New Taipei City is a city bursting with creative talents and innovative energy. At present, New Taipei City has promoted a number of youth startup policies, and established bases including InnoSquare, New Taipei Social Enterprise and E-commerce Base, and New Taipei City E-sports Base.Moreover, New Taipei City government worked with Amazon AWS to establish NTPC-AWS Joint Innovation Center, providing various resources such as venue space, mentor counseling, professional courses, industries connection, capital placement, and international links, to help emerging enterprises and startups grow and upgrade.In the future, New Taipei City will continue to create a more friendly environment on a sound foundation and build a one-stop solution to assist the startup teams with development, creating a comprehensive ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship.New Taipei City sets up the New Taipei Pavilion for the first time at InnoVEX this year. With the theme of smart city, the exhibition will use the activities such as displays, forums, and exchanges to help the startup teams win the favors of the venture capitals, accelerators, and enterprises at home and abroad.The results of this New Taipei City exhibition include Muro Box of TEVOFY Technology, GO+ earphone of FuelStation, the home soap-making machine of LESSDO, the car service platform of IGCAR, the e-commerce data decision making platform of ORDERLY, the AI marketing platform of MemePR, the smart home appliances of Cloudmii, the financing placement platform of GateWeb Information, the augmented reality game of Toii, the AI security camera image analysis platform of Beseye, the IoT B2B overall solution of SoftChef, and the smart healthcare platform of Asia-Pacific Intelligent.Moreover, to link up to international startup resources, New Taipei City will conduct exchange and cooperation with startup and incubation institutions such as the acceleration program Startup GO! GO! from Fukuoka, Japan, and QBO Innovation Hub from the Philippines during the InnoVEX exhibition. Soft landing solutions will be provided to each other, allowing the New Taipei startup teams to create more opportunities for international collaboration. At InnoVEX 2019, New Taipei City's Smart City Pavilion is located at Booth A0505a, Hall 1 of Taipei World Trade Center from May 29 to 31, 2019.

TMYTEK has solved two critical issues in 5G development - lack of R&D tool and expensive OTA testing in the production line - with their mmWave beamformer product, BBox.The flexibility of BBox makes it an excellent R&D tool for antenna designer and protocol researchers. Leading institutes and universities have already used BBox to demonstrate promising technologies such as beam tracking algorithm optimization.BBox can also be a cost-effective 5G OTA testing solution. As an RF probe, beam steering can be easily achieved in BBox to characterize the beam profile and the steering angle of the DUTs."We have talent rarely found in Taiwan startup team. By solving the above issues, TMYTEK believes we can contribute to the world with the technology we're proud of. In addition to mmWave experts, brilliant embedded software and firmware engineers are also in our team. That's the reason we can build our mmWave beamforming technology for 5G communication," Ethan Lin, vice president of TMYTEK, said.TMYTEK, founded in 2014, has been focusing on mmWave active/passive components and system development. Phase array, mmWave circuits, beam control logic, beam shaping & tracking algorithm, and even baseband chipset integration are all in TMYTEK's scope.Last year, TMYTEK won the first prize of CIAT accelerator program with BBox and received recognition from 13 venture capitals.

