The 2019 APEC Workshop on Regional Industry-Academia Collaboration for Talent Development invited the Chairman of the APEC HRDWG, Dr. Park Dong Sun, and 16 delegates from 10 member economies, to attend this event. The three-day workshop took place in Taiwan from September 16 to September 18, and included one international forum, visits to three technological universities and a visit to one enterprise.   

The workshop focused on 3 main fields related to this year’s APEC focal promotional topics: long-term care, food science, and electrical engineering. In addition to inviting delegates from Russia, South Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Australia to share industrial-academia collaboration experiences, the Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology, the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology were also invited to share their experiences and patterns of industrial-academia collaboration for talent cultivation. Furthermore, Professor Pi-Chi Han from the National Kaohsiung Normal University was invited to deliver a keynote speech on Fostering APEC Women in STEM. This topic was previously presented in APEC Chile 2019, and attracted global attention and was reported by international media.   

In order to enable APEC member economies to gain more understanding of our nation’s technical and vocational education, visits to universities and an enterprise were arranged, as follows: the department of mechanical engineering of the National Taipei University of Technology, the department of tropical agriculture and international collaboration in the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, and its cooperating internship enterprise, Taiwan Chin Beer Factory, and the National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences. Guidance and presentations of hands-on courses, off-campus internships, gerontological health care, and standard classrooms of Internet of Things (IoT) for students were offered, which enabled participants to comprehend the operational patterns of a close combination between course and practical training.    

According to the Ministry of Education, close interchanges during activities and workshops have helped to highlight the industrial-academia collaboration in the technical and vocational education field in Taiwan; tight cross border interchange networks with other member economies have been established; and the cross border talent cultivation has been integrated, so as to cultivate students with professional competencies required by industry, and to create more youth employment opportunities in the future. For more information, please visit the workshop website at: https://ice-moe.github.io/.