Taiwan inaugurates digital ministry to boost digital resilience

Ministry will hire tech talent from private sector to help build resilient Taiwan

The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) was inaugurated on Saturday (Aug. 27), a milestone initiative as Taiwan ramps up its efforts to build digital resilience.

“MODA” will serve as a “motor” powering the country’s digital development, said MODA Minister Audrey Tang (唐鳳) in her speech. The ministry will be tasked with helping people build resilience in their digital lives, improving cybersecurity practices for businesses, introducing technologies, and realizing the vision of a smart country.

The core of the new Cabinet-level organ lies in “resilience,” entailing the use of digital means to bring about inclusiveness, industrial transformation, and adaptive resilience, Tang noted. This is in line with the three-pronged approach to bolstering the country’s digital capability from the facets of social development, industrial development, and emergency response.

The ministry will seek to recruit talent from the private sector through a more flexible hiring mechanism carried out by the National Institute of Cyber Security, she said, adding that a “diploma is not an issue.” The non-departmental public body supervised by MODA is slated to be established by the end of the year.

Following the inauguration ceremony, Tang led President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on a tour of the MODA building on Yanping South Road in Taipei. She signed off on the first electronic document using mobile phone verification, in an example of how the ministry strives to lead in digital transformation.

Congratulatory messages have poured in from many foreign envoys in Taiwan and celebrities who have graced her show, TaiwanPlus, a government-sponsored English streaming service for international audiences. Among them are American Institute in Taiwan Director Sandra Oudkirk, Lithuanian Minister of Economy and Innovation Ausrine Armonaite, Paraguay Ambassador Carlos Jose Fleitas Rodriguez, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen (陳士駿), and “the father of the Internet in Japan,” Murai Jun.

Date: 2022-08-27
Source: Taiwan News