NCKU Phoenix Lecture Series Fosters Global Vision and Interdisciplinary Dialogue

In early 2025, NCKU held two major Phoenix Lectures, continuing its goal of inviting global experts to share insights. Launched in 2024, the series promotes international vision, interdisciplinary exchange, and science education, highlighting NCKU’s global academic role.

The first Phoenix Lecture featured NCKU Class of 1980 alumnus and Yageo Corporation Chairman Tai-Ming Chen, who delivered a talk titled “From Tainan to the World: A Global Perspective from NCKU.” Reflecting on his 40-year journey, he shared how he led Yageo’s growth into a global company with 20 R&D centers, 61 factories, and over 50,000 employees—more than 80% of them international. He offered five career tips: prioritize the right company over the right industry, choose companies with a global outlook, avoid frequent job changes, embrace technology, and stay curious.

Chairman Chen also highlighted Yageo’s modern corporate culture, which is built on openness, diversity, and cross-cultural communication, unlike traditional local models. He discussed key startup challenges such as funding and market positioning, urging students to understand industry trends and structures to build lasting ventures. After an engaging Q&A, the NCKU President Meng-Ru Shen presented Chen with a commemorative plaque and painting, honoring his inspiring talk and enduring ties to NCKU.

The second lecture featured renowned astrophysicist Professor Matthew Bailes from Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology. Using virtual reality and 4D visualization, he delivered an engaging talk that illustrated celestial bodies' motion and gravity's effects, vividly tracing the evolution of human understanding of the cosmos.

His lecture covered significant astronomical developments, from ancient universe models to modern theories of gravity by Newton and Einstein. He explained phenomena like the moon’s tidal locking, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, and Mercury’s orbit, then introduced black holes, neutron stars, and pulsars. Using an elevator thought experiment, he made complex ideas like gravitational lensing easy to understand. The event attracted enthusiastic participation from students and faculty in the College of Science and astronomy enthusiasts across the university, sparking greater interest in the study of cosmic phenomena.