The exponential growth of e-commerce, especially during the pandemic, is changing the way the fashion industry works. Furthermore, smart manufacturing could help textile and apparel manufacturers improve operational efficiency and sustainability. This was the focus on the fourth and final day of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT) on Nov. 19.The last day of the forum featured two experts. First was Paloma Hsieh, the head of business development at Amazon Global Selling in Taiwan. Next was Jill Lai, associate managing editor for DIGITIMES Asia.Returning to host the final day of the forum was Nicole Chan, chairperson of the AADT.Evolution of e-commerce in fashionHsieh started her presentation by pointing out that 2020 was the first year since the 1960s that worldwide retail revenue dropped. At the same time, retail e-commerce sales witnessed significant growth, benefiting from the new norm as a result of the pandemic. In fact, from January 2020 to June 2020 traffic from online shopping websites worldwide increased by 36.6%."By the end of 2020, the total e-commerce sales worldwide was over US$4 trillion, which accounted for 18% of all retail sales," Hsieh explained. It is forecast that e-commerce will account for at least a quarter of total retail sales by 2025. "This is definitely something that cannot be ignored and online is something the industry needs to start focusing on," she added.Currently, the apparel and accessories sector of online retail holds the second-largest share in terms of retail e-commerce sales in the US at 20.7%. Additionally, the online sale of fashion products worldwide is expected to reach US$953 billion by 2024, at a compound annual compound growth rate of 12.7%.In talking about apparel on Amazon, Hsieh used the "Amazon Coat" story as an example of social media influence on e-commerce sales. In the winter of 2018, a coat from Orolay, an unknown China-based brand, suddenly became the season's viral "it" coat thanks to social media. Years later in 2020, Hsieh noted that the coat still sold more than 10,000 pieces in two days during its Prime Day sales event."The relationship between fashion and e-commerce, that the branding and the brand value could actually come from all the different formats such as KOL and social media, it could all contribute to sales and create trends," Hsieh said. "Nowadays the brand value building is a lot of different pieces. Value for money is as important as value for quality."Hsieh also identified several changes in fashion shopping trends. She pointed out that consumers now put more emphasis on product practicability and functionality. Consumers now expect product design to meet their actual demands as opposed to simply looking good. Today's shopper is also paying close attention to social media and is easily influenced by popular social media trends. Furthermore, new stay-at-home, work-from-home and healthy lifestyles are increasing the demand for home dress and sports and healthcare-related products.Regarding how Amazon Global Selling supports sellers and their products, Hsieh explained unlike regular crossover commerce where a product goes from factory to exporter to importer to distributor to the retail channel to consumer, manufacturers can go direct to the consumer through Amazon.One of the benefits of this is being able to collect first-hand customer feedback to better understand consumer needs. "That is something that is very important and all echoes back to sharing quick reactions and how to stay close to your customer," she said."Eliminating the middle channels, we have invested a lot in seller support in the past few years. In the last year, alone Amazon Global invested over US$18 billion to create over 250 new tools and services to support our seller partners in four different areas: selection, operations, compliance and shipment," Hsieh explained.When it comes to Taiwan-based sellers, Hsieh pointed out that the number has tripled on Amazon Global Selling since 2017.To support sellers in and from Taiwan, Amazon Global Selling has established a brand incubator in Taiwan to prepare the next generation of e-commerce talent, support seller needs, and support Taiwan brands. Hsieh also talked about the service provider expansion, which supports Taiwan sellers for logistics, taxes and customs. "This is something we have been investing in and working on in the past year, and something we will continue working and focusing on in the coming years. Our vision is to empower Taiwan brands to expand globally. This includes our fashion brands and apparel," Hsieh added.Accelerating the manufacturing digital journeyLai shared information gathered by DIGITIMES regarding how manufacturers in Taiwan have accelerated their digital journeys. The survey, which was conducted earlier this year, surveyed 627 manufacturers, all of which have over 100 operators in their factories. Industries surveyed include technology and non-technology sectors and focused on the automation and intelligence level of these manufacturers."We found that only 17% of the companies have over US$360,000 investment in intelligent projects. That includes IT, automation and intelligent equipment," Lai said. "The rest of the manufacturers, especially the smaller ones, their budget is usually lower than US$36,000."While these numbers are slightly higher than last year, according to Lai, this shows that the attitude of small manufacturers has become more conservative; however, the overall budget for intelligent projects this year is still higher than last year.The survey followed the ISA 95 standard and used the enterprise control system hierarchy model, which divides the information system of smart factories into 5 levels. Levels 1 and 2 deal more with the automation of individual manufacturing equipment, level 3 production and operations, level 4 production support, and level 5 corporate governance.Overall, adoption of levels 1,2 and 5 are higher than levels 3 and 4, the survey found. This shows that adoption of automation equipment, network data acquisition and ERP systems is higher, but lower for systems such as quality inspection, defect detection and supply chain and warehouse management.Lai suggests that manufacturers find a way to integrate these 5 levels. "If we can form a really good integrated system, I think we can form a good business model," she opined.Lai also pointed to the fast adoption of new technologies such as AI, 5G, IoT and data analysis. While the adoption of edge computing and AI is starting to pick up slowly, she noted that industrial robots are now widely adopted with cobots and automated guided vehicles coming next.In terms of digital transformation, the survey found that 32% of companies have set up full-time projects for it. On the other hand, 41% have yet to start digital transformation projects. "From the survey, we tried to understand what is the major obstacle for digital transformation, especially for manufacturers. This year, the major obstacle is technical talents. But last year it was insufficient budget and resources," Lai highlighted.So what really triggers companies to do digital transformation? According to Lai, the pandemic is a major driving force due to the manpower constraints and demand changes it has caused. As a result, manufacturers are looking to use intelligent services or systems to address these problems. "But I don't think that goes far enough," Lai said. "I would suggest all manufacturers to really be determined, to be consistent in their digital journey, no matter if the market demand right now is increasing or decreasing. It needs your determination to make it happen."Reducing waste and increasing efficiencyHsieh believes that digitalization is definitely something that could help reduce waste. "I think digitalization here goes beyond data analysis and beyond inventory management," she said.Going global is one suggestion Hsieh has for not only expanding channels but reducing waste. "When we talk about fashion and apparel, there's seasonality, but when you go global, the global market voids your seasonality. There is always winter somewhere on earth, and there's always summer as well. Going global provides a marketplace where you can promote your product year around. This is something that has been a nightmare for the fashion industry, but e-commerce can help with this," she added.Lai explained that addressing levels 3 and 4 of the hierarchy model could help address inventory waste issues. "Level 3 is more about production automation and is driven by data analysis so that manufacturing can ultimately do quality inspection and defect detection...Level 4 is an extension of level 3. For example, scheduling automation and how to help predict demand...If you want to check the stock status, you need to know about your warehouse automation, and if you want to make your inventory in time, you need to make your supplier understand your information. So everything needs to be clearly integrated."Wrapping up the first annual World Digital Textile ForumTo close the final day of the World Digital Textile Forum, Victor Chao, CEO of Frontier.cool, the event co-organizer, stated that he hopes the forum can help brands and suppliers enter the new world of digital textiles."Frontier's role is to accelerate this process to enable the new world of digital textile to take shape more quickly and allow more people to enter the new world of digital textile without fears or barriers," Chao said.On behalf of the AADT, the day's moderator Nicole Chan closed the event by emphasizing the benefits of digital textiles on zero-waste fashion, sustainability and customization."Only by deepening the digitalization of textiles and expanding digital textile applications horizontally will we be able to truly bring fashionable textiles to a new level," Chan concluded.The final day of the inaugural World Digital Textile Forum focused on the digitalization of the fashion industry, covering smart manufacturing trends related to fashion e-commerce and the emergence of the digital fashion textile ecosystem.

