In Taiwan in 2009 cultural and creative industries are the focus of attention of industry, government and academia. The Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archive Program (TELDAP below) contains abundant knowledge energy. When this is combined with the creative power of industry, creative sparks fly!   
   Since the TELDAP Expansion Project (Expansion project below) was established active assistance has been given to industry figures to allow them to utilize the results of TELDAP and, to date, nine companies- DAEP, Xiang Yang Technology Co., Ltd, Yuyuyang Taiwan Craft, C-LAVIE UNITED WISDOM, Taoyard, Museum Republic Inc, 開物國科技文化事業, New Seed Creative Co﹒Ltd. and Ideco International Inc - have been “matched” and have made use of materials licensed by seven collecting bodies- Hwa-Kang Museum of the Chinese Cultural University,Yuyu Yang Artistic and Educational Foundation, National Museum of History, Natural Museum of Natural Science,Yuyu Yang Digital Art Museum,Taiwan Historica- resulting in the development of 10 TELDAP result derivative products. One of the elegant Showgirls who were recruited to display the products said privately to Expansion Project personnel “I’d really like to take these home!” indicating that it can be expected that these products will prove very popular, especially with young women, when they hit the market.

   
Some Expansion Project products that participated in the show

A Show Girl showing off a Taiwan hand puppet pop up book

This show girl really loved the bag decorated with flowers inspired by the paintings of Master Ou Hao-nian, and the hat too.

   With the theme ‘In praise of Taiwan” the Expansion Project this year for the first time participated in the Taipei International Gift & Stationery Show, with the aim of showing to the public and retailers the creative and cultural products that have been developed from the results of TELDAP.
   The TELDAP e-Newsletter was also proud to be able to interview the joint director of the Expansion Project, Consultant Ho Wen-hsiung of the Institute for Information Industry’s Industry Support Division, during the show, allowing his views on the Expansion Project’s role in the application of the results of TELDAP in creative and cultural industries and future Expansion Project directions to be shared with readers.

Expansion Project Joint Director Ho Wen-hsiung wearing a tie with Chinese style pictured alongside some of the products developed as part of the project 

  
   Joint Director Ho said that, in the past eight years, TELDAP has accumulated rich results and these results not only have substantial research and cultural value, industry is also very keen to utilize this knowledge for the creation of economic output value. The Expansion Project aims to combine the sensitivity of Institute for Information Industry(III below) to industrial trends and TELDAP’s results, that are both numerous and high quality, to build a high quality cultural and creative product market. Achieving a balance between knowledge content and fun story, then developing products that move people and become the topic of conversation is the current objective of both the Expansion Project staff and participating companies.

   In addition to daily use items and gifts, the cultural and creative industries can also develop digital content, film and music.
   Taking the TV series CSI and the film Tomb Raider, both popular with young people as examples, CSI has a continuous plot that captivates its audience while the latter stimulates viewer interest in learning more about ancient civilization. If authors, media producers can effectively tap the results of TELDAP perhaps Taiwan can develop a cultural knowledge-based highly watchable film or TV program that will be popular all over the world!

   The cultural and creative industries are still developing. How can they gain more consumer attention in the future? Joint Director Ho believes that 2010 Taipei Flower Expo will be a good time for companies and bodies interested in developing cultural and creative businesses to get involved. Many TELDAP results are related closely to the expo. If home stays and hotels can effectively utilize these results in the improvement of their hardware and environment and gift and souvenir companies can utilize the results as the inspiration for the design of new products, creating a flower city that merges old and new, a “water melon effect” will be set in motion.

   He also said that the objective being actively pursued in 2009 is pushing the results of TELDAP to more cultural and creative industries, retailers and the public using various opportunities and areas to help build a TELDAP cultural and creative industry chain. The Expansion Project has completed discussions with a large national department store and, in July, will hold a sales promotion activity in the department store that will last over 10 days and give the general public a chance to see and buy the cultural and creative products developed using TELDAP’s results. In the future, the aim is hold this kind of promotional activity more often and even establish permanent sales outlets, realizing the maximum commercial potential of the cultural and creative products that TELDAP has spawned.
   
   With respect to the field of e-learning, he thinks that there will certainly be substantial room for TELDAP results to be brought into play.
   At present, the Ministry of Education is actively promotion the Digital Opportunity Center, with the aim of reducing the digital gap between cities and the countryside and future educational trends will also see more and more use of e-white boards and online learning. The rich knowledge and digital content accumulated by TELDAP can be merged into various kinds of digital platform and give the next generation high quality learning materials.

   As we finished the interview another group of personnel from companies interested in the TELDAP derivative products arrived in the Expansion Project display area and immediately began enthusiastically exchanging opinions with Project Staff and searching for business opportunities. This showed that that a dream that merges culture and creativity is kneeling on the starting line and is about to burst away from the blocks…