France's data protection authority CNIL issued an announcement in January 2019 imposing a fine equivalent to NT$1.76 billion on Google for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforced by the EU. Besides traditional information risks facing individual industries, the ordinary people must also be aware of the data safety listed below and associated with innovative industry chains in the emerging digital economy era, namely web services, social networking and encrypted tokens.Web servicesBased on the traffic monetization business model seen in popular web services, many innovation startups have launched a variety of web content for access by netizens and attract them to stay, so that they can utilize personal data of consumers and multiple data accumulated from diverse online behavior to make profits from conducting ads push notification in cooperation with other firms. In the web service access process, the lack of transparency in handling personal data and notification of content that is either too simple or too complicated will lead to major legal disputes and huge potential damages.Social networkingIn various future digital scenarios, the mainstream applications will be ones that allow consumers to do shopping, conduct financial wealth management, enjoy entertainment and arrange transportation through social network platforms. It is expected that both the reliance of global netizens on social network platforms and the boost to peripheral digital applications will intensify. Of course, various digital footprints resulting from such a lifestyle will incur high economic values, which will surely be highly coveted by cyber hackers and should be strongly protected.Encrypted tokenIn line with various forms of digital tokenization trend, startups have recently been keen to engage in related R&D projects. As long as they are in the electronic form, any type of token, whether payment token, function token or securities token, will be exposed to the risk of cyber attacks in the issuance, exchange and storage processes of the token ecosystem. Amid drastic price falls for virtual currencies, the number of cyber attacks through the planting of malware will decline sharply. Nevertheless, extortions using asymmetric encryption algorithms to hijack or affect digital token operations are expected to increase steeply.The Internet era where data was valued more than privacy has gone, and various countries in the world will now establish new global digital economy norms based on diverse data processing, information security and privacy protection regulations. Google still received a huge fine from CNIL ticket though it did not leak any piece of personal data. This clearly motivates startups eager to develop emerging technologies to give more efforts to protect the consumers' rights to know how their personal data is utilized in the future development of digital technologies, in addition to handling basic data security issues such as firewall and encryption algorithms. This is the true lesson to be learnt from the Google fine.(Jason Hsieh is executive vice president and leader of Cryptoassets and Token Economy Taskforce of KPMG in Taiwan)

The first case of initial coin offering (ICO) appeared in 2017, generating much interest and new financing opportunities. But many ICO teams have declared failures or vanished soon after completing fundraising operations due to lack of government supervision. To revive the sluggish market sentiment, industry players have called for regulatory supervision over the securities token offering (STO).In response to the call, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has announced that it will formulate relevant regulations by the end of June, and it already hosted on April 12 a public hearing session for representatives from the industry, government, and academic sectors to express their opinions on draft regulatory rules.The move received a lot of media attention. Indeed, the FSC is worthy of praise for daring to map out a brand-new bill governing the emerging STO business operations. But since the full text of the draft bill was not available at the public hearing, some of the points may deserve more attention or need to be clearly explained. The following are three preliminary suggestions for the writing of a law in the direction of "developing a sound STO, conducting efficient supervision, and building international connection." It is hoped that Taiwan's STO market can take off and grab future international financing opportunities for STOs.Introducing an additional international STO version to govern issuances by foreign companies or overseas fundraising activitiesThe draft bill available at the public hearing confines STO issuers to companies in Taiwan, excluding offshore firms. As STO technology boasts the trait of facilitating cross-nation fundraising operation, it is advisable that besides the current domestic version of the STO draft bill, an international version should be devised to govern STO issuance by foreign companies or to simply regulate overseas fundraising. The international version must also include relevant procedures such as those for registration to facilitate overall management and help access and develop international markets, so as to effectively boost international visibility of Taiwan's STO developmentMeanwhile, the draft bill stipulates that any dedicated STO investor is required to have a minimum wealth of NT$30 million, but sets maximum STO subscription amount at only NT$100,000. Most attendees at the public hearing regarded the wealth bar as too high and the subscription ceiling too low. The draft stipulations observe the international practices that STOs are less open to retail investors; and to safeguard the interests of investors, the FSC adopts the high criteria for dedicated investors by taking reference from the regulations governing offshore structured products. But the draft bill should also consider flexible credit lines as set for margin trading and short selling of marketable securities. In accordance with different risk tolerance capabilities of different investors, the minimum wealth requirement criteria and the maximum subscription amount can be flexibly adjusted along with risk degrees, so as to fulfill the purpose of protecting investors on the one hand and to develop the securities token-based capital market and attract international funds on the other hand.Clarifying the relationship between STO platform operators and issuersThe draft bill requires STO issuers to channel their issuances through STO platform operators (securities dealers). But what about the relationship between platform operators and issuers - total underwriting or commissioned underwriting? The answer cannot be found from the public information. The draft bill asks, on the one hand, STO platform operators to screen the regulatory compliance by issuers in launching securities tokens on the platforms. And it also