Freedom of expression a must to become an information society: Doğan Online Chairwoman

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet

A country that has an information society grows with brainpower, not industrial investments, Hanzade Doğan Boyner said. DHA Photo

Turkey needs to encourage awareness of freedom of expression if it wants to become an information society, the founding chairwoman of Doğan Online, Hanzade Doğan Boyner has said Dec. 3.
 
“Even though the information sector is worth $100 billion [per year], if freedom of expression is not instilled in our veins, if we don’t encourage awareness, we cannot become an information society,” she said during an IT conference organized by the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) and Turkey’s Informatics Industry Association (TÜBİSAD) on Dec. 3.
 
If we can establish such an environment supporting these principles, we will see the birth of new business models from new technologies,” she said during an IT conference organized by the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) and Turkey’s Informatics Industry Association (TÜBİSAD) late on Dec. 3.
 
Doğan Boyner emphasized that there were great differences between a society revolving around IT technologies and a society based on information.
 
“What we describe as an information society is a country that creates growth with brain power instead of investments in industry. The development of the IT sector, having a broadband connection and more access to the internet are important as well, but these are just instruments. You cannot become an information sector by solely putting electronic blackboards in each school or connecting every house to broadband internet access,” she said in reference to the government’s Fatih project, which also aims to distribute tablet PCs to students.
 
Doğan Boyner insisted that encouraging creativity and expressing ideas was more important than providing children with the most high-tech gadget.
 
“What can we do to make [learning] attractive and different in order to motivate children? How much do we encourage [our children] to ‘think’ at schools? These are the sort of questions that should be asked. If we can establish such an environment, attempts at entrepreneurship will increase and new business models from new technologies will emerge,” she said.
 
Doğan Boyner also emphasized that Turkey lagged behind in allocating investments to R&D with only 0.8 percent of its GDP, compared to countries such as Finland, which spends 4 percent of its GDP on R&D a year, Germany and the United States spending 3 percent each and even China, which spends 2 percent.
 
Doğan Boyner stated that the Doğan Group had started making technology investments in the early 2000s, founding Turkey’s first e-commerce, education and real-estate portals on the internet. “Online business currently constitutes 40 percent of our total turnover,” she added.