Companies in innovative industries should not limit themselves by selling products and services in the Chinese market while neglecting business in the rest of the world, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Ko made the remark during a visit to the Nangang Software Park in Taipei, where some of the nation’s most cutting-edge information technologies were on display.
Asked by reporters whether he would suggest that innovative firms set China as their target market, Ko said: “Not just China, but the whole world.”
“China accounts for about one-eighth of global GDP. Let us not forget the seven-eighths for the one-eighth,” Ko said.
At a forum with AirSig Inc CEO Michael Chen (陳柏愷), the mayor asked Chen what the Taipei City Government could do for his company.
Chen said the government could set up a “Silicon Valley of hackers.”
Chen said that due to the special relationship between Taiwan and China, the nation has some of the world’s most skilled hackers, who have won grand prizes at overseas contests.
“Are you suggesting hacking them [China] or preventing hacks?” a seemingly perplexed Ko asked.
Chen said: “This is a form of exchange,” which prompted Ko to burst into laughter.
Ko said the nation’s industries should seek to break away from the original-equipment manufacturing (OEM) business model and make profits through innovative technologies.
Chen said that AirSig is the world’s first company to put “air signature authentication” technology into real-world use.
The technology is aimed at replacing passwords users enter each time they log into an account on a computer or mobile device by using a handheld device that memorizes and identifies characteristic movements when people sign their name, Chen said, adding that accounts using the technology have a 0.8 percent chance of being hacked even if the correct motions are known by someone other than the user.
The firm received NT$2 million (US$59,136) in venture capital from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co three months after AirSig was established and has market value of NT$600 million, Chen said.
Ko asked: “Great, have you sold the company yet?”
Ko said firms are like bridges; they should be dismantled after rivers are crossed so that they can be used to build more bridges.
Chen said his company is afloat and not for sale as he wants to continue expanding it.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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