science and technology × Cross border cooperation Far EasTone Telecommunications to shorten urban-rural distance

        Far EasTone Telecommunications, as one of the top three telecommunications companies in Taiwan, has actively promoted digital transformation in recent years, transitioning from a traditional telecommunications company to a technology service company, and established a transformation office to propose innovative business models, provide new value for customer service, update internal work processes, and upgrade organizational structure with new technologies. At the same time, it has also actively utilized core communication technology to invest in the field of social responsibility.

        With the advancement of technology and rapid social development, although people's lives are becoming more convenient, the gap between urban and rural areas continues to widen. In view of this, Far EasTone Telecommunications is particularly focused on reducing the digital gap between urban and rural areas. It not only invests funds, technology, and manpower, but also actively connects different stakeholders such as NPOs, suppliers, employees, and users, leveraging the influence of large enterprises and working together with peers in society.

        Collaborate with NGOs to shorten the gap in educational resources between urban and rural areas

                Since 2015, Far EasTone Telecommunications has been collaborating with the NGO Teach For Taiwan (TFT), which focuses on educational inequality. At that time, TFT urgently needed to recruit teachers willing to teach in rural areas. In addition to using the internet for promotion, it also needed to contact capable candidates, and communication costs became a major administrative burden.

        Through introduction, Far EasTone Telecommunications has decided to provide telecommunications technology and services in the form of a "public service account". By 2022, TFT has trained approximately 400 teachers to travel to rural areas primary schools across Taiwan, affecting over 6000 children and providing them with the opportunity to access better educational resources.

        When the epidemic was severe in 2021, Taiwan entered a Level 3 alert, and many schools adopted remote teaching. However, some families did not have enough internet, and their children faced difficulties in learning. Far EasTone Telecommunications urgently launched the "no school suspension" cooperation plan, providing SIM cards, WiFi sharers, and using TFT to deliver materials to schools and families in need, benefiting nearly 2000 children.

        In 2022, Far EasTone Telecommunications will further cooperate with TFT to hold a "pen pal project" and a "career sharing day" through teacher Huang Jingchun, a member of TFT who teaches at Lunshan Elementary School in Zhuoxi Township, Hualien County. Among them, the "Pen Friend Project" is a volunteer program led by Far EasTone Telecommunications colleagues. They formed pen friends with children from Lunshan Elementary School and shared their daily and life experiences in different cities. This not only provides students with more opportunities to practice writing, but also broadens their horizons. The 'Career Sharing Day' is also organized by Far EasTone Telecommunications colleagues as volunteer speakers, planning breakthrough activities, and led by Far EasTone Telecommunications PR and Corporate Sustainability Director Lin Huishan. The day shares the growth process and career development process with students face-to-face, guiding them to explore their own traits and strengths, think about career planning, and lay a foundation for the future.

        In recent years, when promoting public welfare projects, Far EasTone Telecommunications not only donates money or technology, but also hopes to invite more colleagues to participate. On the one hand, it expands its influence, and on the other hand, it also enhances employees' recognition and sense of honor towards the company, creating a win-win situation for enterprises, employees, public welfare groups, or disadvantaged units.

        Cross border technological innovation, making urban and rural healthcare without distance

                Another case of social responsibility is the "5G remote diagnosis and treatment" actively promoted by Far EasTone Telecommunications in recent years.

        In 2019, the Far EasTone Telecommunications Transformation Office was concerned about the issue of rural areas in Taiwan and insufficient medical resources in outlying islands. In addition to the backward medical quality in metropolitan areas, the cost of medical treatment for the public is also higher. In addition, Taiwan and even the international community are facing social challenges of fewer children and older age. It is foreseeable that the impact of insufficient medical care resources and manpower will come with it.

        Given the advent of the 5G era, Far EasTone Telecommunications has decided to invest in the development of a "5G remote diagnosis and treatment platform" and surrounding software and hardware solutions. By combining 5G, IoT technology, and cloud based video, the first 5G remote diagnosis and treatment solution in Taiwan was created in 2020, and clinical services were actually provided. It is hoped that through the "Internet replacing the road", medical geographical restrictions will be broken, medical equity will be promoted, and the transformation of the medical industry will be promoted.

