Gov't to Develop the Three Clouds of Medicine, Tourism, and Culture Innovation

Taipei, Jan. 19, 2012 (CENS)--The Executive Yuan (the Cabinet) will complete the three major plans for “medical cloud,” “tourism cloud,” and “cultural innovation cloud” in the second quarter, releasing the government's open data to the private sector and help create cloud-computing business opportunities worth several trillions of NT dollar, said Cyrus Chu, deputy convener of the science and technology coordination panel of the Executive Yuan yesterday (Jan. 18).

Chu made the remark in the wake of the “strategic meeting for open data promotion,” held yesterday and attended by experts from the U.K. and the U.S. The “open data” refers to publication of government data without harming national or personal security, for commercial use. The publication of open data in Europe has fostered production value in excess of NT$5 trillion.

Chu pointed out that the sci-tech consulting conference of the Executive Yuan concluded last year that Taiwan's industry must shift its focus from efficiency orientation to innovation orientation. Open data is a valuable assets of the nation, as Taiwan has accumulated tremendous data from 1990s starting with the promotion of e-government.

The health-insurance database, for instance, boasts the medical data on 23 million people accumulated over the past 13 years, becoming the largest medical database for Chinese people in the world. Beijing is learning from Taiwan to build up its health insurance database via the mediation of IBM. The science and technology coordination panel has entrusted National Taiwan University Hospital and National Cheng Kung University Hospital in formulating the business model for medical cloud and the establishment of “medical cloud-computing system” via cooperation with IBM and Fujitsu.