Taipei, July 30 (CNA) The Institute for Information Industry (III) and the National Taiwan University (NTU), one of Taiwan's top universities, set up a jointly-operated research center Monday to collaborate on innovation in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector aimed at creating "a second Google".
In a time of fierce global competition among the ICT industry, it's important for academia and business sector to work hand in hand to bring out the cutting-edge technologies and innovations, said Chen Ming-syan, chief executive officer (CEO) of III, one of the most important think tanks for government's ICT policy-making, speaking on the sidelines of the ceremony.
The founders of Google started innovating in university, Chen pointed out, adding that the NTU is also capable of achieving the same success in ICT innovation.
"NTU ranked around 30th in the global university ranking in terms of electrical engineering and computer science. The placing was considerably higher than the overall ranking of the university, which was somewhere between 100th to 150th in the world, " Chen said.
The III will mainly work with NTU's College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, which is regarded as Taiwan's best talent pool of more than 200 professors and 2,500 students, in fields such as digital contents, multimedia, wireless sensor networks, data-mining, long-distance medical care, chip design and user interface development, among others.
Both sides have started working on a number of projects, including internet television and interface design, Chen said, half-jokingly adding that "So someday everyone will get to watch [Taiwanese pitcher in the U.S. Major League] Wang Chien-ming pitch on the internet, probably using their cell phones".
With NTU's rich talent, resource and research performance, the university is confident that it will achieve great success in the future, said NTU President Lee Si-chen.
"For example, we have students from the Department of Drama and Theatre and Department of Psychology on an interface design team, because the team needed to study the human facial, emotional expression and psychology, " Lee said.
The NTU is the fourth university to collaborate with the III, which has established research centers with the National Cheng Kung University, National Chiao Tung University and the National Tsing Hua University.