SDG10
ICT for Accessibility and Support of Older People Workshop at NCKU
Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) co-organized a workshop on ICT for older people, starting from April 10 to 15 at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan.
NCKU President Huey-Jen Jenny Su extended her warm welcome to all the guests at the opening ceremony today and said that she welcomed and appreciated the efforts from Japan.
In her remarks, President Su said, “NCKU is well-positioned in a way to tackle issues related to aging population, the healthy issue, and how they can utilize technology in the future which would be best facilitated by the university.”
“We are one of the best leading comprehensive universities in the country and the only one starting from central and southern Taiwan our double e area, mechanical engineering and material sciences,” President Su added.
She also noted, “35 years ago, we are the only national medical center that is established through the government’s effort, for the past 35 years it has now brought in a very unique component to this university’s research capacity, and niches and attributes of our research strength. Name one to dedicate to today’s workshop’s interests the ICT linkage with our medicine area.”
Deputy Minister of MOST Dr. Yi-Bing Lin said in his opening remarks, “MOST in Taiwan and JSC in Japan have long-term collaboration agreement on important research topics and this year we focus on ICT for older people.
“Aging people are the main concern for governments both in Japan and Taiwan,” Lin said.
Mr. Kouji Kojima, the Director of Department of International Affairs in JST, said that JST is one of the core institutions responsible for the implementation of science and technology policy in Japan.
He mentioned that JST also works to provide a sound infrastructure of science and technology information and raise awareness and understanding of science and technology-related issues in Japan.
Dr. Min-Hui Hsu from Ministry of Health and Welfare gave a keynote talk on telehealth for elderly in Taiwan. He noted, “Taiwan will be a super-aged society by 2025.”
In his talk, Hsu introduced Taiwan’s Teleheath Pilot Project (TTPP) which is aiming to tackle the problems of aging population in Taiwan.
From Japan side, Prof. Michitaka Hirose from Graduate School of Information Science and Technology in the University of Tokyo, gave a keynote talk on role of advanced ICT for hyper aged society.
Prof. Hirose talked about how recent ICT contributions to the hyper aged society problems. He said, telepresence technology for example can help aged people to go outside and participate in social activities such as working.
Sophisticated job-matching system will discover senior’s work skills and connect them to actual jobs, he added.
If current Japanese aged people over 65 years start working as well as younger generation, it is expected that GDP will increase, according to Prof. Hirose.
