Quoting Albert Eistein's motto that "imagination is more important than knowledge," the president shared with the winners his admiration to inventors. "Like many others, I myself from my childhood have admired inventors very much; they use their unlimited ingenuity to change life, turn history, create the future, and make our world a better place to live."
The president praised the award winners for playing a "key role in Taiwan's history" as they have de-stigmatized the infamy of Taiwan as a "piracy country." "Inventability is the key to sustaining our country's competitiveness," the president reassured, referring to the fact that "Made in Taiwan" now stands for excellence in quality and the country has become a "silicon island of technology."
Since international trade competition has shifted from production costs to capacity of research and development (R & D) and value creation, the president mentioned in his remarks to the award winners that thorough the 2008 National Development Plan the government plans to orient domestic businesses to highly value-added areas of R & D.
The president then pointed out that the government needs to place more efforts in such fields as protection of intellectual property rights, development of science parks, encouraging information technology (IT) industry and training human resources. President Chen also said to them that the government would very much welcome any constructive comments from the industries.
Praising the award winners as the "golden brains," the president wished them a successful and prosperous new year of the dog.