In the year of 2000, Chairman Raymond Soong of Lite-On Technology Corporation who started the enterprise from scratch, decided to set up the Lite-On Awards to stimulate and nurture innovation. He felt keenly that in his student days, there was hardly any resource devoted to promote innovative activities among youths. His fervent wish was to build a scientific/technological stage on which creative students can pursue their dreams of catching a whiff of inspiration.

Started as an individual’s wish to repay what he owes the society, Lite-On Awards has now become a leading international competition and a busy breeding ground of scientific and technological innovation.


Our Roving Ambassadors
The Lite-On Awards has been sending “roving ambassadors” to various parts of the world to explain what we have been doing and to promote our mission. We want to conduct face-to-face communication with our friends near and afar.

Since 2001, footsteps of these envoys have covered huge territory stretching from southern Taiwan to Northeast China which includes the Kaohsiung Pingdong River Valley on Taiwan and mainland Chinese regions such as the Shandong Peninsula, the charming Jiangnan region south of the Yangtze River, renowned for its rich cultural life, and Northeast China (Manchuria) of awe-inspiring snow-clad mountains and rivers. Our tours touched numerous points on both sides of the longest river of China, the Yangtze. Covering ourselves with suntan lotion and lightest clothing, we braved the scorching sun in Kaohsiung, the city of eternal summer. There, one wipes perspiration off the forehead constantly in order to complete an explanation of the purpose and details of our Awards. Then, overnight, our thermometer plunged below zero when we reached Harbin in Manchuria where, wrapped up in down jackets, we breathed out white steam while talking about the same things.

In Taiwan we covered ten cities: Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Chungli, Miaoli, Taichung, Yunlin, Jiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. In China, we did fifteen: Harbin, Beijing, Qingdao, Jinan, Si-an. Changsha, Chongqing, Shanghai, Wuxi, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Zhenjiang, Guangzhou, and Kunming. In 2007, our visits extended beyond the “three regions on both sides of the Taiwan Strait” to Hong Kong and Singapore, a center of Chinese population in Southeast Asia.

Since 2001, we visited over 300 colleges and schools, and our Awards received more than 7,300 entries. In the future, we will go farther to reach all corners of the world. The Lite-On Awards will blossom and bear fruits in all parts of the world.


The Awards is International
But, the Lite-On Award does not belong to the Chinese alone. It is international. Starting in 2003, we have invited renowned international designers to join our panel of judges, further confirming our international character.

Peter Zec, President of Red Dot GmbH, Christoph Boeninger, former Chairman of the iF Panel of Judges of Germany; Ralph Wiegmann, Marketing Director of iF International Forum GmbH also of Germany; Gordon Bruce, Senior Advisor of Design, Samsung Electronics of Korea; Kim Chul-Ho, former President of the Korean Institute of Design Promotion, Tsutomu Yamauchi, President of the Japanese Industrial Designer’s Association Admission, are among the leading designers of Europe, America, Japan and Korea who joined the panel of judges of the Lite-On Awards. Besides raising the standards set by our panel of judges to a higher level, they also instilled insight and wisdom in our contestants and outlined a roadmap for them to reach designers’ global stardom.


Diamonds in the Rough
The Lite-On Awards brought forth many cases in which diamonds in the rough have been crafted into priceless jewels. A number of the most brilliant prize winners of our Awards have joined Lite-On’s “Innocell Creativity Center” which, as a result, helped Lite-On Technology Corporation to bring home many coveted prizes from iF, Red Dot, IDEA and other respected international design competitions.


Design Oscar Award hold by Chinese
The golden giant of the Oscar, stands as the ultimate professional recognition to actors and movie producers. Lite-On Awards aims at becoming the “Design Oscar Award hold by Chinese”. Like the golden giant of the Oscar, the new Lite-On Awards trophy which redesigned in 2007 and shaped in the unique Lite-On headquarters building, hopes to become an absolute goal for all design talents who wish to obtain professional recognition and self-fulfillment to pursue, and shows their excellent industrial design ability to the whole world!