President Chen Shui-bian received this afternoon the students and their teachers representing Taiwan in the 2005 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The president expressed his affirmation to the delegation as they brought back to the country as many as six grand awards and seven special awards.
The president's speech is as follows:
I am very glad today to meet with you at the Presidential Office. I am delighted to share with you the joy and happiness to have captured so many awards. I would like first to express my congratulations to you for having brought the name of "Taiwan" once again to the international stage. Let me express my most sincere affirmation and encouragement to you on behalf of the government and all the people of this country.
This "2005 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair" that is also commonly known as the high school scientific Olympiad is the biggest scientific competition in the world.
This year, we have sent eleven students whose eight contest works were selected among participants from 45 countries and elites from 50 other states of the United States. In total, that makes 1,447 students and 1,162 pieces of contest works. After six days of keen competition, our students finally won six grand awards and seven special awards.
The performance of the delegation not only gives a firm affirmation to the training of scientific personnel, but also strengthens Taiwan's visibility on the international stage over its scientific education's international image and status. Once again, congratulations, gentlemen.
In fact, Taiwanese students generally score good grades in major international scientific competitions, which make people really proud. I have learned that in order to let the students at the Taiwan International Science and Engineering Fair keep carrying on their research, the National Taiwan Science Education Center has invited awarded students from all universities or research units to continue their research at their establishments.
Besides that, the National Taiwan Science Education Center also established a database of their students to keep track of their research results and fruits so that these elites could be kept in our own country and become one day the best seeds in international scientific education cooperation and exchange.
I would like to express my gratitude to the personnel who were in charge of organizing this event, especially the students' professors who helped their pupils despite their tight schedule. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the K.T Li Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology, the Chorng Yeou Culture and Education Foundation and the Intel Corporation for the help and contributions they provided so that this fair could have been launched.
The exploitation of human resource is an important factor that influences the country's economic growth, technology development and international competitiveness. According to IMD's 2004 Competitiveness report, Taiwan's scientific education was ranked sixth world-wide. In Asia, we are preceded only by Singapore and we are ahead of Japan.
This attests to the importance that our country gives in investing in human resource and Taiwanese youngsters' interest in science. Among 60 countries, Taiwan's economy was ranked 7th. This proves that our potential in science cannot be overlooked.
The outstanding performance in the science fair has reflected the success of the concerted efforts in science education development made by the private sector, educational institutions and government agencies. Starting from sowing seeds to cultivating its growth, we have already built up a good foundation for science development. Now with this new affirmation from international society, we should be proud of our achievement in the development of science education.
I would like once again to express my admiration to the students' results and I hope that there could be more and more students devoting themselves to scientific research and developing higher scientific knowledge and inventing more things that could bring changes to humanity.
I strongly believe that if you go on persisting, you will be the next Noble Prize winners, the navigators of the world's top sciences.
Finally, I wish you progress in your studies, health and luck.