The disruption of the last two years has spawned some clear trends that are already having profound effects.One is the rapid growth of remote working. A perusal of tech industry job vacancies, where a substantial number now offer remote working as part of the package, shows this is a trend set to continue.Another trend is AIoT devices, where machine learning algorithms are allowing IoT devices to use gathered data to independently analyze, learn, develop insights and make decisions. There are around 30 billion IoT-connected devices, set to increase to 75 billion by 2025. The role they play in society will only escalate when combined with artificial intelligence.To properly support the types and level of network traffic that a growing user base generates network upgrades must be properly designed. Design means secure on-boarding of new equipment without the degradation in the quality of service that an ad-hoc approach to expansion can induce. This includes stable, clean power.The network power supply must be a team player if network equipment is going to deliver. Peace of mind comes from knowing your network power supply partner has a long track record and a hard-earned reputation to protect.Asian Power Devices Inc. (APD) has been making industry-leading power supplies for more than twenty years and has long-standing partnerships with major global network equipment suppliers to help deliver dependable network performance, safety, and environment-friendly efficiency; all confirmed by internationally recognized certifications.High availability can be delivered through current-share and power ORing, so high-power systems like blade servers can share multiple power supplies for flexibility and redundancy in N+1 configurations. Stable, low-ripple power delivery is ensured, even to loads with large instantaneous current requirements, though peak current capacities up to 300% of maximum.To guard from over voltage and over current events, APD builds in multiple protections including surge protection that complies with ITU-T K.21 standards. This can be augmented to [DM] 6kV /6kV [CM] specs as per IEC-61000-4-5; Level-5, for areas with electrically noisy public grid systems or that experience more extreme weather conditions with a higher probability of lightning strikes. Static discharge is also brushed off with level 4 IEC (61000-4-2) ESD protection to 8kV contact/15kV air gap.APD's power supply products have optimized heat dissipation and anti-electromagnetic interference structures, backed by thermal protection against over-temperature conditions. They easily meet North American DOE Level VI and EU CoC Tier 2 energy efficiency standards, guaranteeing lower running costs and environmentally friendly operations.What sets APD apart in the industry? That's probably best answered by Rax Chuang, General Manager of APD's Power System Business department: "R&D is the proudest asset of APD; it is also the core value of APD. More than 10% of the company's turnover is appropriated to the R&D fund each year, with an R&D team of over 500 members that leads the industry."APD has the industry's highest-level safety laboratory where a broad scope of testing is carried out to stay ahead of regulations and assist customers in obtaining swift product certifications, significantly reducing their time to market. For example, APD's years of experience debugging FCC Part 68 certification problems translates into rapid solutions for networking customers to gain that FCC Part 68 passes plus ISN tests for things like interference on telecommunication ports.For more information on how APD can help you exploit growing network trends faster, visit https://www.apd.com.tw/en/Asian Power Devices Inc. (APD) has long-standing partnerships with major global network equipment suppliers to help deliver dependable network performance.APD Networking Power Supply

In today's fast-paced fashion industry, mass production models cannot keep up. That is why it is important that supply chains digitalize and shift toward more on-demand, real-time production models. This was the focus of the third day of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT) on Nov. 18.Day three featured two fashion technology experts. First up was Taime Koe, CEO and co-founder of Six Atomic, a Singapore-based AI-driven apparel supply chain solution provider that provides automation technology for the fashion supply chain. Next was Mark Russell, co-founder and COO of Infinity Innovation, a provider of comprehensive and customizable digital supply chain solutions for the fashion industry.Paul Chan, chief amazement officer of Hanin Enterprises, a Hong-Kong-based D2M and on-demand service provider, served as the moderator for day three of the forum.Be part of real-time fashion or be left behindKoe began by addressing the problems with the traditional pull model in today's rapidly changing fashion industry. Pointing out that the lead time is too long, "It means that brands would have to make decisions today and hope that months from now their investment would still be on-trend in consumers' minds."However, in today's social-media-driven world, trends do not work this way and brands know it. Now, new trends can emerge on an hourly basis from social media apps like TikTok. This also means that consumers today expect that brands can keep up with and meet their fast-changing demands."Within the last decade, leading brands have been in a race to be the fastest," Koe said. This started with fast fashion brands like Zara in the 1990s to today's real-time fashion era brought on by Shein. Shein has managed to reduce lead times to an astonishing three days, from an already "fast" lead time of three weeks during the fast fashion era.This is all made possible with the digitization of tons of data. By collecting data at every step, Koe pointed out that Shein is able to make more informed data-driven decisions that help achieve a higher chance of retail success, as well as reduce waste and inefficiencies."They analyze consumer data, predict demand, as well as adjust production on the fly. All the vendors and manufacturers in their network provide very transparent feedback to the brand Shein itself so that they can make decisions very quickly," Koe said. This provides Shein with a huge advantage over competitors who are less efficient at this real-time production model.Koe also believes that end-to-end integration needs to happen at every single step of the supply chain. This is where Six Atomic shines.Six Atomic can help brands and suppliers achieve real-time fashion through integration and automation. One of their core products uses an algorithm