The statement said Taiwan is expected to inject over NT$40 million (US$1.2 million) next year in the ADOC 2.0 project — the second stage of the project.

The project was initiated by Lee Yuan-tse, the country’s special envoy at the 2003 APEC leaders summit in Bangkok, Thailand, and was designed to allow Taiwan to share its experiences in developing the information and communication industries with other APEC members. With the first stage of the project set to conclude at the end this year, Stan Shih, the founder of the giant Acer computer company and Taiwan’s envoy at the 2007 APEC leaders summit, proposed the ADOC 2.0 project to continue the efforts to narrow the digital gap.

Responding to Shih’s call, international enterprises including Acer, Intel, Microsoft and ASUSTek Computer Inc., as well as Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Co., the Institute for Information Industry and the Taipei Computer Association have promised to assist in the implementation of ADOC 2.0, which will start in 2009.

Other non-profit organizations that have also signed on include the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Taiwan Research Institute.

Scott Lin, Acer’s president of Taiwan operations, said in Monday’s statement that the company will donate computers and related devices for the project and assessed that the company’s contribution to ADOC 2.0 will reach NT$14.7 million next year.

Chunghwa Telecom officials said, meanwhile, that the state-funded company will spend some NT$10 million to construct digital communication networks in local communities, train new immigrants in computer skills and assist vision-impaired people in teleworking.

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