Eight years ago, Yang Chih-mei’s (楊志美) life was at its nadir. Born with a type of diabetes that eventually caused a loss of vision, she dropped out of graduate school in the middle of her studies in 2003 due to deteriorating eyesight. She is now almost totally blind. For nearly three years she refused to step out of her home and her only pastime was listening to the radio. While her growing faith in Christianity helped her re-connect with the outside world, it is her career since March 2009 at a call center for the visually impaired that has brought her a sense of achievement. “I find that the job is really suitable for people like me, because loss of eyesight is less of a barrier for us at work here than it would be in other jobs. Instead, this is where we can fully prove our value,” Yang says.

Opening in February 2009, the call center at Tamkang University in suburban Taipei is part of an e-learning initiative known as the APEC Digital Opportunity Center project, or ADOC, proposed by Taiwan, or Chinese Taipei, the name under which it acceded to membership in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) in 1991. The call center at Tamkang is a joint effort between the university’s Service Center for Visually Impaired Students and Chunghwa Telecom Co., the dominant telecommunications company in Taiwan. The Tamkang University staff offer decades of experience serving the visually impaired while Chunghwa Telecom provides the technology that makes it possible for call center employees to perform customer service over the telephone via specially designed computers.

Ellie Hung (洪千惠), a counselor at Tamkang, explains that changes to the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act, which were to go into effect in October this year, make projects like the call center important to blind workers. “The rule that aimed to protect the blind by giving them the sole right to offer massage services will be abolished in October, which makes the call center even more significant, since we offer alternative job opportunities,” Hung says. The center employs 15 visually impaired workers and has vacancies for 15 more.

Representatives open an e-learning center in Quang Tri province, Vietnam in June this year as part of the ADOC project. (Photo by Central News Agency)

Proposed by Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) at the 2003 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, the ADOC initiative is undoubtedly one of Taiwan’s most noteworthy contributions to the organization, which was founded in 1989. Since the ADOC project began in August 2004, 10 APEC economies from Indonesia to Chile to Russia have received help under the scheme. Known for its ICT, or information and communication technology, Taiwan has assisted the participating APEC members, oftentimes through local nongovernmental organizations (NGO), in creating 87 e-learning centers, in addition to addressing digital literacy on home soil. Two more centers will have come into existence by the time the project closes at the end of this year.

Ivy Lee (李文玲) is chief operation officer of the ASUS Foundation under ASUSTek Computer Inc., a global IT player based in Taipei and a major contributor to the project. Lee says ADOCs are generally equipped with around 20 computers to enable enrollees to learn computer skills. Recycled computers are also shipped from Taiwan so that students can take them apart in class in order to learn repair skills. “These computers could land in job training centers or vocational schools for young people wishing to find a job of fixing computer hardware,” Lee says.

A Boost from the Private Sector

One major reason for the project’s expansion at home and abroad is its evolution over the past seven years. In the first phase, which concluded in 2008, the ADOC project relied solely on government budgets. According to the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which supervises the scheme, a total of NT$342 million (US$10.6 million) from the public sector, namely the BOFT and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), was invested in the project during this period. At the 2007 APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Sydney, Australia, Stan Shih (施振榮), the co-founder of Acer Inc., another global IT brand from Taiwan, proposed involving the private sector in the building and operation of e-learning centers. Thus was born ADOC 2.0, the second phase of the initiative, which targets women, children, small enterprise owners and economically and socially disadvantaged people such as the visually impaired.

An ADOC 2.0 exhibit at this year’s Taipei Computer Applications Show (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

“As a result [of input from the private sector], we got more resources and new concepts to better meet demand,” says BOFT Director-General Cho Shih-chao (卓士昭). Assistance came from more than 10 enterprises, notably Acer, ASUS and Chunghwa Telecom as well as NGOs such as the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, a charity group known for its relief work around the world. The government has earmarked a total of NT$120 million (US$4.1 million) for this second phase of the project. Ivy Lee notes that each enterprise involved is required to donate resources equivalent to NT$10 million (US$335,000) per year, plus an annual NT$1 million (US$34,000) for the operation of the ADOC 2.0 Non-Government Office, which represents private sector involvement in the project. The Institute for Information Industry (III) has been commissioned by the BOFT to execute the project since 2007.  Its current job includes controlling the budget for ADOC 2.0 and setting targets in coordination with the private sector. The III, partly sponsored by the government, also hosts the ADOC Secretariat.

The development of mobile e-learning centers is one of the major contributions from the private sector. The traveling ADOCs—minivans equipped with computers and instructors—have been deployed in a number of APEC member economies, including districts throughout the Manila metropolitan area in the Philippines since 2009 and villages in Hualien, eastern Taiwan, since 2010. They have even been used at Gunung Leuser National Park, part of a UNESCO-accredited world heritage site in Sumatra, Indonesia. This year the ASUS Foundation teamed up with the park’s Orangutan Information Center, an NGO with a mission to protect the endangered primate, to educate local people about environmental protection as part of ADOC training.