to generate garment patterns automatically within a few seconds.Six Atomic's solution breaks down every part of the garment such as collars, patterns, cuffs, etc., to create a modular library. The starting point for the library can be pre-existing patterns provided by the brands or pure algorithms. According to Koe, this library is capable of creating millions of unique SKUs. From there, materials can be selected, seam allowances can be customized, and sizes can be selected. When the designer is ready to generate the pattern, all they have to do is click a button and the pattern is generated automatically by the algorithm in the backend and ready to download, reducing this process to a few seconds instead of hours.Koe highlighted that pattern files come with adjacent file formats that contain rich metadata on the pattern, as well as relationships between pattern pieces. "When the adjacent file is opened in a 3D visualization software like Browzwear, once the file is exported the relationship between pattern pieces is also imported. This means that the 3D visualization of this pattern can be simulated with one click of a button, instead of having a designer or pattern maker manually simulate it," she explained.So, how can textile suppliers and manufacturers get ready for real-time fashion? The primary thing is to digitize data for integrations, according to Koe."As you can see, data is extremely important in every part of the process to make this real-time fashion vision possible," she said. Data for textile suppliers include data for design, such as fabric thickness, color, pattern and quality of materials. It also includes data for 3D simulations, including the accurate scan of the fabric, texture, weight and physical properties that the 3D software would need to simulate an accurate representation. Data for automated pattern generation includes the stretch, shrinkage property, width for pattern nesting, as well as directional design. There is also data for sourcing so that brands know the pricing, inventory and availability, as well as shipment lead times.Once brands have this data, they have the option to integrate with digital textile databases, like Frontier.cool.More large brands have already started catching up with this digital transformation and are bringing in more automation. Suppliers that are more open-minded to change are inviting automation and digitalization into their supply chain and are being brought in by brands to lead this journey, Koe added."Real-time fashion is already a reality as we can see with Shein. More and more brands have made improvements in their supply chain efficiency to move in this direction. So it's your choice whether you will evolve with the rest of the industry or be left behind," she concluded.Kickstarting digital transformation in supply chainRussell began by addressing five basic principles being addressed by digitalization and the digital entities being created in the industry, which include reduced barriers to digital entry, decentralization, decoupled value chains, the importance of data, and technological eco advantage.Regarding customer expectations, Russell pointed out that there is a massive shift in terms of what the consumer is looking for. "Everybody talks about push and pull models. I think as we talk more about pull models, there are expectations from customers in terms of moving away from mass production into enabling brands to purchase on a micro-season, almost month by month basis," he said. In fact, on-demand solutions and a degree of personalization are also starting to show up with a lot of brands.As the industry moves into digital processes, it has been able to look at real-time data. Russell believes that the need for "less is more" is working directly with on-demand solutions. Getting data on a real-time basis and month-by-month basis is key to how a brand positions its raw materials, affecting everything from ratio information in terms of what it used to cut traditionally, which was all based on assumption. Now he says there is a lot more information about styles and colors that are selling, as well as size ratios, that are quite impactful.However, when it comes to engaging and trying to figure out a brand's existing digital footprint and where they want to be, there is a lot of confusion. This confusion is centered on what to do with the type of technologies available and how to make sense of and string them all together to make a real end solution."Everybody is looking at 3D for product creation, in terms of taking a lot of time and cost out of the front end and making the decisions a lot easier and faster. I think that becomes more relevant nowadays due to the inability for people to travel," Russell said. "Enabling digital transformation takes a big, deep dive into really understanding the existing digital maturity of the company and where it sees itself..and can be a bit of a challenge depending on the brand."Russell pointed out that digital adoption is embraced and widely accepted by SMEs and smaller companies. The struggle lies in big retail, possibly because they are not as digitally savvy as the younger brands. A lot of big retail brands have traditionally built processes and systems around push models. Trying to move from a push to a pull model can be very challenging.The path to digital transformation first requires the digital partner to assess the customer's digital footprint. "It is very important to see where they are, what's in place and how they're using it," Russell said. Next comes the development of a digital maturity model. This focuses on how the business is transformed and operates to increase its competitive advantage through digital initiatives. This is followed by identifying the points of differentiation through digital strategy, defining a clear roadmap to enhance business efficiency and effectiveness, and finally building a culture to support digital maturity."There is a very set process in terms of how that's implemented. A lot of people want to run before they can walk. It's very important for brands and companies to understand that there are key processes and strategies involved," Russell explained."Within Infinity, we've made it a point that we want to ensure the system and digital assets that we operate facilitates everything from big retailers, SMEs to smaller brands and what we classify as non-apparel," Russell said.The third day of 2021 World Digital Textile Forum focuses on "Fashion’s Digital Transformation in Supply Chain: Now or Never", discussing why it is important that supply chains digitalize and shift toward more on-demand, real-time production models.

