The first of the vision conferences organised by our university was held online with the topic title "The defence Industry and Gazi in the Perspective of Our Future". Vice President of the Defence Industry Dr. Celal Sami Tüfekçi attended and spoke at the conference which was hosted by our Rector Prof. Dr. Musa Yıldız.

Vice Rectors Prof. Dr. Bekir Buluç, Prof. Dr. Fazlı Polat and Prof. Dr. Ramazan Bayındır, Advisor to the Rector Prof. Alper Ceylan, faculty members and students attended the online conference.

Making a short speech before the conference, our Rector Prof. Dr. Yıldız indicated that Dr. Celal Sami Tüfekçi, a graduate of Gazi University Faculty of Engineering, is an important name for the Turkish defence industry, and said, "I thank him for accepting our invitation to the conference we have organised for the first time and for the support he has given to our University."

Emphasising that Gazi University has an important meaning for him, Dr. Celal Sami Tüfekçi began his speech by expressing his wishes for an effective vision conference in the name of Gazi University. Tüfekçi, in his speech, indicated that Turkey acted with the slogan, ''for a full independent Industry' and is working hard in the areas of defence industry activities, project management, technology management, industrial management quality testing certifications, logistics support, export support, encouragement loans and raising qualified human resources. Highlighting that Turkey has big goals in the journey of becoming a global power, Tüfekçi said that "for this purpose our main goals are to create a highly skilled defence industry infrastructure, to produce global branded weapons and ammunition, to achieve a leading and guiding Turkey with high technological expertise.

Tüfekçi mentioned that 7 Turkish companies were included in the Defence News top hundred list and explained that with 2.2 billion dollars ASELSAN ranked 48th, TAI ranked 53rd with 1.9 billion dollars, ROKETSAN ranked 91st with 515 million, STM ranked 98th with 374 million dollars and HAVELSAN ranked 99th with 295 million dollars. Tüfekçi stated that in 2019 Turkey spent 20.4 billion dollars on defence while total global defence expenditure was 1.9 trillion dollars. Tüfekçi pointed out that Turkey's defence and aerospace exports in 2002 was 248 million dollars and that today this figure exceeded the limit of $3 billion. Likewise, she drew attention to the fact that R&D expenditures of the defence industry increased from 49 million dollars in 2002 to 1 billion 672 million dollars today and that there was a serious increase in employment in the defence industry.

Speaking about the projects they carried out as the Presidency, Tüfekçi said that the Hisar Missile Defence Family achieved high efficiency after the firing tests and that it would be included in the TSK (Turkish Armed Forces) inventory in the near future. Tüfekçi also spoke about the Altay Tank Project, the national ship MİLGEM, Bayraktar SİHA, UAV, Hürkuş, Gökbey, Atmaca Missile, Akıncı and the TF-X fifth generation fighter jet projects.

Talking about the Tekno-HAB project in which Gazi University is a partner, Tüfekçi said, "Gazi University has a 10% partnership in the project. Other universities are also pursuing this project, but Gazi University established the Additive Technologies Research Centre called EKTAM. We have included this centre in Tekno-HAB. EKTAM realises 3D printer applications, which are shown as being among the technologies of the future. It is a centre that set out with the aim of achieving this with domestically produced printers.

Following the presentation given by Dr. Celal Sami Tüfekçi, the conference went on with a question and answer session.