allows, on the other hand, the operators to engage in STO trading after completing the screening process by offering quotes based on market conditions to profit from the spread between token buying and selling prices. Do the dual roles played by platform operators contradict each other? Furthermore, the existing draft regulations also blur the boundary between the primary and the secondary STO markets. Accordingly, the regulator should incorporate the role of an intermediary into the draft bill and the relationship between STO platform operators and issuers be further clarified and clearly stated.Innovativeness of financial regulatory sandboxIn case of the STO fundraising amount exceeding NT$30 million, the draft bill stipulates that the issuer must enter the financial regulatory sandbox experimentation, for which a so-called "innovativeness" is required. Accordingly, if there is only one issuer applying for entering the sandbox experimentation, other issuers cannot develop the same or similar business until the issuer completes its experimentation. In order to accelerate multiple developments of the STO industry, the FSC should broaden the definition of "innovativeness" of individual STO projects, so as to allow more opportunities for issuers to meet financial regulatory sandbox requirements.(Kelvin Chung is senior attorney and sub-leader of Cryptoassets and Token Economy Taskforce of KPMG in Taiwan)

Ministry of Science and Technology has announced that its Global Research & Industry Alliance (GLORIA) initiative aims to promote industry-academia cooperation with estimated R&D investment of NT$130 million (US$4.1 million).Under the promotion, National Taipei University of Technology will cooperate with Casetek Holdings and Walsin Technology; National Taiwan University of Science and Technology with Aaeon Technology; Taipei Medical University with Wel-Bloom Bio-Tech; and Feng Chia University with Gain-How Printing, MOST said.GLORIA has also successfully prompted Qualcomm to cooperate with National Taiwan University, National Cheng Kung University, National Tsing Hua University and National Chiao Tung University in R&D and talent training, MOST noted.With a 4-year budget of NT$2.4 billion, MOST began to implement the GLORIA initiative to boost R&D cooperation between local universities and local or international enterprises in 2016.As of the end of April 2019, there were 18 alliances with 339 members established under GLORIA. GLORIA had attracted total investment of over NT$1.0 billion in cooperative R&D by participating enterprises and trained more than 3,300 experts, said MOST.GLORIA has incubated 48 startup businesses which are in international cooperation with enterprises or academic organizations in the US, Vietnam and Malaysia, MOST said.MOST is showcasing GLORIA achievements at Computex Taipei 2019.

The coming of the 5G era promises drastic changes to people's lives, but all these changes will not come without equipment, device and component suppliers making advances in their technologies and offerings, according to speakers at a Digitimes-arranged forum during Computex 2019.Commercialization of 5G is just around the corner, but compared to 4G, which has been focusing on mobile communications, the scope of 5G applications will be much broader. The 2019 Computex Taipei 5G Mobile Technology Trend Forum, with the theme of "Recreating Industry Values," brought together heavyweight industry experts to shed light on the development of 5G.In his opening speech, ST Liew, vice president of Qualcomm Technologies and president of Qualcomm Taiwan &SEA, noted that smart connection has become an inevitable trend in the future world and that through 5G's traits of high networking speed, broad bandwidth and low latency, digital technology applications will proliferate constantly. He said the world will march toward an era of inventions, with new applications and business models emerging continuously to bring major changes to industries and people's lives. And all these will be based on 5G technologies and solutions offered by various types of businesses.The extended applications of 5G will be extremely broad through the integration with AIoT, and diverse software and hardware technologies required in the 5G application architectures will be sharply different from the past, according to Morris Chen, product marketing manager at STMicroelectronics. He said that for 5G application to both consumer and industrial domains, sensors are needed at the bottom layer of the architecture to detect surrounding environments and equipment conditions and transmit relevant data collected to upper layers. Accordingly, demand for sensors will rise sharply in the future, and their sturdiness and communication capability must be simultaneously upgraded.Besides sensors, memory is also among devices that must undergo constant advancements. Mirian Kuao, senior marketing manager at Macronix, pointed out that 5G base stations are an important area for memory application. As base stations have long life cycles, their components must be highly stable and reliable. Memory suppliers for 5G base stations must guarantee long-term supplies, and their products must operate in wide ranges of temperatures and provide high storage densities.Audio chips are also key components for 5G equipment. As consumers are increasingly concerned about quality and performance of audio/visual products and recreation is also a crucial application of 5G, Dialog Semiconductor has rolled out audio chips that can sharply reduce noises when applied to UC and CE headphones and microphones. For microphone makers, the company particularly offers chip modules to help shorten time-to-market for their products.In terms of communications, frequency bands for 5G applications will be far broader than those for 4G, and system makers need brand-new development kits to support their product designs. In this regard, SW Chang, president of TMYTEK, noted that there are now fewer users of 30GHz mmWave for 5G application, as it involves greater difficulty in technology although it can provide cleaner and faster transmission. Chang disclosed that his firm's 5G beamforming antenna system development kits can help makers more easily develop antennas and test modules and baseband systems.After mmWave devices are successfully developed, test is a crucial job in volume production of the devices, according to John Lukez, vice president of LitePoint. He noted that 5G mmWave is a brand-new technology, requiring simple, reliable and accurate solutions to test 5G mmWave products on production lines. The firm's mmWave testing instrument, featuring tight space design and horn antenna, is available with a laser alignment system that can measure path loss and conduct angularity correction to boost yield rates for mmWave products and secure consistent product quality.At the forum, Daniel CC Lee, director of industrial service group product certification at