NEW YORK
Turkey's Silicon Valley-inspired industrial region will give the world a new global technology hub, Turkey’s Minister of Science, Industry and Technology Fikri Isik said Friday.
"With the Informatics Valley project, which will be built on a 3 million square meters area, we want to turn our country into a global research, development and innovation base," Isik told Turkish academics at a workshop in Stanford University, California, organized by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.
He said the project's infrastructure work was nearing completion and the superstructure work would commence in April.
Inspired by California's Silicon Valley, home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, the Informatics Valley is an important part of Turkey's new industrial vision, which stresses on becoming the research and development and manufacturing center of Eurasia for medium and high-tech products.
The valley is being built in Gebze, about 48 kilometers east of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city and economic capital.
"The path to realizing our goal of becoming a world power goes through the steps that we are taking in science and technology," Isik said.
He said Turkey would appoint science attaches to Washington and Los Angeles in a bid to boost cooperation with U.S. science and technology circles.
Addressing Turkish academics, Isik said, "We consider the presence of Turkish academics and researchers in the world's prestigious universities as the wealth of our country... In this workshop, we are not urging you to return to Turkey, but we would like you to know that you will find our doors wide open if you want to return."
Isik also visited the headquarters of U.S. automotive giant Tesla Motors on Friday, as well as the Plug and Play Tech Center, a business accelerator that specializes in growing tech-startups.