The importance of digital textiles in today's garment industry cannot be overstated. That is why it is important that the supply chain also digitalize. This was the focus of the second day of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT) on Nov. 18.Day two featured fashion technology experts including Amon Shalev, CEO of virtuality.fashion; Sharon Lim, co-founder and co-CEO of Browzwear; Renate Eder, chief commercial officer of Vizoo; and Wayne Fan, chief strategy officer of Frontier.cool.Ben Hanson, editor-in-chief of The Interline, a leading fashion technology news outlet, served as the moderator for the second day of the forum.eFashion impact on the supply chainKicking off the round of day-two discussions, Shalev focused on eFashion adoption in the fashion industry and its impact on the supply chain.Shalev pointed to the effects of COVID-19 on the fashion industry as a catalyst for the rapid growth of eFashion and adoption of digital assets."What we've seen in the last 1.5 years is really tremendous. It's a direct result of the substantial increase in online shopping and shop closures, which in turn accelerated digital product development, increased online shopping, and forced brands to start presenting new collections and products in virtual showrooms," Shalev said.He went on to explain the importance of connecting product development and consumer-facing digital retail. "If you look at the new supply chain where everything is being connected using 3D assets, it all starts from digital product development. Already at this stage, there is a demand to have digital materials in top quality. As the next step, the products are being presented online in cloud-based virtual showroom solutions," he added.New digital fabrics should also be integrated with PLM (product lifecycle management) systems. As a result of this new supply chain, the industry is seeing mass customization where products can be produced on a more demand basis, all of which is supporting online sales increase.Shalev also highlighted how 3D can be offered as a service online in three steps. The first step is uploading minimal materials such as sketches, technical packages and digital fabrics to the 3D visualization service. From there a basic 3D prototype is created to show the client how the 2D materials have been translated into 3D. The last step is a high-resolution, full-color rendering that is presented in a virtual showroom.This type of platform allows everyone from the production side, designers, suppliers, buyers, marketing, product management, etc., not only to collaborate but to blend production and sales."Anyone who is a player in this industry should consider digitizing and facilitate seamless integration with existing processes and workflows. This is very critical," Shalev emphasized. "We should synchronize digital materials at the very beginning of the supply chain and make sure that it will integrate with the rest of the production processes, sales and marketing."Creating an agile supply chainWhen it comes to digitalizing, Lim posed the question: is it about speed or agility?"When we look at digital connectivity and the transparency it brings, the impact it should have is agility. It should make supply chain partners, brands and retailers agile. Agility is not speed. Agility is really about our ability to slow down, stop and turn quickly," Lim said.Although the pandemic has pushed the industry to change in the last two years, she acknowledged that change as the result of a crisis is always difficult.Lim's company Browzwear is in the business of not just inventing the 3D true-to-life engine, but also engaging with the industry in 3D workflow. Being able to create a true-to-life digital twin is necessary if the industry is going to change.While in the past the garment industry was not digitally ready for applications like virtual try-on to engage the consumer, today, various parts of the industry utilize true-to-life 3D garments for design and development.Lim also explained how changing business models to use 3D can create more profitability. She used the example of a company whose sales went from US$8 million down to US$2 million in revenue; however, they were now highly profitable because they were no longer marred by inventory."They managed to pivot themselves into a sell-then-make model. And when you can do that, that's where profitability happens," she said.From a long-term perspective, digitalizing a business should not be about doing digital for the sake of digital. Instead, companies should evaluate how what they want to do impacts their revenue, cost and risk."As new applications come into the market, what you're sharing, the agility to move into sell-and-make, it's not a one-day journey," Lim reminded. Companies must measure what has high impact on their revenue, cost and risk, and continue building, integrating and optimizing to bring about digital transformation."When you build connectivity, when you build transparency, that's what digital brings to you. It brings you agility. And agility is not just about survival. It's about bringing you new growth," Lim said.The importance of digital materials to digital product creationAs a 3D material visualization company, Vizoo understands how important high-quality digital materials are to digital product creation (DPC).Eder explained that digital samples are not created from scratch, but created from many components. "There is this foundation of components, fabrics and trims to do 3D design, which is based on libraries. If you don't have those libraries on hand, your process is very slow and you risk that it fails," she said.According to Eder, digital components should be sitting with the supplier in order to make it work. This should ideally result in a smooth workflow between the supplier and the brand.There is a lot of ROI for factories and suppliers once digital materials have been created. Eder says her company hears from brands that when looking for new suppliers they prefer suppliers with digital capabilities. "More and more brands are benchmarking their suppliers saying what is the digital capability you can offer us, is there 3D sampling, can you digitize materials. So I think a lot of suppliers feel this push that there is this demand now," she said.But it is important to recognize that it is not only the brands pushing the suppliers saying they want 3D design and digitized components.In fact, having digital files enable companies to quickly generate product previews using materials and allows for print and color variation. "We work with a supplier who has up to 50 iterations of their key accounts in terms of color variation. Doing this virtually, cuts this down to a minimum, so in the end, this results in not only cost-savings but also time-savings," Eder said.Many suppliers understand digitalizing is a competitive advantage. The awareness is definitely there, according to Eder. In fact, from a sales perspective, Vizzo sold 80% to brands two to three years ago. Now they have a 50:50 ratio between brands and suppliers.Vizoo also has clients switching to digital swatch books, which makes it easy to share online with different audiences. "Digitizing materials at the very beginning and sharing this data in your company with your clients generates the biggest ROI," Eder said.Progression of DPC strategiesToday, the concerns brands have when it comes to DPC are changing. In the past, Fan said brands were concerned about touch-and-feel and color. Now, he says brands are asking, "How do we scale? How do we connect the disconnects between the digital solutions? How do we use a single source of truth that is real, from source, and take it all the way through its product lifecycle and used - it could be plugged into PLM, it could be in 3D, or it could be in e-commerce. How do we take that and have a seamless connection the whole way through?"Fan also pointed to the importance of collaboration, noting that when stakeholders continue to work in a silo form it is difficult to maximize the return on collaboration. "When we really open up our doors and share the data and assets, and then really have those assets be exchanged among upstream and downstream between stakeholders, I think that's how eventually the collaboration can be maximized."Challenges to the adoption of digital materialsWhile there are several challenges standing in the way of widespread adoption of digital materials, some of the main challenges are simply communication and education.Eder pointed out that many suppliers still see digitalization as an additional workload or an additional service. If brands really want to push digitalization, they must communicate their commitment to it to suppliers.Fan believes that more stakeholders must be encouraged to join in on the conversation, as more standards are being developed. He also pointed to the need for more services to run alongside digital solutions."I think if there were more services out there, it could really make things lighter on the brand side and the supply chain side...At a macro level, it's compatibility across different solutions. And at a micro level, it goes back to the solution ecosystem and interoperability. If we have an asset or a material that can be used across different systems, whether that's a brand or a factory when they try to put together a combination of solutions, I think it would make their lives much easier," Fan said.The industry should also be investing in proficiency. "Everyone should be investing in its people to learn and then take ownership of the process changes. If people themselves are not skilled enough to think or to develop new processes, where is the process going to come from?" Lim asked.Right now, processes are being dictated by brands and retailers because oftentimes supply chain partners do not have people skilled enough to be able to lead this. "But this is the year 2021, it's really time to overcome this challenge by investing in your people's digital skills and knowledge," Lim concluded.Speakers on the second day of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum

