Vodafone Turkey Foundation's Event Discussed Bridging the Digital Divide

COLLABORATIVE EVENT FROM TURKEY VODAFONE FOUNDATION AND HBR TURKEY

The "Bridging the Digital Divide" online event held with the collaboration of Vodafone Turkey Foundation and HBR Turkey discussed raising awareness on inclusion and closure of the digital competence divide for a better world. Mitchel Resnick, a prominent MIT professor and the founder of the Scratch programming language, joined the event as the keynote speaker.

With the vision of "technology for good", Vodafone Turkey Foundation continues to work on activities that will contribute to social change and development. The "Bridging the Digital Divide" online event held with the collaboration of Vodafone Turkey Foundation and HBR Turkey discussed raising awareness on inclusion and closure of the digital competence divide for a better world. During the half-day online event, national and international speakers highlighted the role of digitalization in social transformation, focussing on why having digital skills and competencies is significant for everyone, from individuals to institutions.

"We concentrate on the development of women and children"

While making the event's opening speech, Mr. Hasan Süel, the Chair of the Vodafone Turkey Foundation, stated:

“We live in a period where digitalization is significant, all the more so. Digital technologies are the basis of methods including remote working, remote meeting, and live streaming from home, which have been our new normals as we become more familiar with them. As individuals and institutions, we should leverage digital transformation in the best and most efficient way. Digitalization is only possible with the development of digital competencies and when everyone, including individuals to institutions, gains the required digital skills and competencies. We believe that the collaboration of the public and private industries are of great significance in eliminating the barriers to developing digital skills and knowledge sharing. Here, we need a factual social needs analysis. We also need to take actions that will provide solutions for these needs and create social transformation. As Vodafone Turkey Foundation, we aim to clear the obstacles in front of those who cannot sufficiently leverage social life opportunities or exist in economic life. We focus primarily on women and children. We wholeheartedly believe in their potential and think we should project their light on the future. As the Foundation, we will continue our efforts to become a part of the solution and work on the path of digitalization to the best of our abilities, as always."

Goal-oriented transformation

After the opening statements, the subject discussed in the first panel was "Digital Transformation: Goal-Oriented and Social Impact Perspective" . Etkiyap Chief Executive Officer Şafak Müderrisgil, Microsoft Turkey General Manager Levent Özbilgin, and Limak Holding Chair of the Board of Directors Ebru Özdemir joined the panel, which was moderated by Dr. Sertaç Doğanay, Academic and Author, as speakers. Panellists underlined the impact of technology on digital transformation and discussed which actions individuals and institutions can take for sustainable digitalization.

Technology for a better future

The event's second panel was held under the theme of "Enhancing Lives with Technology". The second panel was moderated by Serdar Turan, the Executive Editor of HBR Turkey, and joined by Hasan Süel, the Chair of Vodafone Turkey Foundation, Cüneyt Akçapınar, the Directorate General of Life Long Learning's Head of Research, Development, and Projects Department, and Sezai Hazır, the Board Chair of Habitat Association, as speakers. Besides the impact of technology on social transformation, the panelists also discussed Vodafone Turkey Foundation's efforts to enhance society and improve life quality. In this context, the Foundation's "Connected Women" project, which aims to increase women's digital awareness and literacy, and the "Coding Tomorrow" project, which provides coding training to children aged 7-14 across Turkey, were introduced in detail.

The significance of creative learning

The "Bridging the Digital Divide" event then ended with a presentation by Mitchel Resnick, among MIT's foremost professors and creator of the Scratch programming language, on "Creative Learning for Everyone".