BITSA is a Boston area student organization dedicated to promoting the culture and heritage of Taiwan and Taiwanese-Americans. Established in September 1997 by the Taiwanese students of Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, its purpose is to provide a medium through which the Taiwanese students of the greater Boston area can come together, interact, and share knowledge and resources. Since its inception, BITSA has grown to include groups from BC, BU, and Wellesley. As one of the largest college cities in the United States, Boston is home to many Taiwanese students. Boston is also a sister city of Taipei. However, there has never been much interaction among the Taiwanese students across our campuses. To remedy this situation, we created BITSA to facilitate communication and community among the Boston area Taiwanese students.

Starting in the fall of 1998, BITSA has held three annual conferences at Harvard and MIT, featuring pre-eminent keynote speakers such as Dr. David Ho, 1997 Time Magazine Man of the Year. The conferences draw as many as 300 participants from all around Boston and as far away as Stanford!

Some of our other past events include community service work with the Greater Boston Food Bank, a school-sponsored lectures series including Asian studies specialist Professor Alan Wachman at Harvard and Taiwanese activist Tim Chng at BU, and Karaoke events. We are in the process of planning a Ski Trip to Killington, a BITSA Olympics and picnic in April 2001, and a BITSA contingent at the Walk for Cancer in May.