President Ma Ying-jeou met with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) President Susan Hockfield and a delegation of MIT professors at the Presidential Office on the morning of June 28. The president expressed a warm welcome to Dr. Hockfield and the professors on their visit to Taiwan.
President Ma commented that MIT has a history that dates back well over 100 years and embraces the “value of useful knowledge," "the necessity of learning by doing," and "integrating a professional and liberal arts education." In addition to being one of the world's most prestigious academic institutions, MIT is a provider and advocate of solutions for a range of key issues facing the world, he said. President Ma added that Taiwan has a fondness for MIT not only because of the outstanding reputation of the institution, but also because the abbreviation also stands for "Made in Taiwan."
President Ma noted that President Hockfield is the first woman to serve as president of MIT and is also a noted expert in neuroscience who has helped enable MIT to achieve excellence in the life sciences and engineering. According to a survey carried out by the Kauffman Foundation, as of the end of February of this year, MIT graduates have established over 25,800 companies throughout the globe, creating over 3.3 million job opportunities and generating annual revenues of US$2 trillion. Quite clearly, the president said, MIT has made enormous contributions in both the academic and business spheres.
The president said that presently 76 students from Taiwan are working towards their master's or doctorate degrees at MIT. He pointed out that Minister of Economic Affairs Yen-Shiang Shih and Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo are both graduates of MIT, which shows the influence of MIT here. In recent years, he said, National Taiwan University and National Chiao Tung University have been collaborating with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) via the T-Party Project that is being funded by Quanta Computer. In addition, the NEXT Consortium, which operates under the Industrial Technology Research Institute's Creativity Laboratory, maintains an important strategic alliance with MIT's Media Lab. This academic collaboration has led to even closer ties between MIT and Taiwan.
President Ma briefed President Hockfield on his concept of a "golden decade" for Taiwan, stressing the importance of "strengthening the country through innovation." He reiterated Taiwan's determination to turn itself into a global center for innovation, an economic and trading hub in the Asia-Pacific, and to become a global headquarters for Taiwan businesses and regional headquarters for foreign companies. President Ma said efforts to achieve these goals are currently in progress.
The president recalled that his ties to MIT date back to when he was a student at Harvard University. At the time, he said, he took an optional course in law and marine engineering at MIT and learned about the time value of money and the capitalist system from works written by Professor Donald R. Lessard and Professor Lester C. Thurow, both of whom were present at the meeting this morning. The president also mentioned that during his visit to Professor Victor Zue in 2003, Professor Zue stated that males with a background in information science might forget what they learned in school during their period of mandatory military service, making it difficult for them to stay abreast of the latest advancements in technology. The president said that these remarks in part led to his decision to change Taiwan's military to a volunteer service. President Ma expressed his hopes that in the future, Taiwan and MIT can work together and create an even closer cooperative relationship.
President Hockfield and her delegation were accompanied to the Presidential Office in the morning by Education Minister Wu Ching-ji and National Science Council Minister Lee Lou-chuang to meet President Ma. Also sitting in on the meeting were Epoch Foundation Chairman Barry Lam and National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Chih-kung Liu.