In responding to fulfillment of altruism, NTU EMBA this year celebrated its 20th anniversary with a forum on Social Innovation. Xie Ming-Hui, CEO, NTU EMBA, believes that NTU has always been the pioneer in values and is therefore obliged to adopt diversified values while continuing in innovation; this is the spirit of NTU EMBA as educators.

NTU EMBA organized a large scale Forum on Social Innovation on May 21th with Fong Yen, the former Councilor of the Executive Yuan; Mr. Zheng Ping, CEO of the Delta Electronics, Mr. Zhou Jun-Ji, President of Sin Yi Realty Inc., Lin Yi-Han, co-founder and CEO of Social Enterprise Insights; and Mr. Wu De-Fong, Deputy Chairman, PwC Taiwan. The Forum attracted some three hundred NTU EMBA alumni members, and the news were covered by major domestic print and electronic medias.

As a part of the momentum of adaptation of diversified values, NTU EMBA today (Jul. 23), together with NTU EMBA Alumni Foundation, jointly organized the second round of Social Innovation Forum at Sungreat International Convention Hall, College of Management Building 1, featuring Ms. He Li-Mei, senior VP and CFO of Taiwan Semiconductor Corp. (TSMC); Ms. Cheng Shu-Fen, Chief Investment Officer of Cathay Financial Holding Co., Ltd.; and Mr. Lin You-Xin, General Manager of X4GPS, to talk about social innovation and enterprise sustainability beginning with corporate governance and supply chain management. Hosted again by Mr. Wu De-Fong, this Forum was also highly fruitful yet in a different way.

TSMC has been dedicated to corporate social responsibility (CSR) for years, and in this regard has been recognized with various awards both domestically and internationally. According to Ms. He Li-Mei, TSMC has stipulated policy concerning CSR and aiming at implementation of its three major missions of integrity, environment, and benevolence on the basis of sustainable operation. For examples, adaptation of green buildings, green building material, green factories, and green supply chain, cares for the underprivileged and remote island education, and understanding through all internal competent units about major issues concerned by stakeholders. In the regard of employee stakeholders, according to He, legal compliance at counterparties among TSMC’s supply chain, domestic or foreign, will be scrutinized. There was a foreign corporation would not accept the offer proposed by a downstream subsidiary that failed in compliance with the Labor Standard Act unless rectification proves satisfactory. He believes that such private labor condition inspection is far more effective than the same inspection by government agency.

In responding to global green demand, Cathay United Bank, a subsidiary of Cathay Financial Holding, is the first Taiwanese company that adapts the Equator Principles. According to Ms. Cheng Shu-Fen, after adapting the Equator Principles the Bank becomes ever more concern about loan applicants’ practices in environment protection and social corporate responsibilities. The Bank wishes to expedite, by screening loan applicants, corporate practices in environment protection and social corporate responsibilities. In addition, the Bank also favor to a great extent financing green energy projects. Some farmers and fishermen who borrowed money to install solar panels on roofs to generate electricity even enough to sell electricity back to TaiPower. “CSR should be internalized as faith,” said Cheng.

X4GPS started its business in positioning applications on cell phones and not until its 2012 initiative of Mobile Village Chief platform when it directly learned from many village chiefs did it realize that many basic needs are still not satisfied. X4GPS then gradually changed from a witness to a participant. It made use of its expertise and capability to develop Village Safe Box, a model that helps the underprivileged in needs. “I have made friends with about 2000 village chiefs; I am now the biggest politic broker in Taiwan,” noted Lin You-Xin with wry amusement. The company has also developed wristband that helps to locate elderly with dementia. It is a low cost, simple to use positioning device that helps the elderly with dementia to find their way home. After years of learning in blind, the company now vows to “serve the underprivileged with technology.”

According to Xie Ming-Hui, CEO, NTU EMBA, NTU EMBA has been brining innovation to its curriculum for more than a decade, such as stipulating Corporate Governance as one of its core curriculum. Last year the stipulation was further applied to the NTU-Fudan Program. This year 10 practitioners, 10 professors, and 10 entrepreneur teams have been recruited for a newly offered course of Entrepreneur Practice, which is also an embodiment of NTU EMBA’s education spirit. As the leading EMBA in Pan-Chinese community, the new course carries NUT EMBA’s hope that the public will be more aware of social innovation and then understand about it and take part in it.

In the future NTU EMBA will continue to consolidate the values created in different disciplines and to promote diversified values and innovative learning, and calibrate Taiwan through social enterprises or CSR for the coming of a new era.