The fashion industry is moving toward a more digitalized future, one that promotes improved efficiency and sustainability. This was the focus of the first day of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT) on Nov. 17.Day one featured fashion technology experts including Mark Harrop, CEO and founder of WhichPLM Group; Justin Huang, president of the Taiwan Textile Federation; Alexa Dehmel, owner of Active Sports Design Consulting; Amal Jomaa, head of fashion at So Real Digital Twins; and Victor Chao, CEO of Frontier.cool, who shared valuable insights on how digitization is transforming the textile industry as we know it.The four-day forum will be moderated by Nicole Chan, chairperson of the AADT. Chan is also an attorney-at-law and industrial consultant, board director of Dot Asia, ICANN ASO/AC, and vice chairman of the Digital Transformation Association.Fashion trends and disruptionsDuring his presentation, Harrop shared his thoughts on areas of high potential growth and what he considers disruptive trends in the industry today. He also addressed the metaverse, a word that has been thrust into the spotlight ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook's name change to Meta."We talk about the metaverse as if it's something brand new and it may be in the sense that it's going to pull the digital assets in, but in actual fact, digital technology has been around for a while. 3D footwear for 30 years, 3D apparel for already 20 years," Harrop said. He added that the industry is starting to see improvements in these solutions, which is allowing the entire ecosystem to be connected.Among the areas, Harrop sees as having high growth potential include: product planning, inspiration and concept, product lifecycle management (PLM), fact-based costing, digital color management, and sourcing and supplier management.Harrop talked about how the work from home (WFH) culture as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is helping to drive digitization in fashion. WFH forced retailers, brands and manufacturers to urgently embrace a new set of collaborative solutions to enable design teams to collaborate virtually. One solution he pointed to is a digital storyboard that can interoperate with technology ecosystems.Harrop also highlighted a number of disruptive trends, including sizing and scanning; digital and component materials scanning; asset lifecycle management; 3D creative design (DPC); virtual showrooms; synthetic and fact-based costing; digital print and dyeing; IoT and value chain visibility; material, product and labor sustainability; artificial and business intelligence (AI and BI); and workflow and critical path.In terms of 3D, Harrop noted that it has crossed the chasm in terms of maturity. "As 3D solutions develop to deliver real, quantifiable benefits for the downstream, 3D is also starting to move upstream, not only supporting co-design but also co-development and manufacturing," he said."As we develop these 3D assets, we're then using them as products or components and we're placing them into virtual showrooms. This is the metaverse," said Harrop. "As we expand our footprint into these digital assets and they become widely accepted as a supplement for physical, we can now enable consumers to put on their headsets and go to a store and do virtual try-ons. And we, as a retailer or brand can see what our stores look like." Moving forward, he expects virtual showrooms to expand rapidly.Harrop also addressed how digital methods are enabling the industry to be more sustainable and eco-friendly. For example, direct-to-roll digital printing is not only more eco-friendly and sustainable, it uses less water, less energy, and produces less waste.Digitalization of Taiwan's textile industryHuang's presentation centered on four main topics to do with Taiwan's textile industry: introducing Taiwan's textile industry, the impacts of COVID-19, sustainable innovation and technology, and smart manufacturing.According to Huang, there are more than 4,500 textile and garment manufacturers in Taiwan as of 2020, employing more than 141,000 people. The total production value in 2020 amounted to NT$289.3 billion (US$9.78 billion) with export value reaching US$7.53 billion. Taiwan's textile industry mainly focuses on the upper- and mid-stream sectors, which account for 95% of the total value.Covid has had a major impact on Taiwan's textile industry. Exports value saw a significant decrease in 2020 compared to 2019, but is recovering in 2021. Despite this, Huang pointed to the rise in oil prices, materials shortages, the pandemic impact in Vietnam, and increased shipping/logistics costs as ongoing challenges as a result of the pandemic. However, he pointed to the pandemic as a turning point for Taiwan's textile industry.Taiwan has undergone two major transformations as a result of the pandemic. The first is to become more sustainable by taking into consideration the sustainability of raw materials, the manufacturing process, and the end product. The second is to increase smart manufacturing.By digitizing, automating and making factories smarter, manufacturers are able to visualize production information, easily access data, and manage systems. Not only does smart manufacturing have the added benefit of making facilities look cleaner and neater, but it also requires less labor while providing more actionable information, Huang highlighted.Huang added, "Investment in sustainability and digitalization will benefit not only the supply side but also the demand side."Opportunities presented by digital twinsWhat is a digital twin and how it is changing the fashion industry were the focus of Jomaa's presentation. So Real Digital Twins is a Switzerland-based company that specializes in helping companies create "cinematic quality, ready-to-use digital twins.""3D solutions for the fashion industry have existed for over 20 years, but it is important to make a clear distinction between a 3D file that is created as a mockup for rapid prototyping and a full digital twin," Jomaa said.A digital twin is a virtual representation of a product in 3D. It is an exact replica of a real-life product with the same physical properties and measurements, according to Jomaa. This means it can support the end-to-end process and not just a single segment.So Real's technology works by first scanning the product with an x-ray machine that creates volumetric data. In the next step, the company's artificial intelligence and machine learning software takes the volumetric data and converts it layer by layer to build the digital model in 3D. In the final step, the digital twin is created. Jomaa emphasized that the embedded metadata allows for the 3D model to support the entire product lifecycle."Digital twins can help transform the value chain from a linear process that moves from designing, planning, sourcing, supplying and finally the customer experience to a more interconnected process where the different steps overlap. It is a move toward a fully circular process rather than a vertically integrated operation that functions in separate silos," Jomaa explained.In the design process, digital twins empower designers to work in a more intuitive way with 3D models. It also helps to accelerate the design process, saving time and money, while also reducing waste and the carbon footprint. Instead of waiting for and producing physical samples, digital twins allow designers to make changes on the spot, create multiple variations of a design, and provide a realistic visual sample, all in real-time.Digital twin technology is also enabling the shift toward