The customary Informatics'05 event organised by the Informatics Association of Turkey (IAT), took place between 9-11 November 2005. Our President, Emrehan Halıcı, participated in the opening panel of the event, which was moderated by IAT President Tuhan Menteş. During the panel entitled ‘Managing the future with informatics, International Approaches', Halıcı spoke about the importance of technoparks in Turkey and in the world. IAT President Turhan Menteş indicated that Emrehan Halıcı was Turkey's first Technopark investor and that he has fulfilled a very important task for Turkey, as a result of his efforts in bringing the technopark law into practise. Participants of the panel also included, Vice President of the Turkish Informatics Foundation, Bülent Gönç, President of the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS), Jouko Ruissalo, Chief Executive Officer of the US Economic Development Association, Dr. Gerald L. Gordon, President of the Irish Computer Society, Jim Friars, Byron Nicolaides from the ECDL Foundation and President of the Swiss Informatics Association, Jorg Ruegg.

At the "Symposium for Strategic Planning in Universities", held in Antalya at Akdeniz University between 3-4 October 2005, Çetin Balanuye, a member of our management board, presented a report on new education-teaching paradigms. Many academicians such as, Erdal İnönü, Ahmet İnam, Abdullah Atalar, Canan Çilingir, Orhan Bursalı, Kemal İnan and Burhan Şenatalar participated in the symposium which aimed to facilitate the effective consistency of universites with rapidly changing global world systems, the economy, culture and educational paradigms. The report, presented by Çetin Balanuye during the session titled, "New education-teaching Paradigms", was based on the view that in the near future academies will be transformed into diploma-independent "learning societies" that diversify the channels of learning while measuring-assessing processes will be undertaken by independent objective departments. Prof.Emin Alıcı, President of Dokuz Eylül University and Dr. Hamit Ersoy, Coordinator of the Bologna Process Project were also among the participants of this session.

The 11 finalists of the Halıcı Computerised Composition competition, which has been bringing together musicians, technology and the world of art for the past 12 years, presented their compositions infront of an audience and a jury that included, Attilla Özdemiroğlu, Garo Mafyan, İzzet Öz, Faruk Eczacıbaşı, Sedat Ergin, Şeref Oğuz, Hakan Özer and Emrehan Halıcı. After listening to all the pieces, the jury chose "Mongol Çocuk ve Özgürlük" by Alper Kömürcü as the winning composition. The first runner-up prize went to Sedat Yüce for his "rebirth" titled composition while N.Doğa Ebrişim, took the second runner-up prize for "12 Haziran".

1. Alper Kömürcü - Mongol Çocuk ve Özgürlük
2. Sedat Yüce - Rebirth
3. N. Doğa Ebrişim - 12 Haziran

The compositions and photos of the final ceremony >>>

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In Istanbul, on Wednesday 10th August, members of the jury listened to 147 pieces of music. At jury member Faruk Eczacıbaşı's house, where Attila Özdemiroğlu, Garo Mafyan, İzzet Öz, Borga Parlar, Şeref Oğuz and Emrehan Halıcı all came together, 12 of these 147 creations were chosen as finalists. The finalists of the Halıcı Computerised Composition contest, of which this year "freedom" is its main theme, will be left open to a public vote from August 11 onwards. The final ceremony in which the winner will be announced will take place on Tuesday 6th September at Istanbul, İŞ SANAT MERKEZİ. Here are the contestents and their compositions:

1. Alper Kömürcü - Mongol Çocuk ve Özgürlük
2. Anıl Yiğit Filiz - Armoni
3. Cenk Çelebioğlu - Passion
4. Dunya Kırkalı - Latenough
5. Ercüment Orkut - Journey
6. İlke Ulaş Kuvanç - Özgür Gece
7. Kaan Gökhan Varol - Cruise
8. N. Doga Ebrisim - 12 Haziran
9. Okay Bilge, Özgen Sabuncu - Kozadan Toprağa
10. Sedat Yüce - Rebirth
11. Selim Aysan - Espas, yedi sekiz
12. Toygar Ali Işıklı - Gölcük'te sessizliğin sesi

Note: Names are listed in alphabetic order

Click to listen and to vote for the compositions

"The Turkish Democracy Foundation is using Halıcı's heryerokul.net e-learning solutions for its European Union supported distance learning project."

Halıcı's "heryerokul.net" branded distance learning solutions has been found suitable for The Turkish Democracy Foundation distance learning bid, that was made for the European Union supported "Decorative Cultural Product Presentation Distance Learning Project" on February 8th 2005. To carry out the project, all the required infrastructure, software, hardware and its tools will be used to present the Halsoft Education Portal, Halsoft LCMS and Halsoft EDISA components, which are all found in the heryerokul.net e-learning solutions package.

