The Executive Yuan will be hosting the conclusive meeting for the Innovation for Women and Economic Development Project on September 7 at the Regent Taipei hotel, where the final report on multiyear project will be presented.
Twenty high-ranking officials, nongovernmental organization leaders, scholars and entrepreneurs from 10 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies have been invited to the event, along with over 120 representatives from public and private sectors around the world.
Through experience sharing and exchanges, the meeting is expected to strengthen networking among women advocates across the Asia-Pacific. Member economies will also be encouraged to use innovative information and communications technology as tools for empowering women and promoting their participation in economic activities.
The event's opening ceremony will be hosted by Executive Yuan Minister without Portfolio Lin Mei-chu, and keynote speeches will be delivered by Melanne Verveer, first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women's issues; Nora K. Terrado, chair of the 2015 APEC Women and Economy Forum; and Tsai Yu-ling, founder of Lee, Tsai & Partners Attorneys-at-Law.
Twenty representatives from Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Thailand and Vietnam will also exchange views with Taiwanese experts to discuss women's economic empowerment and inclusive growth. To showcase Taiwan's innovative approaches, the Executive Yuan has invited panelists from Intel, IBM Taiwan, Microsoft Taiwan, and the feminist website Womany. The leaders of the multiyear project, Academia Sinica researcher Chang Ching-cheng and Hex, Inc. general manager Lin Hsiao-mei, will present the project's final report.
After the meeting, participants will be treated to a special dinner party where talented women from the National Taipei University of Technology, IBM Taiwan, Microsoft Taiwan, and winners of various science competitions will demonstrate their artistic inspiration, creativity, and science and engineering smarts.
The Innovation for Women and Economic Development Project, funded by APEC since 2013, has come to an end. Over that time, the project compiled a "toolkit" for developing policies and business models for women entrepreneurs, and launched a multilingual game-based learning device called "WE boss" to help women learn the basics of starting a new business. The project also encouraged member economies to integrate their public resources and promote the initiatives locally. The conclusive meeting is expected to help boost women's economic rights and serve as a reference for policymakers in the APEC region.