product customization. Consumers can customize products online with extreme accuracy, allowing for on-demand manufacturing and eliminating inventory. The data gathered from these customizations can also be used by the companies to better understand consumer preferences and help inform design decisions.Additionally, Jomaa noted, "digital twins are the future asset building blocks that make up the metaverse." Industry trendsetters like Nike are already expanding into the metaverse.Frontier.cool enables better digital fabric sourcingFrontier.cool, a co-organizer of the forum, is a Taiwan-based digital fabric platform that utilizes AI to create realistic textile and fabric images. As fashion becomes increasingly digital, digital fabric sourcing has become more and more important."With Frontier's groundbreaking AI, we are now able to scale like never before," Chao said. Frontier's Lasagna AI engine uses multiple texture maps and layers them together to create an accurate and life-like fabric image in 30 seconds or less, using an ordinary flatbed scanner. This allows textile mills to give potential clients a much clearer picture of what the material looks like and even apply it directly to their digital design work to see how it will look.Frontier has digitized fabric swatch cards and uploaded them to the cloud. Dehmel talked about how platforms like Frontier are revolutionizing digital fabric sourcing in today's fashion industry by making over 20,000 digital materials available in the cloud. The platform makes searching, managing and collaborating easier, and also facilitates a faster and better workflow."To be able to create a digital revolution within a brand, it needs to recreate the whole digital process of collection creation and the understanding that it all starts with the digitized fabric," Dehmel said.2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT)The fashion industry is moving toward a more digitalized future

As the world undergoes the recent wave of smart transformation, the issue of energy supply is now more than ever a topic in the public consciousness. Designs for energy storage and supply systems targeting traffic systems and the power grid have also become a newfound product focus for power supply manufacturers and system integrators. As an established player in the power supply industry, FSP has also targeted the two major fields of smart transportation and energy storage, launching high-quality, highly integrated, and highly reliable total solutions that have seen numerous cases of successful market adoption in recent years.FSP points out that smart transportation systems have traditionally operated in mostly isolated environments with limited cross-system integration requirements. However, the advent of the 5G system in 2020 has opened up brand new possibilities for smart transportation that now demands integration and connectivity across systems to create more added value. In terms of the overall architecture, it is clear that smart transportation will rely on an Internet of Things-based architecture, which will be comprised of front-end devices that capture environmental or equipment information and send the data upstream to another back-end platform. Common front-end for smart transportation systems include devices like CCTVs, traffic signs, water level/ wind direction sensors, etc. With increasing diversity in the front-end devices and the multitude of functions they serve, the power supplies within these devices are also faced with an unprecedented level of challenges to overcome.In response, FSP has released a series of power supply solutions targeting smart transportation systems. Take parking lots as an example (Fig.1), a complete parking system of the modern age is comprised of systems and devices that work together to offer functions like vehicle/ plate/ parking space management, charging and timing functionality, parking management, and traffic management. All of the devices providing these functions will need a power supply. To target this need, FSP is offering highly integrated solutions in the form of PoE power supplies and UPS systems designed for CCTVs at the entrance and exits of parking lots. As for power management systems, FSP is confident that its products are fully compliant with the stringent operating temperature and communication protocol requirements. At the same time, FSP also has modular, miniaturized, and highly efficient CRPS and Slim product lines that are perfect for parking management systems and cloud platforms.Besides parking lot systems, the ubiquitously omnipresent traffic control systems (Fig.2) and smart street lights (Fig.3), which are thought to be important infrastructures for the smart cities of the future, all demand efficient, compact, and highly integrated power supply solutions. FSP's comprehensive product line has superior digitization, communication, modularity, and reliability, promising to be the solution to provide stable power for smart cities in the 5G era and ensure uninterrupted uptime.In the field of energy storage, governments and corporations around the world in recent years are switching en masse to new energy policies that favor a higher percentage of green power to curb further climate change. But due to the sporadic nature of renewable energy, governments, corporations, and families will all need to have energy storage devices in their grids to ensure a stable supply of power. As one of the top ten largest power supply manufacturers in the world, FSP has also extended its reach to this field.Broadly speaking, energy storage devices can be divided into three types: small, medium, and large. Small energy storage devices are generally mobile or portable energy storage sources, serving primarily as backup to the main system because of their smaller size. Medium energy storage solutions primarily target families and corporations to ensure power stability as well as help with regulate power costs. Lastly, large energy storage solutions are usually part of the local power grid, used for modulating power stability over a region. FSP's energy storage solutions are centered around small to medium size scenarios, such as the AGV 24/48V battery module, home appliance B2B mobile battery, and other medium-sized energy storage solutions for commercial or family installations.Looking forward, FSP wants to continue to discover potential clients from the commercial and home power grid market by focusing on three goals. The first is to develop distributed energy storage products under the 10kW capacity. The second is to develop a hardware-software-integrated energy management system. The third is to find more suppliers of lithium iron phosphate batteries to alleviate the relevant supply chain instability issues.In addition to existing efforts to improve product performance and applications, FSP is also actively looking for cross-field integration opportunities, most notably by joining hands with ADLINK from the 5G Ecosystem Alliance. ADLINK has extensive hardware capabilities in vertical application integration and has been a significant player in the field of smart transportation for many years, making them the ideal partner to integrate with FSP's power supply products. Besides ADLINK, FSP is also working with other partners in the alliance to strengthen its server system UPS product line, providing customers with high performance and high stability solutions by drawing from the strengths of partnering companies.The fact is that every system or device in the parking lot ecosystem requires a different power supply solution, and FSP can provide corresponding solutions depending on individual use case scenarios.FSP has a comprehensive power supply product line for traffic management systems that can ensure maximum system uptime.Smart street lights are considered to be one of the fundamental infrastructures for the smart cities of the future and are used in a variety of scenarios with each having different power supply requirements.