"Turkey's best musical competition Halıcı Computerised Musical Composition Contest, starts soon. This years theme is FREEDOM..."

The competition, which will be celebrating its 12th year this year, has chosen FREEDOM as its main theme. The deadline for applications is 29th July 2005 and the competition is open to everyone. Detailed information on how to apply online can be found at http://beste.halici.com.tr. The jury, which is made up of experts from the world of music and technology, has not changed for the past 12 years and includes jury leader Atilla Özdemiroğlu, jury member and presenter İzzet Öz, Garo Mafyan, Sedat Ergin, Şeref Oğuz, Faruk Eczacıbaşı, Hakan Özer, Borga Parlar and Emrehan Halıcı. The competition, like every other year, will take place within the Informatics events.

Lets come together at the Halıcı Computerised Musical Composititon contest, not only to feel but to also hear freedom.

The final session of the Halıcı Education Center, Professional "Web design and Programming" training course, which has been running since 7th February, took place on Thursday 14th April. At the certificate ceremony, students told Cetin Balanuye (the head of Halici's education department) and other directors that they found instructor Hakan Özcan, the course programme and HEM extremely successful and highly effective. Attended mainly by public sector employees, these Professional Web Training courses will continue to take place along with the quality assurance of Halıcı Education Center over the next following days.

The participatory study which aims to determine the infrastructure, implementation and contents of distance learning and which has been running in coordination with the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV) since 2002, took place in the Halici Education Center, situated in the Halici Software House-METU. The participants of the study- a mixture of decision makers from universities, public institutions, the army, civil group organisations, and the private sector- were all brought together under four different professional units titled, "Education Portal", "accreditation", "Certificate Programmes", and Publicity". Under these headings, an action plan and programme was prepared in line with the decisions made in previous works, and was presented to all the groups at the end of the day.

You can find detailed records and reports at http://www.pleksus.com.tr/tbv. The follow up session of this study will be held at Sabanci University between 21-22 April 2005. At the end of the study, guests were invited to a cocktail in the Halici studio roof where they were entertained by a live performance given by Serkan Sonmez, Mehmet and Nursel Efe. At the cocktail, the Halici family, who signified their awarness of how education and technology will contribute to the accumulation of national value, stated that they will be continuing to actively contribute to these studies with TBV.

» Click to view the Photograph Album

On Saturday 19th May, Cetin Balanuye, the head of Halici's education department and member of its management board, conducted a conversational meeting with students from Yüce Bilgi Academy. As a guest invited on behalf of Yüce Bilgi Academy's Informatics and Technology (BT) Education programme and career events, Cetin Balanuye discussed the range of activites covered by the Halici cooperation, and also spoke to students about project circle and management in educational design and content development works.

Calling for all project administrators currently developing projects that lie within the scope of European Union grant programmes! What would you say to a partnership deal with the quality assurance Halsoft promises? Come and let us transfer your training to the internet together in the most quickest and cheapest way possible and with the guaranty of top quality at all times. Take advantage of the campaign which provides civil social groups of up to 40% reduction in distance learning.

To develop your individual e-learning contents contact us.

• The first and only cost-assessment wizard in Turkey. By using this wizard you can find out the estimated cost and developing time of the e-Learning service that you require.
  
• Examples of course application and demonstrations of Halıcı's selection of products.
  
• Suggested solutions presented interactively in line with your institutional requirements.
  
• Halsoft e-learning services and solutions
  
• Halsoft LMS (managing education over the internet), as developed under the supervision of TUBİTAK AND ODTÜ
  

For more detailed information on this matter go to www.e-halsoft.com

Professional Web Design Course
Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Photoshop, Flash. Using popular web design programmes... examples... Alongside learning how to prepare and administer a web site, you will also learn how to use all the tools that are relevant for its maintenance and lasting performance. You will also be able to produce professional images and easily combine visual elements with HTML. (Learning duration: 80 hours)

Professional Web Programming Course
Building, publishing and administration tasks will be achieved within popular web programming environment using Apache, PHP and Mysql... Session management and database application developments... (Learning Duration: 80 hours)

Application and other information:
Start Date: 7 February 2005 Monday
Contact: +90 312 210 6364/123 Burak Koç

Halıcı's very own sound and music director Serkan Sonmez has been guaranteed a place in the Eurovision song contest Turkish national final.

Composed by Serkan Sonmez and written by Nursel Efe, "Tek İsteğim" was chosen from 136 songs and is to compete in the Turkish national final along with 7 other finalists.

The song and performers that are to represent Turkey in the  Eurovision song contest in Ukraine, were identified in the "2005 Eurovision song contest national selection" which was prepared by TRT and held in Ankara between the dates 7-8 December 2004.

