The Executive Yuan will be hosting the 2013 APEC Conference: Innovation and ICT for Women Business and the 1st Public-Private Partnership Network Meeting today and tomorrow at the Howard Civil Service International House in Taipei. During this two-day event, representatives from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies will share experiences on how information and communications technology (ICT) can help women improve their livelihood and business opportunities, as well as how women in different economic environments utilize ICT to create various livelihood models.
According to the Executive Yuan's Department of Gender Equality (DGE), this conference is part of the Innovation for Women and Economic Development: Facilitating Women's Livelihood Development and Resilience with ICTs project, a three-year undertaking funded by APEC and initiated by 14 member economies including Taiwan, the United States and Indonesia. Co-hosted by Taiwan and Indonesia and organized by the Taipei-based Foundation for Women's Rights Promotion and Development (FWRPD), this year's event attracted 150 representatives from the public and private sectors of 13 APEC economies, including Indonesia, the U.S., Peru, Chile, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia.
For day one of the conference, the DGE indicated that the opening remarks will be delivered by Ms. Luo Ying-shay, Executive Yuan minister without portfolio; Mr. Lee Hong-yuan, Taiwan's interior minister and FWRPD chairman; Ms. Siti Meiningsih, head of the Research and Development Center for Postal and Informatics Operators under Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Informatics; and Ms. Wimonkan Kosumas, chair of the APEC small and medium-sized enterprises working group (SMEWG).
Following the opening remarks will be four keynote speeches given by representatives from the International Trade Centre, the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, the APEC Business Advisory Council and the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. Topics will include information and innovation, public-private partnerships, as well as women's utilization of ICT and capacity building in that field.
Rounding out the first day's program will be two sessions on best practice sharing, moderated by Ms. Renee Kuriyan Wittemyer, director of social impact at Intel's Corporate Responsibility Office, and Ms. Ann Mei Chang, senior advisor for women and technology from the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State.
Day two of the conference, to begin with remarks from Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Kuan Chung-ming, will allow APEC members to exchange viewpoints on women and innovation in business. In the morning, Ms. Kosumas of the APEC SMEWG and Director-General Huang Pi-hsia of the DGE will moderate a report session where the 13 participating economies can share their policy experiences. These policy reports will be useful in the subsequent session on public-private partnership networks, to be co-hosted by Ms. Chang of the U.S. State Department and Academia Sinica Researcher Chang Ching-cheng, where participants can gain a broader understanding of the impact of ICT on women's businesses and forge a consensus on the Innovation for Women and Economic Development project. The discussions will strengthen Taiwan's ties with individual APEC economies.
In the afternoon, a tour will be organized to HTC headquarters to demonstrate Taiwan's successful experiences in cultivating a gender-equal working environment. Participants will also visit the Geng Xin Lien Yuan Educational Foundation to see how the government's digital divide bridging project has enabled better information access and improved literacy in communities.
The DGE said the conclusions and consensus gathered at this conference will be submitted to the third meeting of the APEC Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy (PPWE), and to the ministerial meeting between the SMEWG and PPWE, both of which are to be held in Indonesia in September.