İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi (IBB) Smart City

Role: Lead Architect, Design and Strategic Planning
Location & Timeline: Istanbul, Türkiye — 2014–2017

During a period of rapid urban transformation, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) embarked on an ambitious smart city initiative to modernize digital infrastructure, optimize city services, and integrate real-time data into governance models. The goal: reposition Istanbul as a regional leader in urban intelligence.

Istanbul’s immense scale—spanning two continents with over 15 million residents—posed inherent challenges:

• Fragmented municipal systems

• Legacy platforms with minimal interoperability

• Lack of unified citizen service portals

• Traffic, pollution, and public safety concerns amplified by rapid urbanization

As a lead architect and strategic advisor embedded in the 2016 design and planning phase, I was responsible for:

• Designing the architectural blueprint for city-wide integration of smart services (mobility, citizen engagement, energy, safety)

• Evaluating interoperability standards across departments and municipal subsidiaries (e.g., İSBAK, İSTTELKOM, BELBİM)

• Conducting benchmarking across global smart city frameworks (e.g., Barcelona, Singapore, Seoul)

• Drafting early data governance protocols and middleware integration models

• Supporting visualization efforts for stakeholder alignment and public communication

• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) layered over municipal data silos

• Design Thinking for citizen-centric service redesign

• Early adoption of ISO 37120 Smart City indicators

• Collaboration with local think tanks and university labs (ITU, Boğaziçi)

• Contributed to the foundation of IBB’s “Akıllı Şehir İstanbul” (Smart City Istanbul) strategic roadmap

• Architectural concepts influenced the 2016 Smart City Expo Istanbul and pilot deployments in transit, lighting, and safety

• Helped lay groundwork for long-term initiatives such as the 2030 İstanbul Smart City Strategic Plan

1. Smart City Expo Istanbul 2016

   • “İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) hosted the Smart City Expo Istanbul 2016 Smart Cities Fair and Congress during 01‑03 June 2016 at the Haliç Congress Center.” İsttelkom

   • Describes that more than 200 projects from 41 companies + 17 IBB affiliate/firms were displayed, including IBB’s own smart city applications. İsttelkom

2. “Smart City Journey of Istanbul” Document (2016)

   • A report titled “Smart City Journey of Istanbul” published by IMM (İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi). It lists “IMM’s Smart City Applications,” “IMM’s Smart City Transportation Vision,” etc. uym.ibb.gov.tr

3. Big Data, Smart City and Smart City Initiatives of Istanbul (ITU, research)

   • A paper by Omer Faruk Gürcan & Onur Doğan (approx 2018) discussing how Istanbul had started applying smart city initiatives using big data to improve sustainable development and quality of life. ResearchGate

4. “Mapping out smart city initiatives in the Turkish context” (METU etc.)

   • Thesis/dissertation, with a section “İBB’nin Akıllı Şehir İstanbul Projesi Kapsamında Yürüttüğü Çalışmalar …” (The works carried out under IBB’s Smart City Istanbul Project). METU Central Authentication Service

5. İBB Smart City Strategic Plans & Strategy Documents

   • The 2030 İstanbul Akıllı Şehir Stratejik Planı (Strategic Plan) by IBB, laying out smart city goals, actions etc. akillisehir.istanbul

   • The “Smart City Vision of Istanbul” as part of the transformation that started around 2015 with IBB subsidiary companies such as İSBAK. novusens.com

6. Citizen Participation in IBB Smart City Projects

   • Article “Akıllı şehir projelerine vatandaş katılımı: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesinin(İBB) akıllı şehir projeleri …” which looks at citizen participation in IBB’s smart city projects, referencing project reports, official documents etc. DergiPark