I. WHY BUILD A CYBERCITY?
Why does Taipei need to become a CyberCity? Let me begin by telling you a little bit about our city. Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China on Taiwan in East Asia and the country’s political, economic and cultural center. Situated in a natural basin bounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth by a river, 55% of Taipei’s landmass is on a gradient. Its total landmass of 272 square kilometers (106 square miles) is home to a population of 2.65 million residents. That works out to a population density of around 9,700 people per square kilometer (or 25,000 people per square mile). Meanwhile, there are 1.6 million motor vehicles in the city, including 650,000 cars and 950,000 motorcycles and scooters. To give you some perspective, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong have 218, 248, and 274 vehicles per kilometer of city road respectively. And Taipei has, alas, 1,043--four times the density of Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong! Taipei City Government’s annual budget is about NT$160 billion (or US$5 billion). Its citizens have an estimated per capita national income of NT$674,000 (or US$21,589). It is therefore a dynamic, prosperous but very crowded city. Even if you haven’t yet experienced it personally, you will probably have heard that Taipei's traffic can be quite a challenge.

This crowdedness means that we can certainly no longer expect to build more city roads to catch up with the growth in number of motor vehicles. Nor can we expand the city limit to acquire more land. What we can do, other than imposing restrictions on the growth of motor vehicles, is to break away from the traditional mindset of expanding Taipei in its physical space. Rather, we must seek to build Taipei as a CyberCity based on the new and nearly unlimited space now available to us, that is, cyber-space. The advent of the Internet has made this dream come true.

Riding the dynamic waves of the global information revolution means that if we cannot accelerate information and communication development, we will simply lose our competitiveness in almost every aspect. If we do, on the contrary, we could work miracles. We have already heard how the Internet transforms the playing field, allowing smaller, more dynamic players to unseat much larger competitors who often lack the ability to change with the times. So where do local governments fit into this equation?

We are convinced that local governments must mobilize the resources of both the private and public sectors, utilizing information technology (IT) to make municipal information and services widely available to the public by way of the Internet. Taipei’s quality of life was rated in December 2000 by Asiaweek, a Hong Kong news magazine, as the 4th among 40 Asian cities. To maintain and to improve that quality, Taipei City Government has to find new strategies to increase its competitive edge in this new century. Building a CyberCity is just one of our cross-century strategies.

II. DEVELOPMENT VISIONS
When I first took office as mayor of Taipei in December 1998, I had some broad ideas of what the Internet could do for Taipei. We then set out to codify a more specific plan to harness the power of the Internet. This plan would become Taipei’s CyberCity Initiative. First let me talk about some of the fundamental ideas that drove Taipei’s approach.

1) Maximize the use of the Internet and minimize the use of roads
The limit of Taipei’s physical space forces us to use the Internet in preference to city roads. Given Taiwan’s competitive edge in the world as the third largest producer country in the manufacture of computer, communication and electronic equipment, more and more Taipei citizens are using the Internet when working with each other and the city government. In the future, they will no longer have to spend so much time on the road running errands or even, to some extent, commuting to work.

2) Make Internet services equally accessible to all Just as the right of citizens to own private property and engage in commerce was a fundamental building block of the Industrial Age, in the Information Age, every citizen of Taipei must have the basic right of equal access to modern information channels and networked services.

3) View Internet services as public utilities
As the most influential tool of the 21st century, the Internet should be made as easy and convenient as using the telephone and television is today. Recognizing that the Internet is already well on its way to becoming a commodity, we set out to provide network services on the same principles of existing public utilities; namely, affordability and convenient accessibility.

4) Create a ubiquitous network of public services
One of the key factors for Taiwan’s economic miracle has been the public sector’s close cooperation with the private sector in creating an environment conducive to business. Perhaps the most important consequence of this cooperation was the application of modern fiber-optic technology to build the backbone infrastructure of our CyberCity. Various bandwidth networks for existing services such as voice (telephony), data and video (cable television) will converge into an integrated ubiquitous public life network. It will enable every household to connect itself effortlessly with the public network.

III. The Three Stages of CyberCity-Building

The CyberCity Initiative drawn up by the Information Development Center of Taipei City Government is a four-year plan (1998-2002), which is broadly categorized into three stages: 1) The first stage is the internal integration of IT into the operations of City Government. Internal adjustment within the City Government was the logical starting point from which we set out to build our CyberCity. This stage has largely been completed as of February 2001. 2) If the first stage is inward-looking, the second stage looks outward to explore ways in which IT can improve the services offered to our customers, namely, Taipei citizens. This stage makes inter-agency, one-stop, paperless services from the City Government available to the public. This stage has been partially completed. 3) The third stage concentrates on providing non-government related information through a public interface network. In this way, Taipei will link together information pertaining to how we live, work, and play and interact in our local communities. This stage has been partially completed as well.

