"Pardus and Informatics on a Constitutional Basis" Discussed
On Thursday, February 23, a seminar entitled "Pardus and Informatics on a Constitutional Basis" was held by the Bilkent Informatics Club in C Building on East Campus. The speaker was Erdal Aksunger, a CHP deputy from İzmir, who discussed his experience in politics with respect to the field of informatics.
The main focus of Mr. Aksunger's talk concerned the need for localization of resources and the urgent need to establish a national Ministry of Informatics with a realistic budget. He spoke about his upcoming initiative in Parliament regarding this matter, for which a commission has already been formed.
Mr. Aksunger also stressed the importance of the role that today's students would play in this new movement. His words about the current foreign-based IT sector were of note: "We are leaving our signature in someone else's diary."
Turning to other technology-related topics, he stated that he does not agree with the common misconception that information technology has eased people's lives, pointing out that we still have to work eight hours a day and still earn the same amount of money. What it has done, he said, is trigger a major change toward a more transparent media order and a new national order. He said that networks like WikiLeaks have a vital role in this "digital evolution," destroying taboos about trust.
The bottom line of the seminar was that Turkey should stop harmonizing with global developments in IT and instead start producing its own software locally. Pardus is an important project in this area, and needs more investment and further upgrading. It is crucial to remember that "whoever owns information can manipulate it."