METU-Halıcı Software Group now publish their Cost-Assessment Wizard at www.e-halsoft.com to enable their clients to make realistic assessments of e-Learning costs. The wizard helps clients project approximate costs for different options possible in e-Learning. It additionally informs clients of any other expenditures that may be required depending on their existing technical infrastructure. Aiming to offer transparent solutions in institutional training and e-Learning investments, the wizard is ready for use together with other Halsoft e-Learning services.

The Learning and Content Management System, supported by TUBİTAK as an R&D project, and one of the main sub-components of Halıcı Educational Portal, has been developed and is now in the testing stage. The system, which will undergo torough testing by academics and experts, will soon become a package that meets the in-service training needs of the public and private sectors and NGOs.

Although particularly designed to meet the in-service training needs of teachers nationwide, the system will also be used by many other similar institutions. Developed after a close investigation of various similar systems, the HalSoft Learning and Content Management System is based on classic modules with regard to functionality and usability, and it is also a very advanced model. With regard to plainness and controlability, it is extremely user-friendly.

The Informatics Summit ‘04 took place between 31 August - 2 September in İstanbul Lütfi Kırdar Congress and Exhibition hall. This year's theme was "The Power of Information".

Providing information about "Frizbi Educational Software" developed jointly by Halıcı Group and Koç System, frizbi.com is now online. On frizbi.com is information about products, course content and technical help.

Finals and Awards Ceremony: 1 September 2004 Wednesday - 20:00 hrs., Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Hall, Istanbul

The 2^nd stage of the bid for Educational Software for IT Classrooms, carried out by the Ministry of Education with the support of the World Bank, was called on 12 August 2004 . The first stage of the bid had been finalized in 1999, providing many primary education institutions with educational software programmes. The second stage of the bid was announced in May 2004 within the scope of the 2 nd phase of the Basic Education Project and 17 different firms participated in it to meet the Ministry's demand for course support software, educational game programmes, knowledge and skill development programmes, reference software and WEB-Based Design programmes.

The biggest bidder, Probil A.Ş., bided in the course support, educational games and reference software packages with Frizbi software programmes developed jointly by Koç System and Halıcı Group. Probil have declared that each programme in the accepted packages will be installed and tested in 2802 schools, and that they will receive help and support from Koc and Halıcı during this process.

On August 9, the judges of the competition, Garo Mafyan, İzzet Öz, Borga Parlar, Şeref Oğuz, Hakan Özer and Emrehan Halıcı gathered in the chief judge Attila Özdemiroğlu's house to evaluate the 86 beautiful musical compositions. As a result, 12 compositions were selected for the finals. The public voting will start on 11 August and the final ceremony will take place in Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Hall, Istanbul , on 1 September 2004 at 20:00 hours. The contestants in the finals and their compositions are as follows:

1. Erdal Akkaya – Lâ-Mekan
2. Selim Aysan – Yol
3. Barbaros Bozkır – Karanlığa Sözler
4. Serdar Çelik – Madımak in Dream
5. N. Doğa Ebrişim – Metropoldeki Aşığın Bilinçaltı
6. Mehmet Efe – Gönül Gözü
7. Murat Köselioğlu – Göz Bahane Işık Düşerse Gönüle
8. Sonat Mutver – Aşık Veysel'e Prelüd
9. Ceyda Pirali – Zümrüt
10. Ogün Sayharman – Bir Anadolu Ozanı
11. Ali Sural – Hatırlıyorum
12. Cenk Yeles – Deniz

Click for pictures of judges.

Intelligence Games by Emrehan Halıcı, the president of our executive board, has been published by TUBITAK Press. Emrehan Halıcı gathered in his book the 200 most popular questions he had written for TUBITAK Science and Technology Journal for 25 years. Halıcı, who has been writing intelligence questions for 27 years, has published around 5,000 questions worldwide.

The winners ofHalıcı-midi Computerized Musical Competition between the years 1994-2003 have been compiled in a CD. In the year 2000, too, Halıcı had compiled the winners and first- and second-runners-up in a CD. In the 11-year history of the competition, Halici have evaluated around 1,000 compositions. We would like to thank all the music-lovers, judges and contestant of the past 11 years for their invaluable contributions...

Halıcı-midi Computerized Musical Competition ‘04 starts soon . The deadline for applications is 6 August 2004 and the competition is open to everyone. This year's main theme is "Aşık Veysel" and the awards will add up to 6 Billion TL. For online applications and detailed information: http://midi.halici.com.tr . Click to read the newsletter.

Halıcı-midi Computerized Musical Competition, which is considered among the best in Turkey by musical authorities, celebrates its 11 th year . The competition, which revolves around a main theme every year such as "The 75 th Year of the Republic", the "700 th Year of the Ottoman Empire", "Information Age", "Mevlana", "Anatolia" or "Change", chose Aşık Veysel as its theme this year. The contestants will try and reflect their feelings about the great folklore poet who has a special place in our hearts. Detailed information about the competition will be announced in the coming days. Halıcı-midi Computerized Musical Competitionhas brought together information technologies and music in the atmosphere of a competition and evaluated approximately 1,000 musical competitions in the past 11 years. The true aim of the competition is to provide a quality production opportunity for musicians who can use technology and turn their creativity into artistic action.