        With the Far EasTone Telecommunications "5G remote diagnosis and treatment platform", patients can instantly transmit physiological data and medical images to medical institutions as far as 100 kilometers away at home or nearby grassroots medical institutions (clinics), allowing remote specialists to conduct video consultations and multi-party consultations. This not only reduces patients' transportation time and increases their willingness to seek medical treatment, but also improves treatment opportunities through early treatment, Even achieving the benefits of reducing traffic carbon emissions.

        It may seem like simply injecting technology into the medical industry, but due to the fact that remote diagnosis and treatment span two major professional fields: "communication technology" and "medical", technologists cannot understand the needs of doctors, and doctors cannot imagine how communication technology can combine with medical models, leading to frequent failures in cooperation between the two industries in recent years. The Far EasTone Telecommunications team understands that telemedicine is not only about product and technological innovation, but also about innovating service models with medical quality and ecology. Therefore, they break away from the original design model and are actually close to different levels and roles of healthcare. They participate in and deeply understand each other's thinking and homework, think about problems and solutions, and successfully collaborate with different levels of indicator medical institutions, physicians, Ministries of Health and Welfare, the Health Insurance Agency National Health Research Institutes (Taiwan), local health bureaus, medical associations, medical software, medical equipment industries, etc. have established a collaborative pipeline, accumulated valuable medical industry knowledge, and become the key to the success of launching a new smart medical model.

                In addition, in the past, hospitals or medical centers had their own systems, making it difficult to achieve cross institutional linkage. The Far EasTone Telecommunications team successfully won cooperation from multiple medical centers and medical institutions at all levels, creating a cloud based SaaS service platform that can support medical clinical process integration, and supporting the Medical Internet of Things (IoT) (Medical IoT), while adopting the international electronic medical record exchange standard "HL7-FHIR", Breaking through the most difficult service chain in the medical industry in the past, thereby increasing the efficiency of medical staff.

        Through the cloud service model, medical institutions do not need to build their own systems, making service deployment and maintenance easier and significantly reducing costs; In addition, cloud services also have the characteristics of rapid integration of new applications and cost sharing, innovating industry co creation models.

        In the past two years, Far EasTone Telecommunications has shifted its focus towards medical mobility and zero time difference distance services, overturning the old medical model and developing more diverse and innovative medical technology services, including 5G ambulances (pre hospital distance guidance for emergency rescue, real-time monitoring and consultation for transfer), video outpatient technology service platforms, and other practical clinical application services.

        Far EasTone Telecommunication 5G remote diagnosis and treatment service has been put into rural areas, and has been expanded to rural areas health centers in 12 counties, cities and 35 villages and towns in Taiwan, with a maximum of 27 specialized outpatient clinics, including the first cardiac specialized telemedicine in Taiwan, and the first 5G diabetes continuous care telemedicine service in Taiwan. Not only does it improve the medical resources of rural areas, but it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution emissions, and medical cost waste caused by medical round-trip transportation. It is estimated that the cumulative value of sustainable benefits reaches NTD 29850292, creating a smart medical new economy of NTD 104 million.

        Starting from this year, with the further relaxation of remote diagnosis and treatment regulations, care for chronic diseases, long-term care, and disabilities will be important areas of development and application in the future. Far EasTone Telecommunications will also begin to promote related applications and services, continue to use the power of communication technology to shorten the gap in medical resources between urban and rural areas.

        Merge with Asia Pacific to continuously expand social influence

        After promoting corporate social responsibility for a long time, Far EasTone Telecommunications has also observed that employees generally have a high level of participation in public welfare activities organized by the company and are deeply proud of it. Far EasTone Telecommunications specifically integrates ESG into the company's sustainable business strategy blueprint, and also provides employees with the opportunity to practice ESG through daily business practices. Most colleagues' understanding goes from 'social responsibility is equivalent to doing public welfare', Upgrade to 'daily business is also related to social responsibility'.

        After the merger with Asia Pacific Telecom in the future, with the simultaneous increase of resources and employees, Far EasTone Telecommunications will invest more resources in social welfare and reduce the urban-rural gap. It will continue to communicate with new and old stakeholders (employees, users, suppliers), encourage more people to participate, work together to expand social influence, and fulfill the social responsibility of the communication industry, Use the power of technology to achieve mutual prosperity and prosperity with society.

                #