Until recently, the hamlet of Pinglin in Taipei County was a good place for motorists to stop between Yilan on Taiwan's northeast coast and Taipei City. Pinglin is known for its tea plantations and tea products, which are available for purchase at roadside shops. This changed suddenly when the Taipei-Yilan Expressway was launched in June 2006, cutting travel time between the two cities from more than two hours to just half an hour. "Business dropped by more than 80 percent," says Yang Chau-ming, a tea vendor in Pinglin.
Something had to be done to save Pinglin's once-prosperous tea business from oblivion. About the time the expressway opened, Leo Systems, an information technology (IT) solution provider in Taiwan, approached Yang and advised him to create business opportunities through e-commerce. Yang's shop already had a corporate website that displayed his products, but Leo Systems thought an upgrade was in order. The solution it promoted made updating online data easier. Yang accompanied the IT services company's representative on visits to about a dozen other tea vendors in Pinglin, most of whom had no experience whatsoever in online marketing, to encourage them to establish their own websites.
According to Yang, most of them hesitated before entering such unfamiliar territory. In the face of a major business crisis, however, one after another decided to give it a try, setting up individual websites and linking them to form a portal that promotes them collectively, in both Chinese and English, as the Pinglin Tea Village.
Promoting E-commerce
"It's quite challenging to introduce a digital solution to small businesses. First, most of them know little about computer science. And, as the mutual trust among people is being eroded by a growing number of fraud schemes, they often stare suspiciously at people who approach them," says Ho Chin-tsang, deputy director of Taiwan's Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (SMEA). The SMEA, which operates under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, has been sponsoring a project to bridge the digital divide for SMEs--businesses with fewer than 20 employees--since 2005, contracting 11 operators in the IT industry, including Leo Systems. The operators provide technical assistance and counseling on e-commerce to SMEs around Taiwan that are seeking new opportunities. "Now we approach opinion leaders or prominent players in the industry first," Ho says. "We rely on their influence to change attitudes at other local businesses and once the first case is established, others tend to follow suit."
To date, more than 20 tea businesses in Pinglin are benefiting from the government project and, after receiving assistance from the SMEA for half a year, they are taking charge of their own digital marketing plans. "Actual sales aren't growing phenomenally as a result of digital marketing, but more and more people are calling to ask about my products after finding out about them on the Internet," Yang says.
Internet access is comparatively limited in eastern Taiwan, where some people consider a computer to be a luxury. (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
The project offered help to 49,000 SMEs around Taiwan in 2005 and 2006, ranging from rice noodle vendors in Hsinchu to travel agencies in southern Taiwan, generating sales totaling NT$2.64 billion (US$81 million). IT solution providers also benefit from the government initiative. They earned about NT$820 million (US$25 million) during the same period. The SMEA is planning to approach another 75,000 small businesses by the end of 2009. Ho says that in addition to generating wealth, the project also has social significance: "Micro-enterprises account for the vast majority of businesses in Taiwan. Eighty percent of Taiwanese businesses have a workforce of fewer than five persons. The project helps them find new opportunities and reduce unemployment, thereby contributing to social stability."
According to the SMEA, its effort to bridge the digital divide is a response to the Global Information Technology Report 2003-2004 released by the World Economic Forum. In the report's Networked Readiness Index, Taiwan ranked 21st for e-business usage and 19th for e-business readiness in 2003-2004, slipping three and 10 places respectively compared to the previous year. By the time the 2005-2006 report was published, Taiwan had improved to ninth and 16th places respectively.
The SMEA project is one of three related projects announced by the National Information and Communications Initiative Committee in 2004. While the SMEA project aims to improve e-commerce readiness, another domestic program, under the Ministry of Education (MOE), has a mission to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas. The third project provides assistance to countries lagging behind in digital applications.
Reaching Rural Communities
The MOE has been setting up digital opportunity centers (DOCs) around the island to achieve its mission. By the end of August, 113 DOCs were established, mostly in remote places with low Internet penetration. "Teachers started to assign homework requiring pupils to find information on the Internet once we had the DOC," says Yang Hung-yeh, the director of the educational section of Jian Huo Primary School in Taitung County, southeastern Taiwan. Yang is also the director of the only DOC in the county. Located at the school, the 20-computer DOC serves as a computer lab and a venue for recreational Internet surfing for students by day. At night, the center provides free courses on basic software applications for adults living nearby. There are currently four courses attended by more than 40 people.
