Turkey to establish new informatics valley
By Orhan Orhun Unal
Turkey is constructing a new 53,000-square-meter informatics valley in Istanbul's Ayazaga neighborhood, Yeni Shafak newspaper has reported.
The number of technology development zones, which has reached 92 as part of Turkey's national technology development initiative, is growing by the day. While 73 of these zones continue to operate actively, 19 of them continue to work on infrastructure.
The new Muallimkoy Technology Development Zone (also known as Informatics Valley) area will allow entrepreneurs to complete their bureaucratic procedures without having to travel to the Kocaeli region.
The informatics valley is being built to meet Gebze's growing entrepreneurial demand. Ayazaga was chosen as a new location because of its proximity to the Levent region, which is home to many start-ups.
The existing Informatics Valley (covering an area of 10,000 square meters) is Turkey's largest Incubation Center, and its Bv Incubator program provides entrepreneurs with a suitable office environment to develop their ideas.
According to the Industry and Technology Ministry, the ratio of R&D expenditures to national income increased from 5 per thousand to 1.09 percent in approximately 20 years. R&D employment increased six times to 200,000 and the number of domestic patents increased 20 times to 8,200.
The underlying reason for these positive developments is shown as investment in technology regions. It was added that thanks to the institutions such as TUBITAK an entrepreneurial ecosystem is being developed, where inventors feel more supported.
Venture capital funds invested more than $1.5 billion in projects in this area in 2021. The total number of companies operating in technology development zones and conducting research and development (R&D) studies has reached 7,331 with 75,657 employees. It is significant that 1,542 of the 1,542 businesses operating in technology development zones were founded by academics.
In terms of foreign capital, the Technology Development Zones have a total of 282 foreign or foreign partnership companies. The number of patents registered by institutions operating in the regions has increased by 1,409, while the number of patents under consideration has risen to 3,013. While there are 43,527 completed projects in the technology development zones, there are 12,131 projects in the works.
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