A survey released by the Risk Society and Policy Research Center on Wednesday showed that most respondents wanted the government to invest in technology and skilled workers while protecting the environment.
Balancing environmental concerns with technological development is a challenge for a nation like Taiwan, whose competitive edge lies in manufacturing semiconductors and integrated circuits.
The US Environmental Protection Agency Web site says that fabrication, testing and assembly of semiconductor wafers results in heavy air pollution from emissions containing hydrochloric acid, hydrogen fluoride, glycol ethers, methanol and xylene.
These processes also result in waste chemicals that can leak into water supplies. Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, the world’s biggest chip packager, was found in 2013 to have been the source of highly acidic effluent containing nickel leaked into Kaohsiung’s Houjin River (後勁溪).
Taiwan could seek to develop more environmentally friendly processes of wafer fabrication, but the nation’s technology sector could move away from semiconductors to focus more on technology industry services, which are becoming more important as the Internet becomes more integral to people’s lives.
An article on Web site Infoworld listed eight ways in which computer servers and software would provide invaluable services to companies. One item on the list, chat bots, will allow companies to provide customer service around the clock using artificial intelligence. Another, augmented reality — where images are superimposed over video feeds in real time — could become critical for providing training and medical services remotely. Finally, the Internet of Things will see sensors and control mechanisms installed everywhere, allowing people to activate appliances, get information about their office or home and perform other tasks remotely.
The systems and software that power these services are still in their infancy, providing the nation’s technology sector with an opportunity to reinvent itself. Developing innovative software is something that Taiwan is already well-equipped to do. The capital needed to develop the industry is minimal and the environmental impact of providing software and network server solutions is negligible.
There are numerous reasons that international companies should get these solutions from Taiwan. For example, the cost of power in Taiwan reaches a maximum of US$0.20 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) during the summer months and US$0.16 per kWh during the winter months. By contrast, in the most expensive months, Japan’s electricity price reaches US$0.24 per kWh, while South Korea’s can be US$0.62 per kWh.
Taiwan also has some of the world’s fastest Internet speeds, with the nation’s average peak connection speed in the first quarter of last year ranked by Akamai as the ninth-fastest globally.
Finally, the collection and use of personal and corporate data is protected under the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法), which is a major advantage over China, where the government actively requires international companies to provide customer data and access to servers.
Taiwan clearly promotes innovation. It has numerous science parks, including the Hsinchu Science Park, which has been touted as Taiwan’s Silicon Valley, and the Industrial Technology Research Institute, which seeks to develop Taiwanese research into commercial applications.
Grade school curricula should encourage creativity instead of emphasizing rote memorization, and parents should foster creative learning and experimentation, rather than sending children to cram schools.
An environment that fosters creativity and innovation in software development would put Taiwan out in front without sacrificing the environment.
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