BTIE is organized every year to show the importance of the concept of informatics and information technologies in shaping educational systems. This year, the event took place between May 20-22 with the main theme "The New Youth" and OYUNGA.com participated in it. Oyunga.Com was established in April 2004 with the joint venture of TR.NET, the leader in the field of Internet technologies and service-providing, and Halıcı, an expert in technology-based education, game and music development. OYUNGA received around 2,000 registered users in its first month, with its carefully selected intelligence games, awards, visually protected and advertisement-free interface. The common characteristic of the many Java-based intelligence games in OYUNGA is their ability to bring out the best in "seeing", "perception" and "creativity". The dynamic scoreboards of OYUNGA identify gurus who challenge Oyunga, masters with considerable success and pilots who are learning. Soon, there will be new awards which will bring more fierce competition and the game selection will continually be enriched. The central mission of Oyunga is to be the virtual pathway from Turkey to the global intelligence games.

The final declaration of the 2 nd Turkish Informatics Summit was made public by the Organizing Committee on 11 May 2004 , at 17:00 hours, at the Culture and Convention Center of Middle East Technical University, Ankara . Click here to read the Final Declaration.

Click to read the opening speech given by Emrehan Halıcı, the president of the Organizing Committee of the 2^nd Turkish Informatics Summit.

The 2^nd Turkish Informatics Summit, organized to facilitate the e-transformation needed in Turkey , will take place on 10-11 May 2004 at METU Culture and Convention Center in Ankara . The supporting bodies are the Turkish Informatics Association, Turkish Informatics Foundation, Informatics Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association, Turkish Technology Development Foundation, Turkish Intelligence Foundation, TUBITAK, DPT, Turkish Telecom and IT General Directory. The Organizing Committee is coordinated by the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Minister of Education Hüseyin Çelik, and chaired by Emrehan Halıcı, the President of the Turkish Intelligence Foundation. The secretarial work of the Summit is also taken on by the Turkish Intelligence Foundation. The summit will start on 10 May Monday at 12:00 hours, with the opening talks of Emrehan Halıcı, the chair of Organizing Committee; Huseyin Celik, the Minister of Education; Abdüllatif Şener, Deputy Prime Minister and the chair of Turkish e-Transformation Board; and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Prime Minister. Following the common e-transformation panel in the afternoon, the concurrent sessions in the fields of Education, Law, Sector Development, e-Turkey, Communication Infrastructure and R&D. Concurrent sessions will continue on 11 May Tuesday. The Summit will end the same day with the Final Declaration following the Evaluation panel in the afternoon.

AWARD FROM METU STUDENTS TO OUR EXECUTIVE BOARD CHAIR EMREHAN HALICI

METU Productivity Club has held a vote for the first time this year to select the ideal engineer, during "Management and Engineering Days". Emrehan Halıcı won the students' vote and received his award on 16 April 2004 Friday at 13.00 hourswith a ceremonyat METU Department of Industrial Engineering Blue Room.

The ceremony given by METU students for Emrehan Halıcı, who received the Ideal Engineer award, started with the opening speech of Selvi Talipoğlu, the leader of the Productivity Club. The president of METU, Prof.Dr.Ural Akbulut, and the Prime Minister of the 57 th government and the leader of DSP, Bülent Ecevit, also attended the ceremony.

OYUNGA, which presents many original intelligence games with a dynamic scoreboard, was launched with the collaboration of two firms. OYUNGA is a different game site; you can play java-based games on the web and challenge your OYUNGA backgammon rivals as if in a real coffeehouse at the same time. OYUNGA has a language of its own: Beginners are called pilots, successful players are called masters, and the best are called gurus. Only one person can be announced the guru of the week. The dynamic scoreboards get updated periodically and the Guru of the Week gets announced on Fridays.

Halıcı Informatics received TUBITAK TIDEB R&D support with their Mathematics for 6,7,8 th grades, learning objects project. The project is a pilot model to improve national teaching performances in the field of mathematics. The software programmes developed within the scope of the project will be written and packed as "learning objects".

The main characteristic of the content development and course design approach known as "learning objects" is that content can be developed independent of time and place and that they can be re-used in different learning environments depending on need. However, these pieces are usually context-independent and are functional and meaningful on their own. This may turn the learning environment into a context-less and abstract information transfer environment. Even though this can be tolerated to some extent in adult education, it is highly important that young learners be presented information, concepts and rules in a certain context.