Echopedia

Taiwan National Treasure Foundation (國家寶藏基金會)

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Taiwan National Treasure Foundation (國家寶藏基金會)

Identity Snapshot

  • English: Taiwan National Treasure Foundation
  • Chinese: 國家寶藏基金會
  • Era: Contemporary
  • Geography: Taiwanese American community
  • Core roles: Community organization (TAH directory)

The Taiwan National Treasure Foundation is a US 501(c)(3) public charity nonprofit organization dedicated to recovering and digitizing historical records about Taiwan held in foreign archives. Its first project site is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA II) near Washington, D.C., where volunteers use a mobile app to photograph and catalog documents. Materials gathered — including intelligence records, geographic surveys, and biographical documentation compiled by countries such as the US and UK over the past century — are automatically entered into a searchable database. The foundation aims to bring these historical resources back into public view to help Taiwanese people rediscover and reinterpret their own history.

From the record

  • The 國家寶藏 (National Treasure) project grew out of the US g0v hackathon scene and was cited alongside UN4TW and 美國國會台灣觀測站 as a跨世代 cross-generational Taiwanese American advocacy effort in 林倢’s 2017 account of the草根外交 behind the Taiwan Travel Act ( 2017-10).

  • 2017-07-10 — community coverage of the史料挖掘 effort: “85. 挖掘史料 台美人推國家寶藏計畫” ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/tw-85|TAH story #85]]).

  • Founders named in the press record carried in the corpus: 旅美台人蕭新晟、林育正、莊士杰 launched the 國家寶藏 project in summer 2016, collecting and photographing Taiwan-related documents at NARA and the UN archives in New York; site + mobile app launched 2017-09 with ~1,000 visits on day one — 2017-09-19. Co-founder 蕭新晟 (Hsin-Cheng Hsiao) designed the website; he later led a 國家寶藏 project team at the OTD/海台青 hackathon workshop (海外台灣青年陣線).

  • The project was premiered publicly as a hackathon track at the 2017 U.S. East Coast Taiwanese Summer Camp (TACEC, 2017-07-01~04, West Chester University PA): the 國家寶藏 team “搜索到所有美國官方有關台灣議題的記錄文件” among 8 OTD projects — 楊遠薰’s eyewitness column 2017-07-24.

  • Scale of the archive effort as stated at launch: NARA holds ~60,000,000 (六千萬筆) Taiwan-related records, of which only ~16,000 had been processed by 2017-09; founders planned to extend to Japanese and Dutch colonial-era archives ( 2017-09-19).

  • Companion community coverage: “86. 台青年探索台灣史 美國國家檔案局挖寶” ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/relate-tw-86|TAH story #86]], 2017-09-21).

  • Directory entry work page: Taiwan National Treasure Foundation 國家寶藏基金會 (TAH directory, era 2017).

  • Community memoir engagement: a first-person account of how the project shaped a younger Taiwanese American’s own identity recovery — 2026-02-03 (taiwaneseamerican.org).

  • HOLD: conflict on project start — 自由時報 2017-09-19 report says the project “起始於去年暑假” (summer 2016); 林倢’s Our Journeys account ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys320|TAH #320]]) dates the related hackathon-era advocacy wave to 2017. Never merged.

  • Corpus re-grep 2026-09-22 (slice 09211300-4): hit set unchanged (ourjourneys320, tw-85, directory work page, relate-tw-86, national-treasure-taiwanese-identity, TJJ 轉載報導); all already absorbed above; HOLD on 2016-vs-2017 project start stands. SKIP-no-new-material.

Sources

  • |TAH Foundation
  • |taiwaneseamericanhistory.org
  • Corpus re-grep 2026-09-22 (slice 09220800-1): hit set unchanged — ourjourneys320, tw-85, relate-tw-86, directory work page, TJJ 轉載報導, 海台青與黑客松, national-treasure-taiwanese-identity; all already absorbed. HOLD on 2016-vs-2017 project start stands. SKIP-no-new-material.

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