TUV NORD Taiwan, explained 5G regulations and standards enforced in the US and Europe. Lee said that besides regular security certifications for electronics products, extra information security and function safety are also required for 5G devices to ensure that the entire system can maintain safe operation in case of device malfunction. He advised Taiwan firms to join the 5G mmWave Channel Model Alliance under the National Institute of Standards and Technology to access more 5G-related information available worldwide for use in their product designs.Over the past few years, AIoT applications have gradually emerged, with image identification now still commanding the largest portion of the applications, said Christine Liao, sales director at ThroughTek. Liao stressed that along with the maturing of 5G, its high networking speed and broad bandwidth traits will further drive upgrades in image transmission and identification technologies. Long engaged in the development of image processing technologies, ThroughTek has been well prepared for the arrival of the 5G era, she added.Roger Huang, director of Digitimes Research, said that the US and Korea will start commercialization of 5G services in 2019, while Japan and China will follow suit soon, inspiring major tech firms to step up development of diverse vertical application equipment in addition to smartphones. He concluded that the ever-proliferating 5G applications will usher in ever-expanding business opportunities, and Taiwan firms must speed up their deployments in related aspects to create more value-added services.The Digitimes-arranged 5G forum brings together industry experts.Photo: Digitimes staff

After the iWatch became all the rage, wearable devices have suddenly become the most popular IT product. Companies in the market rushed to introduce various devices, such as smart watches, smart wristbands, and even smart necklaces and earrings, all of which can detect biosignals through built-in sensors. However, most wearable devices share common drawbacks. In addition to inaccurate detection under vigorous exercises like jogging, some medical devices require users to change their lifestyle, which significantly reduced their use rate. SmartFace Inc, led by professor Bing-Fei Wu of National Chiao Tong University (NCTU), has developed a vision-based biosignal health management system to measure and detect biosignals through visuals without contact. The system's accuracy is higher than that required by medical standards and can be applied in medical and financial sectors.The application of wearable devices in the medical sector started early, then the IT industry launched related products, including all kinds of smart wristbands, glasses, and watches. These wearable devices use built-in sensors to detect biosignals, but they lose their accuracy if not aiming at certain parts of the body (i.e. pulse). As for medical grade products that require a high standard on precision, some need to be worn over long periods of time, such as heart rate detectors worn by cardiac disease patients at home or devices for detecting sleep apnea. These devices affect users' daily living. In light of this, Wu focused on precision and easy application as the two major principles when conducting research and development. His vision-based biosignal health management system can accurately detect biological information without users feeling anything.This system first obtains facial information through a camera and then shows the heart rate and blood pressure after the analysis by special algorithms developed by FaceHeart Inc. Accuracy can reach 2-3 bpm when users are inactive, not worse than the medical standards. It can still be use even during jogging on the treadmill. Also, users don't need to purchase a high-precision camera. Heart rate detection only requires cameras with a frame speed of 30 fps, whereas the detection of blood pressure will require cameras with higher specs, but Taiwan suppliers are capable of making both kinds of cameras.The vision-based biosignal health management system of FaceHeart Inc. has diverse applications. It is for users who need to detect biosignals without making contact with the device itself. The system is most commonly seen in elderly care. To take care of elders in the family, some people will purchase devices like smartwatches for them to wear, but the elderly are not familiar with electronic products, which are eventually cast aside without being used. The system from FaceHeart Inc. can have a camera set up in front of the television so the elderly can have their heart rate and blood pressure detected while watching TV.In addition to the medical sector, financial institutions are starting to use the vision-based biosignal health management system. In 2017, Professor Wu's team at NCTU won first prize in the smart financial system competition by the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, Ltd. (SCSB). They then worked with SCSB to integrate it into the Know Your Customer (KYC) system, which companies use to identify customers. Scams are on the rise in recent years. In the past KYC tried to prevent dummy accounts by relying on questionnaires to conduct background checks on customers applying to open new accounts. But SCSB uses the vision-based biosignal identification system, allowing employees to immediately determine whether the applicants passes the KYC procedures, reducing the employees' workload.Both the hardware and software of this health management system are independently researched and developed by Wu's team at NCTU. Even the microprocessing chip comes from the cooperation with Taiwan's MediaTek Inc. It is an AI system that is completely self-made in Taiwan. Professor Wu pointed out that the system is extremely convenient to use, but they encountered many challenges during research and development. For example, they need to figure out how to ensure accurate measurement under circumstances without ample light, such as nighttime or in a dark room. Also, cameras on the market automatically adjust the aperture and shutter. This image also affects the analysis of AI. The R&D team spent 5 years overcoming all challenges and smoothly commercialize this new technology.As for the business model, Wu says that technology will have two directions: One is to authorize the core software to companies so the system can be built into cameras. The FaceHeart Inc. team can customize the software to suit customer products. The other direction is to partner with existing camera companies. For instance, cameras from security monitoring companies can combine FaceHeart's Al system to have more added functions. Wu expressed that incorporating AI into visuals has become a trend in the industry, but FaceHeart does not delve into mass facial recognition but a rather accurate biosignal identification to differentiate its market from competitors and aim for high-value business opportunities in a new territory.

