Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou will give his only public address in Silicon Valley at Stanford University. Following a welcome by Stanford Provost John Etchemendy, Dr. Ma will speak on Taipei's Changing Role in the Global IT Industry. Mayor Ma's speech is hosted by the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE), dedicated to international and interdisciplinary research on the world's high technology regions.
About Ma Ying-jeou
Born in Hong Kong in 1950, Ma Ying-jeou was raised in Taipei, Taiwan and received law degrees National Taiwan University, NYU, and Harvard. Dr. Ma began his career by working in Boston and on Wall Street, and returned to Taiwan in 1981 to serve in the Presidential Office. He has had a distinguished career of government service, including being appointed Deputy Secretary-General for international affairs of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) at age 33, the youngest ever in that party. In December 1998, he won Taipei's mayoral election, unseating the popular incumbent mayor Chen Shui-bian. In 2002, he was re-elected in a landslide, winning 64.1 percent of the votes cast. During this visit to Silicon Valley, Mayor Ma will focus on Taipei's role in global high technology industries, and will meet with university and high technology company leaders.