HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) has partnered with Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and World Vision Taiwan to launch a program that provides computers and financial education to children in remote areas.
Local schools shifted to online classes in May when the government imposed a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert, but many children in remote areas could not take the classes as they lacked computers or digital devices due to their economic situation, World Vision Taiwan acting director Yvonne Nieh (聶海華) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Up to 83 percent of low-income families in Taiwan did not have Internet access at home, and 43 percent of children in low-income families did not have digital devices, a survey conducted by World Vision Taiwan earlier this year showed.
Photo courtesy of HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd
“In some cases, there was only one computer in a family, which was not enough as the children have to take classes at the same time,” Nieh said.
This limited the children’s access to online learning resources and put them at risk of lagging behind their peers, HSBC Taiwan said.
Children’s right to education should not be impeded by a lack of computers, it added.
As part of the program, the bank would donate 250 notebook computers to children in remote areas, such as Penghu and Pingtung County, while Asustek, one of the bank’s corporate clients, would donate 128 computers for distribution through World Vision Taiwan, the companies said.
Nieh said that World Vision Taiwan sends iPads to elementary-school students, and computers or notebooks for those who attend high school or college.
Besides donating computers, HSBC Taiwan offers financial education to children in remote areas, as solid financial knowledge would help them become independent, HSBC Bank Taiwan chief executive officer Adam Chen (陳志堅) said.
“In our education program, we teach basic financial knowledge, such as foreign exchange or banks’ everyday operations, to the children as it is useful. Some children have never used automatic-teller machines,” Chen said.
Sixty children had attended the education program this year, the bank said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, HSBC had invited children to its physical branches and gave them guided tours so that they could see how a bank operates, Chen said.
A total of 900 children had attended the tours, the bank said.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
NEW MODELS: AI researchers are facing challenges in managing deceptive behaviors, with limited regulation and testing, as the race for advanced models intensifies The world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic PBC’s latest creation, Claude 4, lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatening to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: More than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to
RSS