Today people use their computers or smartphones to access digital maps, find a parking space or check out restaurant recommendations. This is part of people's everyday life now. However, many people may also have had the experience wherein the vacant parking space indicated on their phone was already taken when they got to it or the restaurant of interest to them had closed down six months before their visit. In other words, the city information people have access to is all outdated. In contrast, OmniEyes - Next-Generation Mobile Video Platform enables the creation of a city's real-time image data though the easiest and ready-to-use approach.Founded by the team led by Chun-Ting Chou, associate professor, Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering, National Taiwan University, as well as Shou-De Lin and Ai-Chun Pang, both professors of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University, OmniEyes set the goal to bring its research results to reality within three years from the time when it decided to join the Ministry of Science and Technology's Startup program in December 2017. Both the team's devotion and the fact that they have a highly feasible idea allowed their research to reach maturity in late 2018. Then backed by venture capital investments, the team established a startup firm to commercialize their research.OmniEyes - Next-Generation Mobile Video Platform makes city information more up-to-date and valuable resources more readily available through fog computing. According to Chou, AI has become the most critical trend for the Information Technology (IT) sector and images are the most widely available data today. With dash cameras installed on virtually every vehicle nowadays, the amount of video data is massive. If we are able to make good use of the video data, the possibilities of innovations are endless and we may even be able to reshape digital map data.Chou takes Google Maps for example. It is the most widely used digital map and its precision is rapidly improving through the collection of massive usage data. However, the city information available on Google Maps is updated every 1.5 to 2 years. In other words, what users see from Google Maps on their mobile phones is old information. OmniEyes, on the other hand, gathers images captured by cameras installed on buses, taxis and delivery trucks on the road such that image data on the back-end platform is refreshed once every five minutes. The information is kept up-to-date so that users can stay on top of city dynamics in real time, rather than fall out of sync with outdated and static information.It is not easy to achieve OmniEyes' goal. Lin points out dash cameras currently on the market mostly only have recording function. Even if they are added with communication modules to transmit the recorded images to the back-end platform in real time, the transmission of the video files can consume a lot of bandwidth due to their large sizes. Furthermore, 99% of the video footages captured by the vehicles on the road are not useful data. The biggest challenge is how to add lightweight AI capability to dash cameras with limited functionality so that they can filter out useless video data before transmitting them to the back-end platform to save bandwidth.Prof. Pang pointed out that fog computing and the increasingly popular edge computing work by having the terminal equipment handle a certain amount of the system computing, reducing the system latency and the workloads of the cloud platform and bandwidth. But in contrast to edge computing where the terminal equipment must possess computing power, fog computing extends the scope to include handsets and even dash cameras that offer very low computing capabilities. The coverage of fog computing is therefore much wider. For OmniEyes, dash cameras are its major terminal device. To address such a challenge for academic research purposes, a high-caliber dash camera may be the solution, notes Chou. However, OmniEyes set its heart on designing a practical and marketable product so it insisted on making use of dash cameras on the market and equipping them with AI capability by implementing feasible algorithms. Through a year of R&D efforts, OmniEyes has enabled dash cameras on 100 buses, 40 taxis and 10 delivery trucks to send image data collected on road trips of up to 10,000 kilometers daily to the back-end platform, making city information available in real time.Chou proposes a three-phase plan for OmniEyes going forward. For phase 1, OmniEyes endeavors to make its technology ready to use. For example, using cameras already installed on a variety of vehicles is a viable way for OmniEyes' technology to create values. For phase 2, OmniEyes looks to license its technology to manufacturers for them to integrate OmniEyes' software on their automotive devices. For phase 3, OmniEyes will make its image data platform available through a mobile phone app, which consumers can download to access city information in real time. Chou envisions OmniEyes - Next-Generation Mobile Video Platform as a search engine for the real world. Anyone can contribute information to the platform while enjoying access to it. The model of data sharing and co-creation enables more effective use of city resources.

