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Science
Parks
By Michael Alan Hamlin
May 11, 2001
There's a larger, related question, however, than seducing
consumers to the Internet. And that is seducing investors to net-savvy
economies.
According to the non-profit Technology Information
Program (ATIP), there are around 200 science and technology parks
competing for investment in Asia. Worldwide estimates vary from
600 to 1,000. About half of the science parks in Asia are in Japan,
and local governments in China run half of the rest. India, despite
its growing reputation as a technology hub ¾ it exported
over US$8 billion in software last year ¾ has just a dozen
or so.
What makes a science and technology park? Well, it
takes a village. According to a recent report in Asia-Inc., the
International Association of Science Parks says to qualify as a
science or technology park, a development must exhibit three qualities.
First, it must have operational links ¾ not just proximity
¾ with universities, research centers, and other institutions
of higher education.
Second, the park must be "designed to encourage
the formation and growth of knowledge-based industries or high-value-added
tertiary firms." Finally, the park must have "a steady
management team actively engaged in fostering the transfer of technology
and business to tenant organizations." The report notes that
by this standard, the number of bona fide science and technology
parks in Asia shrinks.
Yet others say still more is required. David Crowe,
chief operating officer of Editor.com and author of the Asia-Inc.
report notes that park developers "are constructing grand projects
in which a new generation of the technical elite can live and work
in relative luxury, in modern homes, with community shopping centers,
advanced technology laboratories, golf courses, and the occasional
Jacuzzi.
The attempt is to make the place, "cool,"
as Paco Sandejas, vice president of H&Q Asia Pacific put it
at the recent Cebu IT Summit, as in "a cool place to live."
Mr. Crowe says, "the business model is all about 'work-play'
combinations. The Singapore Science Park offers tenants a gymnasium,
an aerobics studio, a swimming pool, tennis courts, food courts,
cafés, restaurants, bus shuttles within the park, and shuttles
to Singapore's MRT train stations." And that's not all. Childcare
clinics and medical clinics are also available, as are business
seminars, health programs, and lunchtime entertainment.
The one Philippine park profiled in the report had
few of these attractions. The Philippines' new IT investment zones
in Eastwood City, Fort Bonifacio, and RCBC Plaza, however, potentially
can rival many of Asia's best parks in a number of ways, except
in the area of education. For example, Hong Kong Science Park has
formal ties to six universities in Hong Kong. Bursting-at-the-seams
Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park in Taiwan has links to 12
research facilities and two nearby national universities, and the
Singapore Science Park sits next to the National University of Singapore
and boasts 7,000 engineers and scientists within the park.
To attract high value-added investments, it's imperative
that the Philippines' educational infrastructure improve. Just as
important, academe and the parks must learn to link meaningfully
and effectively to generate the research and the people required
to drive development. The high-tech fallout has probably reached
its peak in the U.S., and if that's the case, the thirst for people
will be greater than ever.
And meanwhile, competition for high value-added technology
investment in Asia has never been greater .
(Mr. Hamlin is managing director of the consultancy
TeamAsia and the author of two books on Asian economies and managing
in Asia. His latest book is The New Asian Corporation: Managing
for the Future in Post-Crisis Asia. His e-mail address is mahamlin@teamasia.com.ph.)
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