New | From child prodigy to tech minister, Audrey Tang dares Taiwan’s startups to fail

A 36-year-old child prodigy hired to a senior government job last year is using free software, a remake of the sharing economy and a special internet infrastructure budget, to steer Taiwan’s world-renowned high-tech sector away from its reliance on hardware manufacturing as revenues thin.

High-tech contributes about one-fifth of the $519 billion Taiwan economy, but as consumer sentiments change and mainland China makes hardware at lower costs, returns have become slower for the likes of factories that make PCs or media tablets, on contract for foreign developers.

“It’s unhealthy to emphasise any one industry,” said Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister.

“Stop seeing Taiwan as a closed world or a closed ecosystem and try to see it as more of a stage and then establish the necessary links.”

Semiconductors, a staple for Taiwan, might link to the hardware used in virtual reality and to the Internet of things, Tang said.

The internet of things – use of smart devices to control ordinary appliances – will see compound annual growth of at least 20 per cent from 2015 to 2020, when business spending will reach US$267 billion (HK$2 trillion), Boston Consulting Group forecasts.