What players the hub should have is critical to the issue in discussion. The first and foremost important thing is the right attitude. Language proficiency is an essential skill to startup teams. Just being able to communicate when making initial contact is sufficient but when it comes to business negotiations, it is important to maintain professionalism and employ professional services. They also need to be able to grow internationally. The second category of players will be investors from home and abroad including international venture capitalists (VC), multinational corporations and incubators. The third category of players will be government agencies that are willing to communicate and get their hands dirty. The fourth category of players will be traditional and non-traditional media publishing content in multiple languages and other startup ecosystem partners capable of making international connections.After we are clear about the players, we need to figure out how to bring them together to engage in interaction and communication on a scheduled or unscheduled basis so that the hub can take shape and carry on. The following discussion is directed at how Taiwan can become a startup hub, including a description of the issue and a summary of the approaches to improvement and implementation.An approach to infrastructure improvement: event + research + multi-language proficiency + multi-themeParticipation in events is the most effective way to make connections and engage in communication. However, an event's target audience, theme, nature and marketing campaign are critical to its success. Before holding an event, the organizer should establish who the target audience (TA) will be, how they can be reached and what the expected effect and influence will be. It must be based on a certain amount of data or research work. Afterwards, the organizer should keep track of the event data in the long run to help improve and perfect the planning of future events.RISE (affiliated with Web Summit originally held in Ireland), TechCrunch Disrupt SF, SLUSH, Tech in Asia and Startup Thailand are some of the show events maintaining a complete collection of participant data and exhibition statistics throughout their history. In Taiwan, leading event Meet Taipei, followed by Findit and Digitimes platforms, also gathers data on the Taiwan ecosystem through events. This is part of soft infrastructure buildup. Each event organizer has its own strength and advantage. Multi-language dissemination of information, such as updates on success stories of the Taiwan startup ecosystem, statistics and analyses on technology and investment trends as well as industry dynamics, will be Taiwan's first step to becoming Asia's startup hub and a continuing effort going forward.It is costly for visitors to come to Taiwan from abroad, so it is important that their itineraries are arranged effectively and efficiently. Enabling them to gain an understanding on Taiwan's culture and characteristics in their main activities or engaging them in other international or local events will add values to their business trip to Taiwan. To achieve such a purpose, a one-stop information platform plays an essential role. Furthermore, precise planning for TA interaction is imperative especially for events where multiple themes synergize.Take Computex and InnoVEX for example. Computex is attended mostly by vendors, manufacturers and traders who are in search of orders so the Computex venue is full of people who work in business development (BD), marketing, distribution and sales. InnoVEX, on the other hand, targets early investors, startup firms and high-tech professionals. The goal is for the two groups to actively interact. That is, medium and large corporations should have a chance to interact with small and innovative firms to create win-win situations for both. However, a close analysis on the events held so far will indicate that a major role is missing – PMs of large corporations. PMs are those who know best whether a startup will be able to collaborate well with their corporation. As such, the event organizer should mull how to draw PMs to InnoVEX.Let's first be clear on one thing: investor + startup ≠ investmentA good deal can attract investors. However, whether an investment can actually happen depends on the decision of different types of investors. Angel investors usually care more about the team members, their development potential, social contribution and minimum viable product (MVP). VC or incubators consider more aspects including people, funding, market and technology. From the people perspective, they look at the team, development potential and external partnerships/liaison skills. From the funding perspective, they examine finances, capital size, shareholding structure, exit mechanisms, valuation and previous round of investors. From the market perspective, they evaluate the business model, profitability, market positioning, competitors, product or service competitiveness, social contribution, product/market fit (PMF) and corporate/industry risks. As to technology, they assess the patent/technology strength. Moreover, VC or incubators also take into account the fundraising condition, limited partner (LP) preferences, project schedule planning, return of investment, business connections and resources, industry trends, technological edge, macro environment and government regulations.In the case of corporate venture capital (CVC) or strategic investment from large enterprises, they examine a startup based on the team, development potential and external partnerships/liaison skills from the people perspective. From the funding perspective, they consider finances and previous round of investors. From the market perspective, they evaluate business model, PMF, market positioning, competitors and corporate/industry risks. Lastly, for technology, they assess the patent/technology strength and relevancy to CVC/large enterprise's own development direction. They also examine their own