President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday touted Taiwanese talent, technology and supporting policies to keep the nation competitive in the coming artificial intelligence and Internet of things (IoT) era.
Speaking at the opening of the 2018 Smart City Summit and Expo in Taipei, Tsai cited the proliferation of Wi-Fi services, including on all Taiwan High Speed Rail cabins, as an example of the small changes that demonstrate Taiwan’s efforts in pushing “smart” cities.
“Taiwan plays an indispensable role in the global supply chain of the information and communication technology [ICT] industry,” she said. “In addition to having a solid technical foundation, domestic companies have proactively invested in developing AIoT [artificial intelligence of things], while the government pushes the Asia Silicon Valley Development Agency [ASVDA] project and other programs to create test fields.”
In keeping up with the development of smart cities, Taiwan last year passed the Financial Technology Innovation and Experiment Act (金融科技發展與創新實驗條例) and financial technology firms can start applying to use the regulatory sandbox in May, she said, adding that regulations for experimenting with uncrewed vehicles are being drafted.
“Taiwan has been a leader in the ICT era, and we will definitely keep up with the AIoT era,” Tsai said.
More than 120 city government heads leading about 300 delegations from 33 nations and territories are expected to take part in the exhibition, and exchange ideas about smart city development, the Taipei Department of Information Technology said.
The exhibition is forecast to attract more than 30,000 experts in related fields over the four-day period, the department said.
The Taipei City Government has set up 42 booths this year, based on the theme “Smart Taipei, International Connecting,” to exhibit Taipei’s smart city efforts in seven aspects — transportation, public housing, healthcare, education, innovation, ecological community and security, Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) said.
Besides Taipei, eight local governments have also set up their own booths at the expo, while the ASVDA project has booths to showcase seven other cities and counties, Lin said.
With the support of major domestic technology firms, Taipei has teamed up with the five other special municipalities and several major cities around the world to form the Global Organization of Smart Cities, Department of Information Technology Director Lee Wei-bin (李維斌) said.
The exposition, organized by the Taipei City Government, the Taipei Computer Association and Taiwan Smart City Solutions Alliance, is being held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
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