IV. GOALS AND STRATEGIES FOR CYBERCITY- BUILDING

A. Overall Goals The CyberCity Initiative encompasses four broad goals:
1) Building an Information Infrastructure: the Information Freeway Just as canals and railroad tracks were critical components of a city in the Industrial Age, the foundation of a city’s success in the Information Age lies in its information infrastructure. To do this most effectively, we are partnering with broadband networks of private enterprises. In the short term, these initiatives will connect Taipei’s citizens to the Internet at a cost lower than is currently available. In the long term, these efforts will lay the bedrock upon which future IT development in Taipei can be expected.
2) Education Reform: Cyber Education for all for life We will establish cyber universities and life-time learning centers as well as build diversified and universal channels for life-long learning. Tapping the seemingly unlimited knowledge and information available on the Internet, we will provide citizens and civil servants alike with a high quality, life-long learning environment to enrich their lives and improve their professional competitiveness.
3) Process Reform: the E-Government To computerize government functions fully, we must reengineer the design of the process for government operations so that ordinary civil servants become networked civil servants. This change will improve efficiency by providing one-stop, full-service facilities to the public. The ultimate goal is an electronic government.
4) Services Reform: Citizens as Customers In building Taipei into the CyberCity, Taipei City Government first has to foster a paradigm shift that stresses customer service. We aim to overcome limitations imposed by space, time and location to provide services to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To achieve this set of goals, we have designed five broad strategies:

B. Implementation Strategies
Strategy 1: Infrastructure Construction: Build and deploy a high capacity information infrastructure in Taipei

■ Taipei City Government has been assisting the Ministry of Economic Affairs in developing the Nankang Software Park. This Park is an industrial and science park concentrating on software manufacturing, including software research, planning, and design in computer and telecommunication and the incubation of software companies. In sharp contrast with the Hsinchu Science Park, 80 kilometers to the southwest, which is nicknamed “Taiwan’s Silicon Valley” and concentrates primarily on IT hardware manufacturing, Nankang’s focus is primarily on software. The total volume of sales by companies in Hsinchu Science Park reached NT$920 billion (US$29 billion) in 2,000. Industry sources predict that Nankang could do more in the future. The first phase of 141,748 square meters, provides facilities for 70 manufacturers, employing 5,000 people. The second phase, with an area of 264,000 square meters, will be completed in March 2001 and is expected to attract investment from many top-notch software firms around the world.

■ We are integrating the broadband networks of the private enterprises and building a high speed, high quality broadband service network in Taipei. In this way, we are able to connect every agency, school, community, hospital and home. It will enable Taipei to move quickly into a fully networked living environment. A citywide information network will be built on the model of a MAN (metropolitan area network). The MAN is currently being constructed and will be fully completed by the end of this year. Additionally, all city government agencies will be connected through an ADSL broadband network.

■ We are planning to institute an e-signature mechanism to issue citizen e-identification cards. These cards will be used to provide citizen e-ID authentication services, allowing government, enterprises and citizens to conduct business securely and directly through the Internet.

■ The JET 21 City Government’s network infrastructure integrates administrative processes across different agencies. We are breaking away from the agency-centric model in favor of a customer service-oriented approach enabling civil servants to handle citizens’ applications conveniently at one place at one time.

■ We are setting up an Internet emergency response team in Taipei. We also plan to establish a network of maintenance and security management systems within Taipei City Government. We will enlist the assistance of academics and experts from all sectors to safeguard Internet security to protect public interests. Strategy 2: Universal Cyber-education: Learn, learn, learn

■ We have drawn on the government’s, schools’, communities’ and the private sector’s computer classrooms and information resources, to offer a free, three-hour, on-line training course to the citizens of Taipei. At the user interface end, we are providing diversified information network training courses, in addition to publicly available easy-to-use, net-enabled devices. Through education, citizens will become modern “net” citizens. We have also been organizing various public on-line activities and competitions in order to encourage citizens to acquire and sharpen their Internet skills.

■ We are setting up public cyber-universities and life-long learning centers to encourage citizens to utilize the Internet in educational settings. These efforts will not only improve our citizens’ information skills but will tap multimedia and distant learning technology to provide diversified learning and consultation channels.