purpose, expected return, payback period, industry trend, technological edge and macro environment.From the above brief summary, except in the case of angel investing, an investment deal is generally considered from multiple perspectives and things can get so complicated that there is no one simple golden rule. Each case of a startup successfully securing funding is unique. To plan startup investments systematically, government agencies must take the lead or a large venture capital firm like Sequoia Capital takes the initiative to strategically fund an entire industry chain with promising potential.What the government can do is to expedite the buildup of an ideal investment environment. For example, it can aggregate regulations and information resources and make them available while putting efforts into the construction of software and hardware infrastructure so that high-quality startups can raise their visibility and accelerate growth and then good investment deals can come into place. Furthermore, the government can also work with media firms to publicize Taiwan and attract international attention. With the business environment continuing to improve, startups can focus on what they do best.Frontline government officials should join the battleFrontline government officials in discussion herein does not refer to high-ranking officials (bureau directors and above) getting involved in event participation, forum speeches and communication with startups and investors at home and abroad. Instead, government agents one or two levels lower in the ranking including official representatives or PM, section chiefs and team leaders should be committed to getting their hands dirty. Foreign startups and investors need an efficient way to stay aware of available resources and information. It would be best if government agencies in charge can appoint official representatives to make direct contact with them. Moreover, getting government agencies involved in the communication will enable them to gain in-depth understanding on what attracts foreign people to Taiwan or what hinders their development in Taiwan.Taiwan's government agencies currently engaged in guiding startup development include the National Development Council, Ministry of Science and Technology, MOEA Small and Medium Enterprise Administration and Financial Supervisory Commission. In addition, Taiwan Start-Up Hub is a startup cluster supported by the Executive Yuan that provides startup courses and hosts a startup community, aimed to deliver and exchange startup information.Moreover, there are Taiwan Startup Stadium (TSS) and Taiwan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC), which specialize in connecting people and businesses internationally. Governments around the world are endeavoring to foster their startup scene by instituting laws and regulations to help build a solid foundation. It is particularly important that startup policies are effectively conveyed to startup teams. By providing startup teams a one-stop service integrating all startup resources will help them save the time and effort of having to search for information on startup subsidy or assistance programs and thereby maximize the benefits of the resources.The media will be the best startup ecosystem partner helping them connect to the worldProfessional media firms are experts at precisely grasping information and TA while they may not be good at being "broad" and achieving "cohesion." Non-traditional media, such as social networking sites and YouTube, are characterized by targeting a specific area and having strong cohesion. As such, different media may have different views on the same subject. Professionalism and cohesion can be manipulated through marketing efforts. Taiwan, looking to become a startup hub, lacks such marketing ability.In other words, international marketing and connection should be the common goal for the entire startup ecosystem. Startup teams, early investors (e.g. angel investors and VC), government incubators, private incubators, startup contest organizers, startup communities, large enterprises, media and other supporting entities (e.g. financial advisors, lawyers and accountants) should all work together toward the goal so as to foster an open startup ecosystem, which will in turn kick start a positive cycle pushing Taiwan toward becoming Asia's startup hub.To sum up: Satisfying needsFor Taiwan to become Asia's startup hub, the first question to ask is why startups should gather in Taiwan. What does Taiwan have to offer to draw international investors, large enterprises, startups and media? Then the question is how. Simply put, the answer is to "satisfy needs." Investors need investment targets. Startups need partners and investors. Large enterprises look for future partnerships and new technological applications. International media need hot topics.Take the five roles for example. They have needs from one another and also provide for one another. To do matchmaking among them, more thoughtful planning and execution as well as precise coordination and arrangement is required. Through data collection and analysis, the preferences and needs of each group can be better understood. Through active and passive information dissemination, Taiwan can develop a positive image among the international community as startup hub. With partnership and investment deals being made one after another, the hub can continue to flourish.(Meng-Hsin Yang and Chia-Ning Chou are assistant researchers at Taiwan Institute of Economic Research)

