ITRI Experience

The ITRI experience is more than sitting in a sterile office or toiling in a laboratory. Plenty of interactions among employees happen every day. People visit each other and exchange ideas or observations, contributing to a friendly and stimulating atmosphere.

The ITRI environment is pleasant and bustling with energy. There are many nice gathering places. Just outside the library, people engage in conversation on the porch when the weather is nice. Many buildings provide covered outdoor areas for relaxed meetings. Chimei coffee house is also a good place to gather and have a meal. Around the 42-hectare campus, people can be seen strolling or jogging during the off-hours. It is also common to see children play in the grassy area and employees unwind on basketball courts or baseball fields. ITRI is a place to work but also a place to live.

Most of ITRI's operations are located in Hsinchu, a charming community with a population of about 400,000. Two major universities provide a lot of interesting events year-around. Seashores and rolling hills are within 15 kilometers. Several forested mountains with elevation in the 2-3000 meters range are within a 2-hour drive.Two employees offer their insight on their ITRI experience below.

From Dr, Philip Drake of Great Britain

Date: Aug. 8th, 2002

I spent two years looking for a job in Taiwan based on published sources and the Internet. I wrote to a lot of places, including ITRI, without getting any response. My luck changed when an ITRI team visited the company I worked for. Although I was in a different department, I was able to meet the British trade representative who accompanied the Taiwanese delegation. He helped to steer my application through the right channels and here I am.

My background is in chemistry. My job here is to do with BioNanotechnology, a relatively new field. There are a lot of exciting possibilities.

This is only my third month in the job, but I have been to Taiwan many times in the past few years to see my girlfriend (now wife). She works in Taipei. I commute from Taipei to Hsinchu, a 90-minute bus journey each way. ITRI provide a shuttle bus, there are only a few stops and it is mostly motorway driving. I would say it is a bit awkward but tolerable.

Taipei is just like any big city, with lots to offer and also a few drawbacks. With the MRT system (Metro Rapid Transit) it is very easy to get around. That is a huge improvement compared to the pre-MRT days. There is a large English speaking foreigner community in Taipei, so there is always something to do. I play weekly soccer games in Shi-Pai with French / American / Australian / Canadian colleagues (about eight countries represented in total). They also organise many other social events.

I am taking private Chinese lessons but I hope that one day there will have enough demand in ITRI to support a class in-house.

From Dr. Oleg Demine, a visiting scholar from Russia

Date: Aug. 8th, 2002

I first heard about ITRI about 9 years ago when I joined a Moscow-based Russian Taiwanese company as an engineer. Since that time I considered a possibility of applying for a job within ITRI. Later through my research work I was able to connect with ITRI¡¦s people regarding problems of some common interest. Now, having spent at ITRI over three months, I can tell about my impressions, which are very positive.

What I like at ITRI in particular is its dynamic, result-oriented working environment, very wide span of research activities, high professionalism of its people and great research facilities. The expertise of the people and the research facilities which we have at MRL/ITRI make it, no doubt, one of the most advanced materials research centers in the world.

Indeed, comfortable living and recreational facilities are not the least. There are basically no "house-hold" problems for ITRI's foreign employees. I stayed in the dormitory for singles first, and now I am staying in Kuang Ming village with my wife and son joining me. Both kinds of company housings are good, with easy access to neighborhood shops for ordinary needs. The single housing is within walking distance to my workplace, while the family housing is on a commuter bus line. On weekend my family can roam the city, go to beach or mountains. I know about 15 people from Russia or nearby countries here, and we get together for fun sometimes. I know no place in Hsinchu for authentic Russian supplies, but there are stores for western stuff like cheese, ham, etc. Driving in the middle of hundreds of motorcycles is quite an experience, but people can get used to it. I am looking forward to traveling to other parts of the island, the marble gorges on the east and the coral-rich seashores in the south.

My special thanks goes to the nice and welcoming people who work at ITRI.