Interview with CloudTalk Global Chairman Burkay Yapağcıoğlu

We met with CloudTalk Chairman Burkay Yapağcıoğlu to get information from him about Eurasia’s Largest Online Cloud Event and Fair, which aims to bring together more than 100 companies and around 3000 IT professionals in the virtual foyer on May 26-27.

Could you give us more information about the CloudTalk Online | Matchmaking Summit, where you will offer the opportunity to meet with technology giants with a brand new fair experience? What kind of schedule have you created for the event, for which the countdown already started?

CloudTalk Online | MatchMaking Summit is a new generation digital conference and fair concept focusing on direct results that provide a safe event environment with a high level of participation without risking the health of attendees and our business partners;  removing borders completely, bringing one-to-one communication to the fore and aiming to provide maximum leads to all business partners with completely open exhibitor data. Our event is a great opportunity not only for Turkey but also for many countries in the region. In our conference speeches, we will highlight especially the potential of Turkey, which understands the needs of the region in cloud computing dominated mainly by American and Western European companies and closes the gap between its global rivals rapidly with its cost advantages and high R&D capability, in becoming both a partner and an alternative market for the countries of the region.

We started our work without slowing down for our second event, aimed at higher participation and interaction, with the feedback we received from our business partners and participants after our online event, which we held for the first time in September 2020 and hosted nearly 2000 participants from over 20 countries. This year, we want to bring together 3000 professionals from 40 different countries in our event, the opening speech of which will be made by the Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan, and in this context, we have included the best speakers from the Eurasian regions in our event.  We carried out an excellent event marketing communication through our local business partners in order to increase the participation and interest from the countries of the region, and I can say that we have participation from 30 different countries so far.

Who are the target audience of the event, who should attend? 

Our event targets IT professionals of Eurasian countries and there are many professionals who make up the market such as C-level IT managers, IT experts, network and system administrators, security managers, data center specialists, cloud architects, software developers, product managers, sales and business development departments, independent consultants and end users among the participant profiles of the conference.

What would you like to say about the technical infrastructure of the event and the opportunities it will offer? We would also like to learn about the prominent speakers. 

Our R&D teams conducted long-term research to provide an excellent event experience in 2020, and we are using very advanced virtual fair and summit software for our event, which will be 100% digital this year. In this platform, which offers an excellent experience for establishing new business contacts and networking; there are 5 different live halls, 1 to 1 meeting rooms, collective networking areas, and a virtual foyer area. Our platform facilitates professional time management by allowing you to plan meetings with thousands of participants before and during conferences, to make collective video calls at round tables in networking lounges, to chat with any participant you wish with the chat feature, and allowing everyone to see each other thanks to its open participant profile. In addition, CloudTalk Online Matchmaking Summit guarantees that each participant gets the highest efficiency from the event with its notification and reminder features that make it easier for the participants to attend the presentations to be held in 5 different halls according to their interests.

How does the digital conference and new generation fair experience differ from the classical structure? What are the trending headlines in this area?

Well-planned digital events, in the current situation, offer much more flexible and detailed opportunities such as location, participant, profile access, impact measurement, multiple interaction, global reach, and high visibility compared to physical events. In digital events, unlike physical fair events, you have the opportunity to interact, from anywhere and any device, much faster with participants from different regions and countries of the world, regardless of location. In addition, producing more measurable results and high visibility for participants and partners are its other advantages. 

Could you also tell us about the event sponsors? Which brands will we see at the event?

Leading IT companies of Eurasian countries in the region take part in the event. Pioneering companies in dozens of technologies such as Veeam, Exclusive Networks, Arista Networks, AEServer, Linbit, Datacasa Data Center, Plesk, cPanel, CloudLinux will take part in the event.

You organized the Cloudtalk Online Matchmaking Summit in 2020, which has broken a new ground in its field as an online cloud computing event in Turkey. How were the feedbacks you received about last year? What innovations await exhibitors and brands this year?

In 2020, we received very good and constructive feedback from both our partners, participants and business partners. 124+ thousand interactions, more than 1200 one-on-one meetings, 570 hall meetings, an average of 300 audiences in each session, 3700 message transmissions and 5000+ profile views are actualized and technology giants such as Alibaba Cloud, Acronis, Cloudflare, Acronis, Mailchannels, Synacor, ResellerClub met with the participants in CloudTalk Online Matchmaking Summit 2020, which has broken new ground in its field in Turkey as an online cloud computing event. 

This year, we increased our event to 2 days in order to increase the interaction between the participants even more, and the first day was completely devoted to networking activities. Dozens of technical workshops are also awaiting participants in the “Rooms” area of our platform in addition to the live presentations and panels in 5 different halls.