Quectel Wireless Solutions, a global supplier of IoT modules and antennas, has launched its new LTE-A Category 6 EM060K-GL module which features Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) capability to provide better service and a cost efficient solution for private mobile networks. With more than 300 private mobile networks deployed in the world, industries such as communications and IT, manufacturing, automotive, transport, utilities, public safety, mining and many others are using CBRS as a private network service. CBRS can help customers to build high capacity, low latency, robust wireless networks with improved quality of service guarantees.Quectel has developed the EM060K-GL to address the needs of customers that utilize these networks. Powered by the Snapdragon X12 LTE Modem from Qualcomm Technologies Inc, the EM060K-GL provides maximum data rates of up to 300 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink. The module has the M.2 form factor of 30.0 x 42.0 x2.3mm.In addition to supporting private CBRS networks, the EM060K-GL offers a wide range of global bands and can also be used to support carrier network capacity boost scenarios by aggregating a public coverage band and a CBRS band. With Dual SIM/embedded eSIM, the EM060K-GL can help customers swap data service easily between a public carrier and a private network.The EM060K-GL supports industry-standard interfaces (USB 3.0/2.0, PCIe 2.0 and PCM/SPI, MIPI) and offers functionalities including USB drivers for Windows, Linux, Android, a multi-constellation GNSS receiver for GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo. The EM060K-GL is also pin to pin compatible with Quectel's existing EM06 series of M.2 modules and the EM12-G and EM120R-GL, which facilitates customers' design migrations on a wide range of applications such as industrial routers, home gateways, set top boxes, consumer laptops, rugged tablet and PCs and PDA devices.Neset Yalcinkaya, the Vice President of Product Management at Quectel, commented: "We see a wide range of market participants are actively engaged in developing and delivering services for private mobile networks. With so much opportunity and so many regulators planning initiatives to make spectrum available for private LTE usage, we expect significant market evolution in the next couple of years. Quectel's CBRS-capable modules, including the EM060K-GL, EG12-GT, EM120R/EM160R and our 5G modules, can help our customers to provide multiple and diversified services in this market to boost their business."Engineering samples of the EM060K-GL are available now for product testing and development to help device OEMs and systems designers with their innovative new products, optimizing business operations and processes.The EM060K-GL supports industry-standard interfaces (USB 3.0/2.0, PCIe 2.0 and PCM/SPI, MIPI)

The global textile industry is undergoing profound changes as it adopts and leverages new digital textile trends such as sustainable alternative materials, 3D design, technology-driven functional smart manufacturing processes, and the adoption of digital textile technologiesWhile we're not trying to "reinvent the wheel," we can certainly recognize that by adopting these new approaches, the textile industry can become an innovator with an integrated value chain, focusing on high-quality, eco-friendly, and cost-efficient materials.The digital transformation will reduce pollution and inventory by developing a greener approach to the ODM process - facilitating the goal of reduced waste, no returns, less shipping, and net-zero carbon emissions in the future.The Advancement Association for Digital Textile is a Taiwan-based non-profit association aiming to make Taiwan's textile industry the global pivotal manufacturing and sourcing hub for innovative, sustainable, and intelligent textiles - subsequently benefitting the entire industry, international communities, and the environment."AADT aims to utilize digital energy to create a co-working model for the apparel and fashion industries, transforming the traditional textile industry - which is oriented towards OEM and order taking - into a cross-domain innovative sector in this digital era," said Nicole Chan, Chairperson of AADT and former chairperson of the National Communications Commission.Frontier is a first-of-its-kind - accessible to all - digital fabric platform, utilizing AI to unleash productivity from offline to online in the most efficient way possible. In essence, Frontier is the gateway to the digital textile universe - for brands, designers, and the supply chain."Digital textile processes predominantly take place in APAC. In the pursuit of faster and cheaper shipments, brands must not just sacrifice the cost of the supply chain but use digital power to improve the textile industry. Production capacity and wisdom will allow textile practitioners to have a higher output value to enhance their lives. In addition, it will enable consumers to buy affordable, well-fitting, and low-carbon clothing." said Victor Chao, CEO of Frontier.cool.At the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum - held online - AADT and co-organizer Frontier will be joined by industry figureheads from WhichPLM, Virtuality Fashion, AADT, Browzwear, SO REAL Digital Twins, Frontier.cool, The Interline, Vizoo GmbH, Hanin, Six Atomic Pte. Ltd., Amazon Global Selling Taiwan, and DIGITIMES Asia.The event is scheduled to start on Tuesday, November 16 at 10:00 am (GMT) and will run until Friday, November 19. Registration is free for a limited time. Click here to register.AADT and Frontier to host World Digital Textile Forum 2021, which is scheduled to start on Tuesday, November 16 at 10:00 am.

The Internet has become an irreplaceable part of modern life, but our dependence on it has also exacerbated the problem of insufficient address spaces under the IPv4 protocol. To solve this problem, telecommunications providers in Taiwan started to transition businesses into using IPv6 in 2018. Recently, the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) also held a promotional seminar for the IPv6 protocol titled The Gateway to Global Access - IPv6 Promotional Seminar, inviting industry experts to share their experiences with IPv6 in cloud transformation and network management, thereby helping businesses better understand the new network protocol.The seminar was not only well-received by the audience watching online, but also saw a number of VIP guests in attendance including the Secretary General of the Cloud Computing & IoT Association in Taiwan Chen Huai-Tuo, Executive Director of the Taiwan Internet Association Kuo Yu-Tai, Chairperson of the Taiwan XR innovation Association and Board of Supervisor of Digital Solutions Multimedia Asia Jennifer Pai, Secretary General of the Taiwan Association of Information and Communication Standards (TAICS) Chou Sheng-Lin, and TAICS Executive Secretary Xu Jian-Chang.IPv6 has a bright future aheadTWNIC Managing Director and CEO Kenny Huang started out by making clear that while past efforts to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 had been slow due to a lack of clear demand, changes in the past two years have led to the emergence of three factors that are now greatly accelerating the transition. Firstly, all end devices now support IPv6 by default. Secondly, with the use of IPv4 becoming more expensive to maintain, the current free-to-use model of IPv6 has presented a clear incentive for businesses to switch over. Thirdly, IPv6 has important IT safety implications in that the 64-bit address space of the new protocol makes it much more difficult for hackers to use traditional scanning methods to find the IP of a target subnet. Coupled with the removal of the pseudo-security offered by NAT in the IPv4 system, businesses can now place a newfound focus on ensuring network safety via IPv6.Chen Huai-Tuo also said that the Internet is more important than ever in the new normal we find ourselves in after the pandemic. With demands for remote service on the rise, he is confident that IPv6 will have a bright future in Taiwan. Kuo Yu-Tai pointed out that Taiwan currently ranks 12th globally in terms of IPv6 adoption. While this is indicative of considerable progress, analysis reveals that these numbers are bloated due to most of them being from mobile users, meaning that Taiwan still has a long way to go. Jenifer Pai agreed that IPv6 is without a doubt the trend of the future and that further advancements in the digital economy and Internet technology will be able to help businesses better utilize the protocol to develop innovative services that will better cater to the demands of the times.IPv6 enhances transfer efficiency for cloud migrationCKmates Senior Technology Advisor Yang Chang-Ta and AWS Joint Innovation Center Manager Cheng Kai-Fu both acknowledged the importance of IPv6 in cloud services.Yang Chang-Ta said that the new age of digital technology is an opportunity for corporate change and that the quality and bandwidth of network transfers behinds these changes will be pivotal to their success. For example, the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is heavily reliant on low-latency transfers to ensure that the data picked up by sensors can be transmitted in a timely fashion to the relevant edge devices or cloud platforms, which ensures that subsequent applications or analyses are not delayed. Another example is high performance computing (HPC), which runs on a large set of computation nodes connected to a network. These nodes all depend on the network having excellent network transfer efficiency to effectively export outputs and communicate with each other. And as 5G becomes