oneVillage Foundation

oneVillage is promoting Open Source Solutions For Taiwan Touting the Attributes of Vista Health Care Software
We are looking at how Taiwan's current economic achievements can be extended by shifting gears towards Open Source Software (OSS) integration-based solutions rather than proprietary ones. We have been linking Eric Lee’s work at Sinica Academia (His group the Open Source Foundry is focused on OSS Integration and Whole systems thinking) with a health care system called Vista that is now used in VA hospitals in the US.

Mark spoke of the value of the VistA community in terms of software development as being in the billions and that the replace cost of the technologies being developed was over $500 million. The VistA community is now preparing its software platform for internationalization as a free and open source technology. Also discussed was a HP's 10 year, $8 million contract to maintain VistA’s worldwide connections from the US. We are currently working with Chris Richardson of World Vista to develop a business model to develop health care services to hospitals.

Hot Spot Wireless
A proposal put forward by the Taipei delegation to make Taipei wireless also led to some discussions about the groundbreaking work that Tim Pozar is doing in the Bay Area. Tim has been working on a project called the Bay Area Wireless Relay Network. (BAWRN), which provides free ISP services for the Bay Area. He has published a white paper, which is available online.

Taipei's Mayor Ma puts forward s Vision of a New Digital Taipei” that he hopes will ensure Taiwan’s Continued Economic Progress
The conference started with Matthew Lee the Consul General of Taiwan in San Francisco Speaking of Taiwan's unique position as the gateway to greater China and Asia Pacific, having excellent knowledge, transportation, IT, educated workforce; incentives for business investment. He then introduced the group to Dr Ying-jeow Ma who is mayor of Taipei. Mayor Ying-jeow Ma continued that theme of Taipei as the gateway to Asia but he broadened it, talking about his vision of Taipei. What he sees is a "New Digital Taipei" that is leading the world into the 21st century—a cyber city that is wireless and borderless and built as much with ICT as with bricks and Mortar.

Taipei as the Business Gateway to Asia

Taipei has much to offer businesses, says the mayor, including a highly developed and advanced industrial corridor; as well as links to Tokyo, Silicon Valley and Shanghai. Another advantage he says is that the Taiwanese speak better Japanese than Americans; better English than Japanese; and better Mandarin than Hong Kong’s people. Taipei’s is 2.5 flight hours from most areas in East Asia; center of busiest area, and so it is only logical that Fed Ex would put their hub there. More than 60,000 Taiwanese companies are currently investing in China; dubbed by the delegation as ‘the world’s factory.’ Taiwan produces (30% of the world’s notebooks and 80% of its motherboards. Taiwan has over 27 universities and colleges and the highest density of MBAs in Asia with 39% of population with a college education.

Committed Leadership on ICT Development

Taiwan’s commitment to ICT is obvious in its governmental and corporate policies. Free email accounts are available to all citizens and businesses are asked to subsidize ICT development. These policies are having concrete resulting in the process of preparing Taiwan for the digital age: 300,000 received free training courses; 88% of families have PCs and 84% use the Internet regularly.

Taipei's Industrial and Technology Centers are Driving Taiwan into the 21st Century

The Taipei World Trade Center has over 1 million visitors per year and is one of the most frequented high-tech symposia/forums. The IC production base is located in the Hsinchu Science Park. The Neihu Technology Park is now home to 1800 companies now 27 of which have headquarters there, fifeteen of which are among the top 100 IT companies globally. Collectively the economic output of the technology park is 32 billion USD in 2003, employing over 65,000 workers. A high-speed transit system is being constructed to link the Hsinchu Science Park with The Neihu Technology Park which was built 10 years ago. Another facility The Nangang software Park features the latest biotech, IC design and digital content industries. It is conveniently located to the leading top-level research institutions including Academia Sinica, the National Health Research Institute, and The Biotechnology Center. Finally, the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park has just cleared the Planning Commission hurdles and is now pending Ministry of Interior approval. It will be located near a hospital complex and the goal is to build it into a biotech center.

Creating Effective Systems of Communication and Transportation

Traffic congestion is a problem in Taipei just as it is in any major city. A major theme of the Digital Taipei model put forward by the mayor theme is the efficient flow of ideas, people and resources. There is an effort to design modern Taipei so that the major centers of culture, commerce research and industry are linked by subway and secondary transit systems to give travelers and commuters an alternative to car travel. A more novel approach is to use cyberspace to replace business trips and make many everyday tasks like bill paying and registration available online. Access to China is an important selling point in this development model. There are efforts to promote quicker flights between the two nations. Now it takes 6-7 hours to get to Shanghai via Hong Kong. However if a direct flight between Taipei and China can be created flights to mainland China will take as little as 90 minutes.

Taipei delegations went on meeting with the Bay Area Chinese and Taiwanese Diaspora, which rallied together for a warm support for Mayor Ma's vision and effort. The group will continue the trip to New York and to Europe.