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Digital Inclusion

Taiwan to invest in computer centres

By Pia Rufino | 25 January 2011

The Taiwan Ministry of Education will strengthen its IT infrastructure through establishing additional digital opportunity centres in rural Taiwan over the next three years.

From the total annual budget of NT$6 billion (US$206 million), the MOE will invest NT$3.1 billion (US$107 million) to establish more DOCs and upgrade bandwidth at centres in remote areas from 2 megabytes to 10 megabytes between 2012 and 2015.

MOE Computer Center Chief, Chih-neng Hung, said the project aims to bridge the digital divide between urban and remote parts of the country.

“We build these centres to provide a very easy access to computers and the Internet for the people in remote areas. The MOE has provided computer hardware, software, electricity and Internet access so that residents and students can use those utilities,” he said.

The MOE aims to increase Internet access for rural residents from 56.7 per cent in 2010 to 73 per cent by 2015.

The project also aims to increase Internet access among women in rural Taiwan from 69.2 per cent to 77 per cent, and of Aboriginals from 63.5 per cent to 80 per cent.

Currently, 173 DOCs are established in rural areas. Hung said volunteer students from college or universities, who administer the centres, had trained around 20 to 30 people in how to use the Internet.

The Government compensates volunteer trainers for transport and food expenses. They are also entitled to use the computers in the centre for academic purposes.

“We wish to provide digital opportunities to the people in rural areas. If we have enough fund then we will establish more DOC’s because there are still rural areas where there is no computer centres,” Hung said.

He added that the government had encouraged non private organisations to provide resources for the DOCs, and would provide assistance and counseling on e-commerce to 10,000 small businesses.

The MOE’s proposed DOC rollout is the third phase of a project first unveiled by the government in 2005.

The first phase, which lasted from 2005 to 2007, included providing financial assistance to rural elementary and junior high schools to help procure computers; the second phase, which began in 2008 and will last until the end of 2011, is focused on establishing more DOCs.

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