【Campus Report】A TALK BY GOOGLE TAIWAN'S FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR LEE-FENG CHIEN

Abstract

Dr. Lee-feng Chien, the first employee at Google Taiwan, gave a speech titled “Extend the Golden Years from 2 to 10”. In Dr. Chien’s view, the global economy has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic since the end of 2019. Over the last two years, as difficult as they may seem, Taiwan has seen a relatively stable economic development and even growth thanks to its electronics processing industry and chip manufacturing industry, which have acted as the backbone of the Taiwanese economy and created a “golden 2 years” for Taiwan in this difficult time. How can Taiwan propel the success over the past two years toward the next 10 years as the pandemic eases? Dr. Chien gave a simple answer to this question: Startups! Many Taiwanese industries have been tunnel-visioned about the domestic and Chinese markets. What these industries should do is to expand their businesses to the other side of the Pacific Ocean, showing the world how good our products are and opening up new markets for effective business expansion. Dr. Chien also pointed out the importance of collaboration between the traditional hardware industry and the new software industry for mutual growth rather than separating themselves from each other. Support for digital transformation in industries is also critical for new industries to expand overseas and can thus help Taiwan become the center of East Asia and the hub of software and hardware businesses.