Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

The summit, which started with the opening speeches of TOBB President and the ICC Turkey National Committee Chairman M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, ICC Secretary General John Denton, Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology Fatih Kacır and Ankara University Rector Dr. Erkan İbiş, was held at the Istanbul Hilton Bomonti Hotel and Conference Center. National and international experts attended the summit.

- TOBB and ICC working on intellectual property rights

In his speech Hisarcıklıoğlu, reported that TOBB and the ICC Turkey have spent significant time pursuing increased awareness for intellectual property rights in Turkey. Stating that there are two reasons for this, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “First of all, we embrace this issue morally. The violation of intellectual property rights is no different from theft. It is unconscionable to defend the intellectual property theft and the unfair competition resulting from it. We need to spread this awareness to the whole of society and the private sector. Another important reason for this great effort is our desire to increase our economy to a higher level. The power of the knowledge economy is beyond doubt. At the core of the knowledge economy are creative ideas, which meet technology and become exportable products.

In today's world, inventing, producing new ideas is the greatest service you can do to this country.

On the one hand, we have to produce policies to support those who produce ideas, and on the other hand, to protect those ideas.”

- 21^st century’s oil is knowledge

Stating that it is impossible to make Turkey a country with advanced technology exporters and global brands without first establishing the infrastructure and regulations to protect innovation, technology and brands which it produces, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “If we want to produce the next Google, Uber or Apple, we need to protect our brands, patents, technologies and knowledge. Because, with digitalization, copyrights also gain different dimensions, and it is important not to fall behind. Because in the 21^st century, knowledge is the most important force. Knowledge is the oil of the 21^st century. Just like in oil; you must find it, drill it, process it, use it, and sell it. See, last month, 178-year-old Thomas Cook, the world's largest travel company, went under. The 20-year-old booking.com or hotels.com continue to increase their activity, because they rule the knowledge. This is the new world. If you ignore technological change, you can't survive. If you insist on antiquity and refuse to adapt to the new, you will disappear.”

Stating that supporting SMEs, increasing R&D activities and university-industry cooperation is very important, Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that the importance they attach to university-industry cooperation is the launching point of TOBB-ETU they established in 2003. Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Now, our students receive patents in the companies they collaborate with. We became a university that got our first patent from USA with the technologies we produced in our technology transfer office. We need to increase these examples in all our universities and spread them to our private sector.

We as TOBB, the National Committee of ICC Turkey, TOBB University of Economics and Technology are always ready to do our part. Because we are entering an era of innovation based growth model for Turkey in which it will need technology, brands and patents more than ever.”