■ We have installed information hardware in schools at all levels. We have spent NT$3.3 billion (US$100 million) over three years (1998-2001) to improve the computer and peripheral equipment in public schools. To complement this hardware investment, teachers are required to take on-line training classes to assist them in employing IT in education at all levels. In addition to setting up a computer lab at every school, it is expected that before the end of this year every one of the 11,000 classrooms in Taipei city’s high schools, vocational schools, junior high schools and elementary schools will have at least one personal computer. At the end of February 2001, the completion rate was 57%.

■ We require that Internet education be an integral part of the school curriculum in all subjects. This approach enables the implementation of hands-on familiarity with IT--we will have achieved the goal by the end of this year. Through this enhanced application of IT in the educational setting, our children will learn to use the Internet at very young age. As they grow up with the Internet, they are quickly becoming the vanguards in the building of the CyberCity.

■ An E-library will be set up to allow the public to conduct research directly through the network. Citizens will no longer need to travel to libraries to look for certain information. Strategy 3: Internal Government Re-engineering: Informationalize Government Administration

■ Through the use of communication technology and an intranet, we have integrated the information systems of different agencies within the City Government. Earlier this year, we also instituted a system to integrate the horizontal channels spanning across agencies. Already, 435 agencies and schools directly under the jurisdiction of Taipei City Government are deploying the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system. According to the statistics of the 57 “level one” agencies and the units directly subordinate to them, currently, the volume being exchanged is up to 33,000 electronic documents per month, or 93% of the total. In doing so, we are accelerating the building of an electronic government.

■ We are currently creating a City Government Data Center to facilitate the exchange of information among different government agencies. This Center will offer information for analysis and decision-making to the public as well as internally. Within the legal limits, the information will be provided on a subscription basis by linking the data to the CityLife Networks referred to below.

■ We have equipped civil servants of the City Government with personal computers. The PC has become a necessity in the workplace. They cost us less than the labor expenses that would have been incurred otherwise. By the end of 2000, the percentage of the City Government's workforce that had attained the 1:1 PC per employee ratio for the 57 “level one” agencies and their direct subordinate units had reached 89%. It is expected that by the end of 2002 the percentage will reach 100%.

■ We have provided an email account to every City Government employee. At the same time we are continuing to train all civil servants in basic computer operation skills. Doing so ensures that every civil servant is capable of using the Internet to offer better quality services to the citizens. Now 75% of City Government employees have their own email accounts.

■ The Geographical Information System (GIS) collects a range of information to update Taipei’s digital topographic map regularly on an annual basis. It serves as a foundation for other geographical information applications such as household registration, urban planning, land administration, sewage cleaning, broadband installation, crime prevention, trash collection, parking service, and job placement services. The House Number Supply Management System has also been completed. It is interconnected to the information on the household dossier. Given the address with GIS, we can locate a house or a person on an electronic map of Taipei City. The police and fire department can identify an emergency caller’s location seconds after the telephone conversation starts. Within several minutes, the police patrol or fire engine will rush to the scene. The scope of this application will be expanded even further this year. Strategy 4: External Government Performance: Tapping into IT to improve service to the public

■ All agencies of the City Government are required to set up a website to provide on-line information search and case processing capabilities. This effort was completed in 1999. Every year, we conduct a performance review of these sites. The records and minutes of the weekly City Government Meetings are posted on the website. As of the end of February, more than 4.5 million people had visited the City Government’s website at www.taipei.gov.tw

■ Paperless municipal services are increasingly becoming the norm. Whenever a citizen files an application, if the applicant agrees, all agencies can then directly acquire the necessary information--such as a dossier or previous filings--via the intranet. It will no longer be necessary for the citizen, personally, to apply for various documents required from different agencies and submit such documents to other agencies requiring them. Around 70 types of municipal procedure may benefit from this reform, one that not only reduces paper work and saves time, but lessens congestion of city traffic as well. In addition, more than 400 application forms have been posted on the web so that people can download and print them or apply on-line directly from the convenience of their own home or office.

■ Since December 1999, Taipei City Government has offered every citizen, including residents and daytime workers, a free, life-long email account. As of the end of February 2001, more than 160,000 citizens had benefited from this program. This program, unique in the world, has greatly increased the Internet population in Taipei and laid a sound foundation for the CyberCity.

■ We have set up 270 public information kiosks so far in public places such as hospitals and subway stations throughout the city. The goal is to educate the public, offering connectivity and future e-commerce applications. By the end of year 2002, we expect to have installed 800 kiosks around Taipei. Although 78% of Taipei’s 880,000 households already have computers, by using these user-friendly kiosks, those without access to computers at home or those who are traveling can still contact any network anywhere at anytime.

■ We are building an integrated voice, fax and computer system at our City Government facilities. This system will provide information via voice mail, fax and other channels of services. Through this system, citizens will be able to use the telephone or fax machine to access necessary information or ask a representative to provide intranet-based information services.