mainstream, its high bandwidth, wide connectivity, and low latency will also create higher demands for data transfer. Once again, lackluster transfer efficiency would be a hindrance that could severely impact the development of 5G applications.However, efficient data transfer is no easy feat to achieve as devices desperately need a better addressing model. Thankfully, IPv6 is the solution for companies that are facing this challenge, meaning that in the future IPv6 will be needed for the transfer of both unicast and multicast traffic.Whatever changes a company decides to undergo, a shift to the cloud may eventually lie somewhere down the path. Yang Chang-Ta suggests that companies should look into incorporating AWS services to make cloud migration less costly and more accessible. He explained that most cloud service providers currently utilize dynamic IP assignment, which is difficult to use and implement. In contrast, AWS supports a bring your own IP (BYOIP) scheme that allows companies to smoothly transfer existing IP addresses to the cloud. For companies that have already transitioned over to using full IPv6 locally, they can retain all their existing settings when they make the change to cloud services using AWS."Besides implementing support for IPv6, Amazon is also working to help startups come up with more innovative ways to make use of the Internet," said Cheng Kai-Fu, explaining that projects such as AWS Activate and AWS Startup Migration are all aimed towards helping startups grow.For example, AWS Activate provides a certain quota of free data transfers to startups since many of them have limited funds during their early days. This mechanism has already helped more than 30,000 startups, including Airbnb and Stripe, and has accumulated a staggering US$1 billion in free data transfers offered during 2020.Cheng Kai-Fu pointed out that startups can simply apply for their free AWS Activate quota within 5 years of starting their company and get anywhere between 1 to 5 thousand USD in free data transfers, while startups with a capital of over US$50,000 are further eligible for US$10,000 in free data transfers. As for AWS Startup Migration, the plan targets established startup teams that have not yet been publicly listed. The plan helps startup teams migrate their services to the cloud by offering free resources and technical support. A good example of this would be the global live social entertainment platform 17LIVE, which utilized the service to move its streaming service to the cloud.Keys to IPv6 network administrationSiraya Networks Technical Lead Zheng Jun-Wen and Onward Security Assistant Manager Yang Cheng-Ying next provided a list of key factors to consider when dealing with IPv6 in maintenance and scheduling from a management and IT safety perspective.Zheng Jun-Wen drew from his 7 years of experience as a network admin to say that the most important thing for IT staff in dealing with IPv6 is to keep track of each end device at each level of the network model so they can quickly pin down problems when they occur. For example, monitoring software may be able to quickly report the problematic IP when a breach is detected, but that immediately presents more questions: what device does that IP correspond to? What switch is that device connected to? This is why IT staff must make sure that they have lookup tables ready so that the appropriate actions can be taken without delay.Currently, there are two main ways to match an IP address with the device's MAC address: SNMP pooling and LAN listening. SNMP pooling starts by polling the forwarding database (FDB) table of a switch, which lists the MAC addresses of all the devices connected to it. Next, it polls the neighbor discovery (ND) table, the equivalent of the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Table in IPv4, to match each IP to a corresponding device by their MAC address. By cross-referencing the FDB with the ND (or ARP) table, management will get a complete picture of the IP/MAC pairing and the switches they are connected to. However, since these tables are constantly updated, IT must also regularly update their table. The other method is LAN listening, which makes use of four packets under the NDP protocol in an IPv6 environment to create a lookup table: RS, RA, NS, and NA.Zheng Jun-Wen further stressed the importance for IT staff to keep a lookup table matching IP, MAC, and switches. He says that many worms will try to circumvent firewalls by spoofing their MAC addresses, so a lookup table allows identification of abnormal IP/MAC pairings before they can do damage. As long as the IT staff have a good grasp of the network's low-level information, the better they can react by taking the appropriate measures.Besides keeping tabs on the low-level network, Yang Cheng-Ying also shared a few common cyber threats and defense mechanisms in an IPv6 environment. Yang pointed out that many devices and servers now come with IPv6 enabled by default, but IT security often overlooks this fact when designing their security and firewall, resulting in the protocol becoming a threat vector for traffic hijack despite the company not yet implementing IPv6 in their network structure. Other attacks like DDOS attacks and ND attacks have also popped up on the IPv6 threat landscape.He therefore recommended that network admins and IT security staff should take note of the three following points to secure their company's IPv6 network.Firstly, existing weaknesses and attacks in IPv4 will likely remain conceptually the same in IPv6, differing only in the way the attacks are carried out on a technical level. Therefore, existing IPv4 security mechanisms should still be preserved for an IPv6 environment. Secondly, network admins and IT security should still be aware of the differences between the two protocols, and should also pay close attention to new weaknesses in IPv6 as they build up their technical competence in IPv6 security.Thirdly, while IPv6 isn't less secure when compared to IPv4, most devices and products in the current landscape lack safety features targeting IPv6. Since IPv6 may never fully replace IPv4, companies should always keep a close eye on the safety of their network environment in a dual-protocol setting.In the future, TWNIC will continue to hold similar promotional activities to encourage companies to upgrade to IPv6, thereby helping raise Taiwan's overall IPv6 adoption rate in becoming a leader in network applications globally.Kuo Yu-Tai, Jennifer Pai, Kenny Huang, Chen Huai-Tuo, and Chou Sheng-Lin (left to right)

In 2021, two of our most pressing issues are undoubtedly the COVID-19 pandemic, and the global trade tension. This year, NATEA is excited to host the 24th annual US Taiwan High Tech Forum (UTHF) virtual conference with the theme, "Blockchain, Semiconductor and its Intersection in the Future of Finance, Work and Network Infrastructure." The event will span across two half-days, with topics focused on around the semiconductor industry supply chain, blockchain and crypto industry :The November 5 session will focus on the semiconductor supply chain.The November 12 session will cover blockchains and the crypto industry.Credit: NATEAOn Day 1, Young Liu, Chairman of Foxconn and the forum's keynote speaker, will kick off the event. Jimmy Goodrich, VP of Semiconductor Industry Association, will then share his experience and insights into global supply chain policies. Brian Shieh from Applied Materials will follow on with his perspectives in the displays manufacturing industry. Colley Hwang, Founder and President of DIGITIMES, will close off with a talk on Perspectives on the Asian ICT Supply Chain Movement.Day 2 will feature Edward Chang, Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, who will discuss how to leverage blockchains for data security and privacy. Andrew Tang, Chairman of Draper Associates / Draper Dragon, will discuss the emerging trends in blockchain technologies and applications, and their impact on crypto and finance. Clara Tsao, Founder of Filecoin Foundation, will conclude the talks with her Introduction to Web 3.0 and Emerging Trends in Global Blockchain Policy.At the end of the 2nd day, a dedicated panel of industry experts will share and discuss their own perspectives around blockchain and crypto. Our current panelists include Clara Tsao (Founder of Filecoin Foundation) and Serra Wei (CEO of Aegis Custody).NATEA is the North America Taiwanese Engineering & Science Association, a non-profit and tax deductible professional organization founded in 1991. We empower our innovative leaders to broaden their impact by providing a forum for them to collaborate, share business insights, and promote the advancement of entrepreneurship within our community.For detailed information on event schedule registration, please visit our website at: www.uthf.net