Talks of Design in Turkey Innovation Week

Turkey Exporters Assembly hosted the fifth Turkey Innovation Week in Izmir, with the motto “Unlimited Innovation, Unlimited Potential”. Our General Manager Murat Armağan attended as a speaker in Innovation Week 2016, an important event of the year.

Turkey Innovation Week was held in Swissotel Buyuk Efes in Izmir on March 17-18. The event which brought Turkey’s limitless power for innovation with unlimited potential. In the event, Armağan participated as a speaker for the “Ones Who Brand the Design” panel.

Murat Armağan and Design

Armağan started his speech by celebrating the March 18 Gallipoli Campaign. “Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Çanakkale. It is one of the milestones [in the history of our country] that I am very moved by. You know, the people in these lands together left us this work at the end of an impossible battle in an honorable war”, he said. “This is one of our greatest sources of inspiration for innovation, design, development and looking to the future. That’s why I want to commemorate both our martyrs and our ancestors who left this beautiful country on this anniversary.”

Armağan also thanked the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly for bringing together many different groups from various cities. He also thanked the assembly for bringing “the innovation culture to a platform with a great organization” and sustaining this platform for years. Armağan then continued on how this event brings together “many different groups from students to industrialists, from academicians to the bureaucracy”.

What is Innovation?

For Armağan, the definition of innovation remains the same, regardless of different categories such as product, technology or service. Arman Design’s founder believes that the importance of innovation transpires at “the point where it touches and eventually meets with people, or at the point where people encounter and use it”. Armağan also believes that the designers also have an important share at this point. “As designers, we play a role in the place where more physical products are carried out and innovative works are presented to the society”, he states. “Designers bring together a business idea, a business model, or a function that will facilitate life with people. Therefore, it is necessary to consider designers and design within this role”.

Explaining innovation with different examples from a famous brand of razor blades to iPod and iTunes, Armağan states that innovation is not equal to a physical product. Therefore, he recommends students to “develop reflexes to design not only the products but also the business model”.

New Generation Designers and Promising Designer Candidates

After stating that he has toured several stands around during the Turkey Innovation Week, Armağan shared his thoughts on future designers. “I have seen some of the works of our young friends, university students and R&D groups”, he said. “I can see that we have a very exciting and bright future. Young people are [deeply] interested in very special technologies. There is a great motivation about it. They can combine [things] with more instruments and produce results, compared to 10-15 years ago, compared to the past”.

From the Idea to the Target Market

Commenting on the productization and commercialization of an idea, Armağan stated, “Whether we adopt the design emotionally, or choose it as a hobby or a business, we cannot commercialize our designs and transform them into an economy unless we become successful at process management. Economic results are very important for companies and countries. This is why in [my] design company we try to measure how the designs we create turn into an economic value. We try to measure how many designs we deliver each year, how many of them the companies commercialized, and the level of success of commercialization. These are very important. Therefore, there is an economy created with digital media under the word innovation. We need to know that we can only exist under the word innovation, not only with a good business idea, but with a good product and a successful business model”.

For Murat Armağan, Turkey needs to increase its value-added production to reach its $ 500 billion goal of 2023. According to Armağan, the way for this comes from innovation, R&D studies, design, and technology.