OREANDA-NEWS. In order to prepare for ITEA 3 Call 3 and the ITEA PO Days, TÜBITAK organised a national ITEA information day and project market on 1 September in Ankara. With more than 100 participants, this preparation event was a great opportunity to meet and partner up with Turkish stakeholders and to find support for the project ideas before the PO Days. Mehmet Aslan, Head of Information Technologies Grant Committee of the Technology and Innovation Funding Programmes Directorate opened the day, followed by ITEA Chairwoman Zeynep Sarılar explaining more about ITEA and Turkish participation in ITEA. Next, two Turkish ITEA project leaders, Arda Güreller from Ericsson (InValue project) and Özer Aydemir from Bor Software (INSIST project), shared their experiences with the audience. ITEA Vice-chairman, Philippe Letellier, presented the results of the ITEA international customer workshop on Smart Health that took place in June 2016, giving input for new R&D projects. Afterwards, 10 project ideas were presented, some already of top quality, and the project proposal leaders gained the benefit of receiving very significant feedback from the ITEA Chairwoman and Vice-chairman.

The national information day was evaluated as very useful and was highly appreciated. A number of project idea leaders already started processing the feedback they received and expanding their consortium to be able to submit their proposal in ITEA 3 Call 3.