones, and now e-mails, we have discovered an unprecedented source and means of communication. Our children can send instant messages to each other, listen to their iPods, contact on Facebook, watch videos, and “do their homework” at the same time.

As today’s children can make online contact even before they learn to walk, scientists think the brain structure of future generations can evolve in a different way. Internet alone ensures that the biggest library in the world is at our fingertips.

In short, both the world and communication changed a lot since days of doves and messengers. This change carried to a brand-new age that we may call “age of information”. Let’s discuss the qualities of this age in the next post.

Written in 3 different languages 2,200 years ago and having become even more important when used as a code breaker to decipher the hieroglyph, the Rosetta Stone is once again coming to the fore with the Rosetta Space Mission, which enables landing on a comet for the first time ever.

Rosetta Spacecraft is expected to land on the “67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Comet” at 18:00 local time in Turkey. The module Philae, which is connected to the spacecraft, will transmit extraordinary information about what used to be considered as a “doomsayer” for centuries – a comet! Having dreamed of “flying on a cannonball” in 1700s with Baron von Münchhausen and travelling to the Moon in late 1800s with Jules Verne, mankind today, in the age of technology and data, moves rapidly on the road to expanding its knowledge on the galaxy. Such information, which I believe will astonish us all, is certainly very valuable in terms of understanding the galaxy and our source of energy – the sun.

In addition to landing on a comet, Rosetta is also a very striking example of how visionary and long-term thinking can lead to concrete results. The question is, when will our country take part in this visionary approach?