After powerful earthquakes struck Türkiye last month, technology initiatives have ramped up efforts to develop solutions and collaborate to create intelligent storage solutions to address urgent needs following disasters.

More than 200,000 buildings have either completely collapsed or were damaged to the point of needing demolition after huge quakes flattened the swathe of the south of the country. The disaster killed more than 45,00 people and left more than 2 million people homeless.

Roads, electricity, water, sewage, communication and natural gas infrastructure all sustained heavy damage.

The aftermath of the quakes saw a massive relief campaign in the disaster zone. Yet, determining the size of the necessary aid and who needed what and where, as well as the delivery, turned out to be the biggest challenges.

Identifying and delivering needs from the first day of the earthquake has been a fundamental problem, which affects not only scenarios after the tremor but all disasters. Civil society organizations are trying to create data through solutions, such as need mapping and deprem.io.

Logistics and storage

As authorities try to ensure a sustainable flow of necessary supplies, aid continues to be sent from all over the world to Türkiye.

However, the disaster showcased the importance of sorting and temporarily storing aid materials in intermediate depots before sending them to the region, especially in terms of the sustainability of transportation traffic and the organization of micro-distribution.

In extraordinary disaster situations, there has been no classification or solution on how and to what extent existing depots and storage areas in disaster areas and adjacent areas could be benefited from. And the latest earthquakes showed the enormous importance of such information.

While Türk Telekom is working to strengthen not only its mobile stations but fiber infrastructure as well in the region, it is also making efforts to increase the communication capabilities of all aid organizations.

The disasters have proven the fact that the most critical infrastructure needs are communication, energy and drinking water.

Location-based planning

Organizers of aid materials and machinery had been looking for suitable trucks to send to the region. However, as trucks going to the region were unable to return for five to six days, there were significant problems in vehicle supply from the third day onward.

The crucial importance of digital platforms capable of location-based, real-time intelligent matching once again became apparent in emergency situations.

In this context, DepOrtak went online in March. The platform is a product of the know-how of Tırport, which has become one of the world's most prominent logistics technologies, with the business intelligence leadership of its founder Akın Arslan and the contribution and investment of Oruç Kaya, one of Türkiye's leading experts in warehousing.

DepOrtak is bringing highly ambitious solutions with its technologies not only in Türkiye but also in Europe.

Smart storage areas

Kaya, a co-founder of DepOrtak, explained that there are approximately 13.5 million commercial storage areas in Türkiye, but noted that, unfortunately, there is no complete classification based on location and capacity.

"We already have very insufficient storage space according to our population. Within the next 10 years, we will need at least 30 million square meters more space. At this point, DepOrtak, which we have implemented as a digital smart storage platform, creates opportunities with its technologies to manage all storage processes digitally from end to end, while also bringing warehouses and those in need of storage together on a new generation digital platform," said Kaya.

Similar to what Airbnb does in the accommodation sector, DepOrtak digitizes warehouse management from end to end in commercial warehouses, he noted.

"DepOrtak enables hundreds of commercial and other warehouses connected to each other digitally to be managed, shared and integrated from a single point into e-commerce with network technologies. DepOrtak’s smart platform has the ability to remotely manage pre-defined storage area capacities in a location-based and real-time end-to-end manner, under the coordination of government institutions, including the AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Authority), in emergency situations," Kaya said.

Kaya emphasized that digital platforms that bring service providers and service recipients together intelligently are rapidly spreading, citing Uber in the taxi sector, Airbnb in the accommodation sector, and digital freight-truck networks such as Tırport, Convoy and Sennder in the transportation sector. He added that Türkiye's new initiative, DepOrtak, has set out to do the same in the storage area.