To review the progress made after two years of building Taipei into a 24-hour cyber city, the Taipei City Government yesterday launched a five-day exhibition at City Hall as part of the realization of Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
"Two and a half years ago when I announced my candidacy for Taipei mayor, I set a primary goal of building a cyber city in this dynamic and prosperous metropolis ? I'm glad that we have been able to maintain very high-speed progress over the years," Ma said at the ceremony held at Taipei City Hall yesterday. "I'm sure that this is the only way to make Taipei competitive in this very competitive world," he added.
Ma added that he is confident that his dream would eventually come true.
"In July of last year, a US-based information technology magazine, Wired, rated Taipei City No. 8 in the world and No. 1 in the Asia-Pacific region [for its information technology development and facilities]. Our work, however, is not finished yet. We have to work harder and harder," he said.
According to Ma, as of today, 75 percent of the city's families have computers and 63 percent of the city residents above the age of 12 are frequent Internet users.
To make its services more accessible and user friendly, the city government has been pushing the use of the electronic data exchange system. From today, Ma said, about 93 percent of the city government's paper and memos are being exchanged through that system.
In addition, the city has set up a total of 260 information kiosks in public places, and spent over NT$3 billion to equip municipal primary, junior high and senior high schools with computers.
"Our goal is to have one computer in every classroom. Now only 57 percent of the city's 11,000 classrooms are equipped with computers. We hope by the end of this year we'll be able to reach the 100 percent goal, and by the end of next year, we'll be able to establish 800 public information kiosks for the use of our citizens," he said.
The city also offers life-time e-mail accounts and three-hour Internet training courses free of charge to city residents and those who work in the city.
"This program will continue. So for those of you who are interested, please contact us," he said.
For more information, please visit related Web sites at www.cybercity.net.tw or www.taipeilink.net or www.taipei.gov.tw.
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