In the partnership of Habitat Association and Turkish Capital Markets Association (TSPB), within the scope of the Istanbul Blockchain School Project, which was supported in the extent of Istanbul Development Agency’s Innovative and Creative Istanbul Financial Support Programme, Blockchain Summit was held. During the summit, the technological developments made in the field of blockchain, the blockchain applications improved in the field of journalism to fight with disinformation, blockchain approach policies of governments and central banks in the world and the topic of blockchain token were spoken about. In the event, that held online because of the pandemic conditions, the Demoday of “Blockchain Acceleration Programme” was carried out and the winner team was Car4Future. The Summit started with the opening speeches of Habitat Association Board Chairman Sezai Hazır and Turkish Capital Markets Association Secretary General İlkay Arıkan.
“We took our departure from the ideas of creating positive perception in the society and finding the ways of how to bring up experts with a look from the perspective of future competencies.”
Habitat Association Board Chairman Sezai Hazır said that technologies, in the field of artificial intelligence and internet of things improved by industry 4.0, forced the socioeconomic structure to change as well. Hazır also stated that they had taken their departure from the ideas of both creating positive perception in the society, and looking for the ways of bringing up experts of the field by taking the future competencies into consideration. Hazır pointed out that, as Habitat, they had started to issue all the certificates by blockchain technology since the climate change had been took into consideration and the pandemic had started and thanks to blockchain technology, they had prevented 4 thousand trees from being cut. As Hazır additionally emphasized, they aimed at disseminating the trainings by implementing the curriculum, that they had built in the field of blockchain, also in their community centers in the following period.
In his opening speech, Turkish Capital Markets Association Secretary General İlkay Arıkan stated that their association was the one, to which Turkey’s over 200 financial institutions were affiliated and which aimed at increasing financial literacy as a basis. Arıkan said that each of their members with the technological innovations, which they worked on improving in their own fields and structures, had been trying to adapt themselves to the new world. Arıkan in addition emphasized that, finance institutions of the future would be the ones that manage technology rather than money. İlkay Arıkan, in his speech, also stated, “As Turkish Capital Markets Association, we are happy to clear the way for the youth and give them new competencies by the support we give to the blockchain school.”
Habitat Association Project Manager Ece Vural was the moderator of the session “Can Blockchain Help to Struggle with Disinformation?”. Associate Professor Walid Al-Saqaf from Södertörn University, Media Technologies and Journalism Department was the guest of the session. Ass. Prof. Walid Al-Saqaf said that when it was looked inside Blockchain, it could be seen that there were more than one dimension and one of the main dimensions was unchangeablity. Walid Al-Saqaf stated that the use of blockchain technology in the field of journalism was of a great importance because it was impossible to change a data saved in the base of blockchain. Al-Saqaf, additionally, mentioned about the importance of two things to struggle with disinformation: blockchain applications which were developed in the field of journalism, and his self-developed project. The editor of Digital Watch Observatory, Geneva Internet Platform and at the same time the Vice Chairman of Serbia Bitcoin Association Arvin Kamberi was another guest. Kamberi talked about the blockchain approach policies and implementations of governments and central banks in the world. Besides, the future of the blockchain technology was spoken about. The Blockchain Summit continued with the session “Tokenization” and the guests were: The founding members of Istanbul Blockchain Women, Ebru Güven and Başak Burcu Yiğit; Çağla Gül Şenkardeş from MenaPAY; Leyla Arsan from TAGES; and Gökçe Philips from CryptoIndexSeries. In this session, “blockchain token” was spoken about. Following this session, the session “Blockchain in the World” was held and the guests were: BAU BlockchainIST Center Director Bora Erdamar, Blockchain Researcher and Writer Turan Sert and Solak Partners Managing Partner Elçin Karatay. In “Blockchain in the World” session, new developments in blockchain technology were mentioned.
After the sessions, the winner of Turkey’s first online “Blockchain Acceleration Program”, featuring successful teams, was announced. At the end of 8 weeks of training and mentoring support, the winning team was the Car4Future.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
