Industrial Technology Research Institute

I first came to Taiwan in 2011 to do a Master’s Degree in Computer Science & Information Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, in Taipei. I wanted to do my MS overseas in a SE Asian country because it is an upcoming region. After doing some research I found that Taiwan’s Ministry of Education gives a nice scholarship, and the research of my NTUST professor was on a topic of interest that lined up with my undergraduate research.

When I got here I didn’t know any Mandarin at all. The university offered language classes but it was once a week and there’s only so much you can learn. But I’ve picked it up mostly through self-study since graduating. Taiwan has a great environment for learning Mandarin. I was not too shy to speak it, people were very helpful and encouraging, and now I’m more or less fluent.

After completing my MS in 2013, I started working for a small company in Taipei. The company was in the IC design field, I was on the software side. I also ended up doing a lot of sales and promotion work because the company wanted to expand its overseas markets and needed someone who could speak English, so I attended some overseas trade fairs and represented the company in relations with global clients.

After a year and a half there, I applied for a job at ITRI that was advertised on LinkedIn. After I was hired I moved to Hsinchu, which is more peaceful and quiet than Taipei. I work in the Information and Communications Research Labs, creating apps for the iOS platform. My main project has been building an app (called Y5Bus) that allows free wifi on the large number of long-distance buses that run between the various major cities. We work with a local company that provides the routers inside each bus, and Y5Bus lets users access free wifi while they ride. Our next step is to add more features, such as on-line shopping, travel information, etc. It’s a 3-year government-sponsored project and I am very interested to see it through to the end; there is potential for a spin-off company to be formed.

I live in the dormitories on campus, the rent is cheap and it’s very convenient, my morning commute is a five minute walk across ITRI’s lovely green campus.

I enjoy my life in Taiwan. There is plenty to do on the weekends, I can go to the mountains, or to the beaches, and traveling around the island is not expensive. I often go to Taipei where I still have many friends from my university days. I have had some offers to go work in China but I am happy here, Taiwan seems nicer and safer to me.

While I haven’t had any major problems here, I would say that the culture can be a little bit frustrating at times. Sometimes, in my old job, I was just trying to be a good employee by giving feedback, or pointing out flaws in someone’s idea. But being direct in your communication is often considered rude here, so I found out later that some of my co-workers were uncomfortable about this. In any case, my view is that it’s pointless to complain that people don’t do things the way I am used to; you have to learn the local culture and adapt yourself to it.


Note: Madhawan Misra left ITRI in 2017 to take a software development job in Taipei.