ITÜ and Sampaş Holding Collaborate on AKİM

İTÜ and Sampaş Holding Cooperation Launches AKİM İTÜ has launched the Smart Cities Innovation Centre (AKİM) in cooperation with Sampaş Holding, a company implementing smart city technologies. According to a statement from Sampaş, the first step within the AKİM initiative was to create a digital twin of the İTÜ Ayazağa Campus. The project, which is Turkey's first digital twin-based smart campus initiative, will enable Sampaş Holding and İTÜ to conduct research focused on smart cities and digital twins, allow faculty members and undergraduate and graduate students to plan and implement joint scientific studies, and support the training of engineers who will design people-centric cities of the future. The cooperation is intended to serve as a starting point for improving cities and designing future urban areas. Expected outcomes include applied education in relevant fields, advancement of sector knowledge, implementation of joint scientific studies, and preparation of national and international publications. Under the agreement, the holding's Smart City Management and Innovation Centre and Digital Twin Software Platform will be made available for use by İTÜ students and researchers. Through this partnership, domestic and international commercial collaborations related to smart cities will be developed, and İTÜ and Sampaş will create a domestic digital twin software within six years.

We will design and develop the cities of the future based on science and technology

Prof. Dr. Tahsin Yomralıoğlu, Director of İTÜ National Geographic Information Technologies and Innovation Implementation-Research Centre, whose views were included in the statement, emphasized that within the scope of the cooperation, they will work to design and develop future cities on a science and technology basis. Noting that cities, whose management becomes increasingly difficult with rapid population growth day by day, must be administered on the basis of information technologies as an inevitable necessity, Yomralıoğlu stated: 'However, all of this needs to be managed in a much more dynamic, human-centred manner from infrastructure to superstructure within the concept of sustainability. In today's world, where even the smallest piece of information is highly valuable for decision-makers and individuals in cities, the need for information technologies has increased further. Within the scope of this project, while producing all types of innovative solutions related to smart cities on an R&D basis, our application areas and laboratories will be primarily focused on developing the most suitable smart space models for İTÜ Central Campus and our cities. Furthermore, this project will also serve as a very special example of university-industry cooperation.' Sampaş Holding Chairman of the Board Şekip Karakaya expressed that they are very excited to embark on a long-term journey with İTÜ. Karakaya said: 'We are aware of the importance of this cooperation for Turkey. With AKİM, the first stop on this journey, we have taken a major step in designing the cities of the future.' Source