■ Our City Inspection Program enables both city officials and citizens to go on-line to file a report on anything relating to city streets, parks, building and so on. All the procedures and actions taken are posted on the website, where the public can review the entire process. The report will not be considered closed until the local official has signed off on it. In this manner, a citizen’s report is properly addressed and the corrective measures taken.

■ Taipei City Government’s website publishes the Taipei E-Paper. Its mission is to disseminate information on important policy measures and events as well as updates to keep the public informed. It is published weekly, with an archive for back issues on the website. By the end of February 2001, 80 issues had been published.

■ We have instituted a Mayor’s Mailbox on-line service. When a citizen files a complaint with this service, relevant agencies are required to reply within six days, answering such questions as “Has the case been resolved?” “Are you satisfied with the result?” He or she can fill out a satisfaction survey form on the website. He or she can search and review a history log of the complaints and their responses. It aims to assure the citizen that agencies are sincere and active in addressing citizens’ concerns and problems in a timely manner. Each month the Mailbox receives 500 to 1,000 email letters from citizens. City Government regularly carries out spot checks to make sure that all incoming letters are responded to timely and properly. Strategy 5: Non-governmental Public Services: Create Nine CityLife Networks

■ We are building Nine CityLife Networks to be completed by the end of 2001. On these networks, we are making available information on nine areas, including public safety, cultural events, travel and recreation, voluntary services, industry and commerce, healthcare and medical services, life-long education, community services, and welfare assistance. The Networks were partially completed as of February 2001 and will be fully on-line by the year end. The City Government will also encourage the private sector to do the same, especially on cultural, travel and leisure information, to supplement the CityLife Networks.

■ We have set up community websites called TaipeiLink, giving a website to every local administrative community (called Li in Chinese, covering 2,000 families on average). Each website will give the community a common place to build its distinctive Internet identity and style. As of the end of 2000, all the 435 Lis had completed the construction of their websites. Citizens have posted more than one million photos on the E-Album, one of the most popular features of TaipeiLink.

V. PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

The CyberCity Initiative is a four-year plan. We are only halfway through. Yet what we have achieved in the last two years has already made a difference. A survey conducted by Taipei academics in September 2000 on citizens above the age of 12 to benchmark our progress and to gauge the citizen’s Internet competence showed that:  78% of Taipei’s 880,000 households have computers;  63% of the people in Taipei know how to go on-line; and  84% of those on-line (or 53% of total) use email.

These figures, comparing favorably with high-tech cities such as Stockholm, Boston or Tokyo, show that Taipei is developing very fast in the IT area. The overall environment is basically conducive to the growth in number of Internet users. In fact, according to the survey in July 2000 by the leading U.S. IT magazine, Wired, among the world’s 46 cities with IT potential, Taipei got 13 points and ranked eighth in the world and first in the Asia-Pacific region. In this survey, Silicone Valley (score:16) ranked the first, followed by Boston, Israel, Stockholm (score: 15), next came Helsinki, London, and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Research Triangle Park) (score: 14), and then Taipei, Austin, Texas, San Francisco, and Bangalore, India (score: 13). Taipei’s strength lies, among other things, in Nankang Software Park. But the overall environment, including universities and high-tech research, geographical vicinity to Hsinchu Science Park (score: 11) did play an important role. Local government information development is a complex and multifaceted process.

The building of an information infrastructure is not a task that any municipal government can accomplish overnight. Yet it is well worth the effort required to transform a CyberCity vision into a reality. The key to implementing change effectively is shifting to a customer-service paradigm, with a comprehensive plan to implement it. In this people-focused environment, the rapid integration of IT to improve your level and quality of services to your customers (the citizens) is not a luxury, but rather a necessity. Through the integration of information and interactive exchanges, we save precious resources and time by avoiding waste, leading to an overall improvement in the quality of governance and the city’s competitiveness.

The pivotal force driving the CyberCity vision lies in the hope that the Internet’s unique characteristics of nearly unlimited information can be harnessed to improve efficiency and enhance the quality of services provided by local government agencies. Computerization of government, streamlining public services, universal access to the network; these are the goals of the CyberCity Initiative as it charges into the 21st century. Looking ahead to the trends of IT development, we can expect a number of innovations that are already in the pipeline: multimedia, teleconferencing, broadband services and Chinese-language Internet content. They will grow rapidly. In light of these future trends, we are carefully planning the direction of Taipei’s information development in the next decade after we complete the CyberCity Initiative. Using the Internet instead of roads is quickly becoming a reality. Taipei plans to be there as it happens. We look forward hopefully to seeing many of you there as well.