Drastic changes in the global industry environment, regional politics, trade tension and rapidly evolving technology innovations are making it more and more challenging to do business in recent years. Disruptive iABCD technologies (IoT, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data analytics) are coming on strong, ready to reshape the business world. Although these new technologies may bring unlimited opportunities, they also cause increasing concerns in security, privacy, regulations and social trust in the industries that make use of them. Businesses today not only have to cope with the competition in products and services but more importantly, they need to build up their abilities to protect sensitive customer data so as to maintain customer trust as they expand into new territories. With these new developments come more challenges and opportunities as well.According to PwC's Global Digital Operations 2018 Survey, PwC interviewed 1,155 manufacturing executives in 26 countries to develop an index that ranks companies by digital operations maturity, from Digital Novices, Digital Followers, Digital Innovators to Digital Champions. Some of the key findings include:Only 10% of the companies can claim the distinction of being called Digital Champion. Two thirds of the companies have not started digital transformation or only have undergone moderate digital transformation.Asia-Pacific is leading the way to digitization. Asian companies have introduced digital products and services at a much faster rate than their counterparts in the other areas. This is the result of the enthusiasm of the region's young, tech-savvy corporate managers to embrace digital technologies, as well as soaring production costs that are forcing Asian companies to digitize key operation processes to maintain competitiveness. Digital Champions create value through integrated Customer Solutions ecosystems. Digital Champions serve customers by integrating Operations, Technology, and People ecosystems to serve customers with competitive, end-to-end solutions.From these findings, we can see that integration, new technology and ecosystem are undoubtedly the most critical key words to industry competitiveness going forward.With these key words in mind, what is the next step for Taiwan's digital transformation? The Taiwan manufacturing sector has been coping with many challenges, including trade barriers, rising costs, labor shortage, global competition, supply chain transformation, environmental protection pressure, labor law changes and tax law changes. Almost all business executives find it difficult to maintain operation. Only by continuingly upgrading themselves, refining their management skills and strengthening their competitiveness can they make breakthroughs and thrive in a highly competitive environment.According to PwC's 22nd CEO Survey: Technology trends report 2019, 50% of tech company leaders were "extremely concerned" about finding the talent and skills they needed. Creative talent is hard to find and that has become tech leaders' top concern. With the whole world aggressively engaging in digital transformation and industry upgrade, what opportunities are there for Taiwan firms and startups?To answer the question, let's first look at market changes. Before a startup sets up shop, the question to ask is whether they will sell products or services to businesses (B-side) or consumers (C-side). According to PwC China's New Trends of Technology Enabling To-B Services Whitepaper, the market in the Internet era has little room for startups (T) with innovative technologies to grow from C-side. In other words, most of the topics or business models have been explored by other startups. Furthermore, with medium and large corporations taking hold of marketing and channel resources of the consumer market, it will be very risky for startup firms to insist on creating a blue ocean market through a 2C model.We can foresee the trend that future startups will likely be operating on the mainstream T2B2C model but they will need to search for upstream opportunities. Tech startups should think about how to apply their strength to provide B-side customers better solutions. In the high-tech era, with IoT and smartphones being widespread, the T2B2C model has become popular and has developed in depth across upstream and downstream industries, which has reshaped user experiences of services and products and further created ecosystems combining various platform systems, igniting possibilities in many aspects for the business environment.What does the T2B2C trend mean to Taiwan startups and firms? Taiwan has fostered a complete supply chain and premium workforce with its focus on ICT industry development over the years. This is certainly Taiwan's biggest advantage. Many international corporations have chosen to set up their R&D or procurement centers in Taiwan, mostly eyeing Taiwan's strong supply chain and engineering talent. This is proof that Taiwan with such unique advantages still appeals to global conglomerates.Taiwan can build on top of its current advantages. As part of the local industries' urgent efforts to upgrade and transform, medium and large corporations can invest in or acquire startup firms as a way of external innovation management. This approach will allow them to save the costs of having to employ in-house R&D engineers or work with startup firms to jointly develop product technologies and commercial applications to grab preemptive market opportunities. To Taiwan startup firms, they need to leverage their existing strength and technologies to develop 2B solutions based on iABCD technologies. They can first develop products in Taiwan, including all steps of the processes from idea, design, product research, testing and small-scale pilot run. Then, the products can be launched into other regional markets or the global market. Furthermore, with medium and large corporations encountering an innovation bottleneck for 2B or 2C model, startup firms boasting their creative power stand a good chance of discovering additional opportunities.Amid the time when all industries are actively pursuing digital innovations, the T2B2C model is exactly what Taiwan startups need to transcend national boundaries and compete on the world stage. What their development strategies are and how they can collaborate with large enterprises are the challenges to startups' strategic planning ability and vision.(Shih-Jun Huang is managing CPA for startup services, PwC Taiwan)