At the same time, interactivity is increasingly becoming a feature of ADOC 2.0. In 2010, a blog design contest saw 26 ADOCs from eight APEC economies take part to create blogs aimed at attracting prospective students to their centers. About 18,500 people voted online for the best blog and the top prize went to an ADOC in the Philippines, which received 20 notebook computers donated by the ASUS Foundation. A photo contest this year garnered 113 entries from eight APEC member economies. Entries focused on the participants’ e-learning experiences. Online voting again played a large role in choosing 15 winners who were eligible for ICT products or a cash prize worth up to US$220.

BOFT Director-General Cho Shih-chao says private-sector involvement in ADOC has meant more resources and fresh ideas. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

Meanwhile, volunteers are playing an ever-bigger role in the ADOC project. One case is the Tzu Chi Foundation’s chapter in Indonesia, which rebuilt housing in a neighborhood in suburban Jakarta in 2003 that had been destroyed by flooding the previous year. In 2010 an ADOC was founded in the community with assistance from the ASUS Foundation and the Tzu Chi Foundation, which also helps maintain the facility. Students from Chung Yuan University, National Tsing Hua University and National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan also started to work with the ASUS Foundation this year as volunteers in Hue, Vietnam, Aceh at the northern tip of Sumatra and the Gunung Leuser National Park respectively.

“With enterprises taking part to provide equipment and expertise in information technology, student volunteers can better pass down knowledge to local people,” Ivy Lee says. For example, a group of 10 Tsing Hua students and three volunteers from ASUS traveled to two remote villages in Aceh in July this year under the ADOC scheme. Lee says the mission targeted local high school teachers, who, it is hoped, will act as “seeds” that will disseminate the knowledge they acquired to their students. Aceh was devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, but following the disaster, donations from Taiwan financed an ICT building at Syiah Kuala University in the region’s capital. Completed at the end of 2010, the building was chosen to house a new e-learning center, an idea made possible by donations from ASUS and the ADOC Secretariat. The center has become the base for Taiwan to provide services under the ADOC project throughout the Aceh region.

Given the input from both the private and public sectors, the ADOC initiative has undoubtedly burnished Taiwan’s international image. “It often wins accolades at APEC meetings,” says the BOFT’s Cho Shih-chao. ADOC’s success in contributing to ICT education has even encouraged Taiwan to extend the project’s work beyond the ADOC scheme. Last year, the ASUS Foundation began to offer assistance to Guatemala by creating two e-learning centers in the country, which is not an APEC member but is one of the Republic of China’s allies in central America. “None of the [APEC] countries receiving our help have formal ties with the ROC. But there’s no reason why we can’t do this for our allies,” says Ivy Lee, adding that several more centers will be founded in Guatemala by the end of this year.

Ivy Lee, right, and another volunteer from Taiwanese technology giant ASUS, second right, train women at an ADOC in Aceh, Sumatra in July this year. (Photo Courtesy of ASUS Foundation)

The task remains challenging, however, despite the achievements that have been made so far. One major challenge for the project, Cho says, is to ensure the continued involvement of enterprises and NGOs at home and abroad in order to keep narrowing the digital gap among APEC members. “The digital and developmental divide in the region is still quite large,” he says, explaining the need to address the issue over a long period of time. According to a report ranking 70 economies worldwide in their e-readiness by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research company, nearly half of the 21 APEC members were among the top 16 in the world in 2010. Taiwan occupied 12th position in the survey. In contrast, other APEC members lagging far behind included Russia, Vietnam and Indonesia, which ranked 59, 62 and 65 respectively.

Looking Long Term

Despite the need to boost ICT development among ADOC participants, not all of them have been enthusiastic about receiving assistance. “Some gave us only a lukewarm response to our offer to help,” Ivy Lee says. The BOFT’s Cho cautions that Taiwan must be careful to cooperate only with organizations that are capable of ensuring the project’s long-term development. “We don’t simply donate and disappear. We must ensure that the recipients know how to maintain the facilities and run the center in a sustainable manner,” the official says.

For now, a follow-up plan to the ADOC project is still under consideration, but it seems likely that Taiwan will continue to play a major role in eliminating the digital divide in the region. “We’ll draw up a plan based on past experience, featuring innovative ICT applications,” Cho says. Actually the BOFT has tentatively allocated NT$15 million (US$500,000) for 2012 to carry the work forward in some way. According to Cho, Taiwan’s representative offices in ADOC participating countries are evaluating the local results of the project before a decision is made on what additional contributions Taiwan could make.

This year’s Computex in Taipei. Taiwan relies on its strength in information technology to play a role in narrowing the digital divide in the Asia-Pacific region. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

Indeed, much more remains to be done to connect disadvantaged people to the digital world. Soon after the opening of the call center for the visually impaired at Tamkang University, similar facilities appeared in Manila in the Philippines in October 2009 and then in Beijing one year later with assistance from Taiwan. “Taiwan has been devoted to this ADOC project for a long time and APEC members in general have responded very positively. It would be such a pity if we stopped now,” Cho says. The ADOC project might be coming to an end, but Taiwan is sure to find a way to continue its role of building connections in the APEC community.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw

A mobile ADOC at an orangutan reserve in Sumatra, Indonesia. Such minivans help expand the reach of the ADOC project. (Photo Courtesy of ASUS Foundation)