This year governments are making their final assessment of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which global leaders agreed upon in the year 2000. Over the past 15 years the ICT revolution has driven global development in an unprecedented way.
Technological progress, infrastructure deployment, and falling prices have brought unexpected growth in ICT access and connectivity to billions of people around the world. According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in 2015 there are more than 7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, up from less than 1 billion in 2000.
Globally 3.2 billion people are using the Internet of which 2 billion are from developing countries. ICTs will play an even more significant role in the post 2015 development agenda and in achieving future sustainable development goals as the world moves faster and faster towards a digital society.
Taiwan is a country that is thoroughly modern and completely digitalized. There are numerous submarine cables which provide links throughout Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and the US. There are also 2 satellite earth stations located in Taiwan. With a population of only 23 million, Taiwan’s well-educated, industrious people have carved out a huge niche in the global ICT industry.
Many of Taiwan’s information and communications technology (ICT) companies are moving up the global supply chain by building their own brands. Taiwanese companies today account for about three-quarters of the world’s production of PCs and half of the world’s liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). In addition, Taiwan makes about a quarter of the world’s semiconductors and about a fifth of the world’s mobile phones.
The close proximity of electronics companies in Taiwan has led to the formation of industrial clusters that offer clear cost and time-to-market advantages, making Taiwan an excellent one-stop shop for procurement, design support and rapid commercialization of product ideas. Now, many of Taiwan’s biggest brands are tapping this same local manufacturing expertise to offer consumers innovative products and better value.
In the December 2015/January 2016 edition of SPOTLIGHT, we highlight Taiwan’s contribution towards ensuring that everyone is connected at an affordable cost in the emerging information society.
It is hoped that more and more Nigerians, Nigerian companies and even government Ministries, Departments and Agencies will tap into the various products, gadgets and software on offer to the benefit of ICT consciousness and digital development in Africa’s largest economy.
