Golden Moon has succeeded in attracting the interest of venture capital providers, and is widely praised as an example of successful cultural and creative industry development
Integrating lapis lazuli with luxury homes and achieving "national treasure" status
By Lin Li-Ch’i
In the space of just eight years, Golden Moon founder and CEO Ch'en Cheng-Hung has succeeded in leading the Golden Moon lapis lazuli brand from an initial focus on "lifestyle" lapis lazuli towards the development of an amazingly wide range of lapis lazuli products. Today, Golden Moon has been chosen by Taipei City Government as one of the brands to receive recognition under the "Branding Taipei" scheme, and has also produced a spectacular lapis lazuli and jadeite cabbage for the National Palace Museum , which has been acclaimed as a national treasure, confirming Golden Moon's reputation for outstanding quality. As Ch'en Cheng-Hung's family is heavily involved in the construction industry, he has been able to integrate lapis lazuli with construction projects, including collaboration with several construction firms (including CEC) on lapis lazuli installation art. Ch'en has thus become the first ethnic Chinese to integrate lapis lazuli artifacts into luxury homes.
Having succeeded in securing venture capital funding, this year Golden Moon is planning to raise its capitalization to NT$70 million. Ch'en Cheng-Hung intends to exploit this increased funding to achieve even closer integration of lapis lazuli and luxury homes, two concepts which are well-placed to create synergy with one another. Ch'en is working actively to develop new projects in north, central and south China , and is even planning to expand his distribution channels to include Dubai and other parts of the Middle East where large numbers of luxury residences are being built.
While using lapis lazuli to enhance the value of luxury homes, Ch'en Cheng-Hung has not forgotten his firm’s corporate social responsibility. The last few years have seen a steady growth in environmental awareness, and Golden Moon has responded to the government's "green industry" policy. This year, Golden Moon will be collaborating with leading crystal-ware firm Swarovski Crystal on the development of "electricity-storing screens" that integrate lapis lazuli and crystal materials with solar energy. In this way, while developing his lapis lazuli business empire, Ch'en is also making a contribution towards environmental protection.
According to Lin Chiu-Hsiang, Chairman of the Ergonomics Society of Taiwan :
Ergonomics is starting to attract more attention, with a new focus on the user experience
By Hu, Hsiu-Chu
The "user experience" concept has been around for nearly ten years now, with leading international corporations such as Google and Apple emphasizing the user-oriented nature of their technology. With ubiquitous computing, the user interface of 3C products has become very important. Through new design based on psychological research, the concept of the user interface will apply not only to products that you can see and feel, but also to virtual interaction and applications that are less tangible, such as sensing, etc. Unlike traditional interface design, the user's psychology, perception and sensation need to be taken into account; the "intangible interface" and context-awareness are extremely important. If these factors are not taken into consideration, the end-product is likely to be clumsy and awkward, and it will be difficult to achieve natural interaction between user and product.
In interface innovation, the product designer needs to have a thorough understanding of both technology and how the human brain reacts to stimuli. In the future, with robots operating in the home, device interface interaction and communication will need to be “smarter.” The challenge will be to achieve efficient workflow integration, while ensuring that the hardware devices can work effectively with the software and services; innovation will be needed in every aspect of the "4Is" (Interface, Intelligence, Integration and Infrastructure).
In the past, product design has tended to be technology-focused; today, it is user-focused. Innovative enterprises need to create systems that integrate products and services, not just individual products. The development of ergonomics in Taiwan only goes back about 17 years; today, the issue of ergonomic design is starting to attract more and more attention, and the speed at which new technologies integrate ergonomics is picking up.
A brighter future for Taiwan's senior citizens
A comprehensive e-healthcare network
By Ch’ien, Yen-Ni and Chuang, Shu-Hui
Taiwan's ICT sector is a hotbed of innovation, and information technology is now starting to challenge traditional models of healthcare provision, creating new business opportunities in the process. An important issue facing the ICT sector is how to take advantage of these opportunities to give the traditional healthcare industries new innovation capabilities. In order to gain a better understanding of key trends and the outlook for future development in the healthcare sector, Ideas magazine invited a group of experts to participate in a discussion forum, with the aim of forging consensus.
Deputy Minister Ch'en Tsai-Chin of the Department of Health noted that industries in the early stages of development often need the government to provide incentive measures, which can take several different forms: incentives to encourage R&D, tax breaks, and direct investment by the government.
As regards incentives to encourage the use of domestically-produced healthcare equipment within Taiwan , besides the provision of tax breaks and investment incentives, it is also important for the government to take the lead by encouraging the 600 – 700 hospitals and clinics in Taiwan to adopt domestically-produced equipment, so as to support the growth of the domestic medical appliance industry.
Lee You-Chuan, Vice President of Taipei Medical University, pointed out that the pharmaceuticals system cannot be managed effectively without adequate information, and that it is important for patients to have access to their own medical records. While some people have suggested that this would raise privacy issues, the only way to combat the waste of healthcare resources is to make sure that health information is readily available to patients; the necessary ancillary measures to ensure security etc. can always t be put in place using ICT.
Regarding the question of medical tourism, Lee said that Taiwan is not yet really prepared to provide medical tourism services. The foreign language skills of hospital personnel are clearly inadequate, and hospital kitchens are not capable of preparing halal food; given the large number of Muslims in Southeast Asia , this fact alone is sufficient evidence of Taiwan ’s lack of readiness.
An interview with Dickson D. Despommier, Professor of Public Health at Columbia University
A self-sufficient, cyclic eco-system – creating new vitality through “green” cities
By Lin, Li-Ch’i
Imagine if the cities of the future were filled with “green buildings” used to grow agricultural produce, and if the restaurants, hospitals and schools got the foodstuffs they needed from these urban “vertical farms.” The cities would be free from carbon dioxide from vehicle exhaust, because all of the fuel that vehicles used would be biomass diesel produced by the vertical farms; cities’ waste water would be transformed into clean drinking water using the self-purification mechanisms of the plants in the vertical farms. Today’s busy, hot, humid cities would become self-sufficient ecosystems.
This vision will soon become reality. Dickson D. Despommier, Professor of Public Health at Columbia University, and his students have developed a vertical farm concept, and are currently working to create a prototype. It can be anticipated that, within the foreseeable future, the vertical farm will become an integral part of urban development throughout the world, bringing with it new possibilities for environmental protection and energy conservation.
Professor Despommier notes that China and the Middle East are suffering from soil erosion, and that even Norway, Sweden and Australia are starting to be affected by soil erosion and desertification; vertical farms offer a comprehensive solution to the problem of soil loss and the danger of reduced agricultural output.
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