Premier Mao Chi-kuo today congratulated the winners of the Executive Yuan's 2014 Outstanding Achievement Award in Science and Technology, Professor Chou Ming-chi and Professor Tsai Mi-ching, and called them exemplars of the guidelines recently presented by the Executive Yuan to resolve young people's innovation and business startup issues.
Chou and Tsai produced outstanding results thanks to their unflagging persistence in their research, Mao said at the award ceremony. He called upon various agency chiefs to proactively cultivate talent and work together for the future development of Taiwan's science and technology industries.
The premier pointed out that today marks his third week in office, and throughout this period he has been thinking on ways to assist different generations to resolve their pressing issues. For instance, the emphasis of assistance to youths will be on innovation and startups.
Innovative startups can be classified into two major categories, Mao said: The first focuses on creativity and market demand, such as by uncovering demands that have yet to be met and then addressing them with new products based on innovative ideas. The second focuses on actualizing new possibilities, which normally requires meeting technological thresholds and a progression from possibility to viability to realization.
This second type in particular requires long-term research and hard work like that done by this year's two award recipients, who succeeded in getting hold of and making breakthroughs in core technologies. Without this core of technological research, innovations and startups may lose their most fundamental driving force, the premier emphasized.
Citing global competitiveness expert Michael E. Porter, Mao said that Taiwan should establish competitiveness in the areas of efficiency drivers and cost drivers; therefore, core technologies are the most important source of competitiveness for future innovation drivers.
The Ministry of Science and Technology stated that the Executive Yuan confers the Outstanding Achievement Award in Science and Technology every year to commend the excellent contributions that researchers in these fields make to the nation and society. From March 12 to April 16 of this year, the Executive Yuan received recommendations for the 2014 award from the public and also solicited nominations from scholars and experts. After considering a total of 36 cases, the Executive Yuan chose to honor Chou for development of scintillation crystals with a high degree of light output, and Tsai for innovative brushless-motor design and variable-frequency control technology.