Benjamin Chen (陳昱安) didn’t know how intense a hackathon could be.
“You literally work non-stop. You don’t eat breakfast, you don’t eat lunch because you really need to finish the product,” the 10th-grader from Taipei American School says. “You feel the adrenaline rushing… It’s refreshing, I was like a new person.”
Chen became fascinated by these round-the-clock competitions to create technology or software products, and participated in 10 more before he decided to start one that focused on his twin passions of economics and technology. He says there are many hackathons that delve into social and environmental issues, but few have economics as the main theme, not to mention student-led and focused ones.
Photo courtesy of Benjamin Chen
He fondly recalls his first hackathon, where he and two teammates designed a phone app that allows people to earn virtual currency within the game by walking, encouraging them to reduce their carbon footprint.
He called up a friend who has organized several hackathons, and recruited an international team. Thousands of calls and e-mails to various institutions and companies later, and they had enough sponsors and guest speakers to make it a reality. Chen expects about 500 people to participate in the event, dubbed EconHacks, which will take place over 24 hours starting at noon on Feb. 13. Speakers will be presenting throughout the day on topics ranging from economic policy, financing a startup and virtual reality app-building. Participation is virtual and free to all 8th to 12th graders.
“The most important thing was getting the sponsors because people won’t join if you don’t have good prizes,” Chen says. Worth over NT$6.4 million, the prizes include cash rewards, various course and program subscriptions, promo codes as well as internship, exposure and funding opportunities through well-known tech-companies.
Though the specific theme will be announced during the opening ceremony, the core idea is to improve an aspect of the financial sector or help solve a current economic problem, especially anything related to COVID-19. The hackers will then form groups of one to four and begin work on a prototype.
“They’re going to be working the whole time, they’re not going to sleep and at the end they’re going to pitch their idea within a three-minute video,” Chen says.
Chen says his interest in economics was inspired by his father, who works in finance.
“Basically every conversation I have with my dad is about finance or economics, so from a very young age he expected me to do a finance job. But it’s not because he forced me or anything, I just find it very interesting and rewarding.”
Chen says the pitiful financial literacy of millennials also highlights the need to educate more young people on economics and especially how it relates to technology.
As more operations and ventures are moving online due to COVID-19, it’s important to understand this economic shift. Chen says that he hopes EconHacks will give young people more opportunities to think about such issues while rewarding the ones who are already passionate about them.
In Taiwan there are two economies: the shiny high tech export economy epitomized by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and its outsized effect on global supply chains, and the domestic economy, driven by construction and powered by flows of gravel, sand and government contracts. The latter supports the former: we can have an economy without TSMC, but we can’t have one without construction. The labor shortage has heavily impacted public construction in Taiwan. For example, the first phase of the MRT Wanda Line in Taipei, originally slated for next year, has been pushed back to 2027. The government
July 22 to July 28 The Love River’s (愛河) four-decade run as the host of Kaohsiung’s annual dragon boat races came to an abrupt end in 1971 — the once pristine waterway had become too polluted. The 1970 event was infamous for the putrid stench permeating the air, exacerbated by contestants splashing water and sludge onto the shore and even the onlookers. The relocation of the festivities officially marked the “death” of the river, whose condition had rapidly deteriorated during the previous decade. The myriad factories upstream were only partly to blame; as Kaohsiung’s population boomed in the 1960s, all household
Allegations of corruption against three heavyweight politicians from the three major parties are big in the news now. On Wednesday, prosecutors indicted Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a judgment is expected this week in the case involving Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former deputy premier and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is being held incommunicado in prison. Unlike the other two cases, Cheng’s case has generated considerable speculation, rumors, suspicions and conspiracy theories from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Stepping inside Waley Art (水谷藝術) in Taipei’s historic Wanhua District (萬華區) one leaves the motorcycle growl and air-conditioner purr of the street and enters a very different sonic realm. Speakers hiss, machines whir and objects chime from all five floors of the shophouse-turned- contemporary art gallery (including the basement). “It’s a bit of a metaphor, the stacking of gallery floors is like the layering of sounds,” observes Australian conceptual artist Samuel Beilby, whose audio installation HZ & Machinic Paragenesis occupies the ground floor of the gallery space. He’s not wrong. Put ‘em in a Box (我們把它都裝在一個盒子裡), which runs until Aug. 18, invites