This center plays a pivotal role in reducing computer illiteracy, since, according to Yang, the Internet household penetration rate in the community surrounding the DOC is only 15 percent. This contrasts with 84 percent in Taipei, according to data from the Institute for Information Industry. Today, thanks to active community participation in the effort to bridge the digital divide, the DOC has brought familiarity with computer applications to many people, who are expected to teach many others over time. Chen Jun-lang, a local leader who has been devoted to guiding teenagers and improving public welfare for years, completed a DOC night class and is now leading a team of more than 20 volunteers who teach villagers how to use and repair computers. "Various organizations donate second-hand computers to us. When a villager gets familiar with Word and is able to create his first document, we give him one," he says.
"On top of government efforts, we need a positive response from the private sector to ensure the project for eliminating the digital divide can be sustained," says Yang Cheng-hong, director of the MOE's computer center. Yang praises Chen's efforts as well as those of organizations like Sayling Wen Cultural and Educational Foundation, which has financed and taken over four DOCs from the MOE since last year.
A major entrepreneur in Taiwan's electronics sector who passed away in 2003, Sayling Wen was known for his business achievements and for his devotion to assisting the needy both at home and abroad. His charity work earned recognition, especially after his successful effort to narrow the digital divide in Huangyangchuan, a destitute village in China's Gansu province. "This place has become a model for people around the world interested in narrowing the digital divides in their own countries," says Jeter Her, the foundation's CEO.
In its effort to bridge the digital divide, Microsoft took gender into consideration and launched the Women Up project three years ago. (Courtesy of Microsoft Taiwan)
With its China experience, the foundation is expected to improve efficiency at DOCs. It is now cooperating with local colleges to run the centers, with the foundation providing financial resources and advice and colleges providing manpower and maintaining facilities. "We keep communication lines open with the colleges to solve problems," Her says. "If we can succeed in China, we can certainly succeed in Taiwan too."
Hope Ong, Microsoft Taiwan's corporate affairs director, says her company took on the task of narrowing the digital divide on the island as early as 2000, establishing computer classrooms similar to DOCs in remote townships. In 2004, Microsoft selected 13 aboriginal villages and began to help them promote their culture and ecotourism services through e-commerce and training in IT. Three years later, 11 of the villages continue to participate in the project.
Addressing the Gender Divide
In the same year, Microsoft started a separate project, Women Up, which is the company's main digital divide initiative in Taiwan. Part of the Unlimited Potential program the multinational is implementing worldwide to bridge the global digital divide, this project targets women mainly in central and southern Taiwan where the rural population is comparatively large. "You have to take gender into consideration in your attempt to eliminate the digital divide," Ong says.
Traditionally housebound and busy taking care of their husbands and children, most women in rural Taiwan, especially in remote areas, have nothing to do with computers. The Women Up project provides a unique channel through which women gain access to the outside world. "No males are recruited. Otherwise the husbands might try to prevent their wives from taking our courses, even though they're free of charge. They would be concerned an affair might develop in a co-ed class," Ong explains.
By the end of this year, Ong predicts the project will have reached 50,000 women around Taiwan, with most of them taking a standard 24-hour entry-level course divided into eight periods. "The project is popular partly because attending classes isn't in any way embarrassing," she says. This is because Microsoft understands how important patience is in teaching computer skills. People qualify to teach the classes mainly owing to their enthusiasm and patience--not necessarily because they know a lot about computers. "It could take three hours to teach these women how to use a mouse correctly, and another 12 hours to help them succeed in writing and sending the first email message of their lives," Ong says. "These women have lost confidence in their ability to learn new things, so you mustn't laugh at them when they repeatedly make mistakes. What is general knowledge to you might be expertise to others."
Indeed, the digital divide is so intractable that Microsoft has decided to tackle it on a long-term basis. Currently, the Women Up initiative is recruiting 600 of the project's beneficiaries to serve as volunteers, who will introduce computer skills to even more women. As the project draws attention from the government, the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development has decided to contribute funds to Microsoft's project to train an additional 9,000 volunteers. "If you want the project to be sustainable, you have to turn to volunteers," she explains.
"An elderly lady once told me that her status in her family suddenly rose just because she had learned to send email messages," Ong says. As this woman and many others who were once digitally disadvantaged begin to surf the Internet, Taiwan's status in the world will rise correspondingly. Bridging the digital divide requires a great deal of effort and patience, but many are finding it worthwhile--both on a personal level and in terms of raising the nation's global competitiveness.
Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw