The pandemic has paved the way for new industries and business opportunities. In response to these trends, Taiwan is accelerating industrial development across six core areas: information security, biomedicine, digital transformation, semiconductors, space, and B5G & 6G networks.
Taiwan wants to showcase 100 high-potential Taiwanese start-ups on the world stage, including seven award-winning start-ups at the Taiwan Pavilion at CES supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and collaborated with the Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT) and The National Development Council (NDC). The TTA Pavilion will display the amazing innovative energy of Taiwan and show the innovation power to the world. The 100 start-ups showcased represent Taiwan’s innovative prowess in these sectors, as well as the capability to nurture high-potential businesses with international development possibilities in the future.
The country’s finest entrepreneurs, academics and researchers come together into a shared space for business development and collaboration. We are excited to highlight 100 of Taiwan’s most exciting start-ups on the world stage and connect them to global investors, to create more opportunities for the development of Taiwan’s economy and industry.
– Andrea T. J. Hsu, CEO of Taiwan Tech Arena
With COVID-19 and sustainability at the forefront of global agendas in 2022, two Taiwanese start-ups making incredible strides in health and hygiene. By harnessing filtration membrane materials, a manufacturing company is seeking to provide clean drinking water to more people around the world.
Another to watch is the Taiwanese start-up that has been recognised by the World Health Organisation for its high-tech appliances with natural cleaning properties. With its advanced “Electro-Oxidation” technology, the products turn water into a disinfectant that effectively destroys the activity of viruses and bacteria.
As business becomes increasingly globalised, a tech company leverages smart 5G and blazingly fast AI speech translation to allow for simultaneous interpretations to be broadcast to audiences’ mobiles at a venue and online. On the automotive front, another tech company is empowering OEMs and suppliers to quickly prototype and scale economically with an AI self-learning framework and scalable SDK.
An AI company is giving new parents greater peace of mind with its Baby Dream Pad and Smart Baby Monitor. The first device to combine AI computer vision with breathing movement technology, the device intelligently detects a baby’s respiratory rate during sleep and sends notifications if the breathing is irregular.
Another tech company has developed industry-leading Mobile Emergency Response Systems (MERS) that integrate wireless connection Video, Audio, Data and intelligent applications to support emergency response teams, such as the military, police, firefighters, security teams, and more.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese start-up Technology is ensuring data security and business continuity in the era of data privacy with its next-generation enterprise data protection solution. The technology provides the fastest RAID card in the world to protect SSD disks from failing.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, MOST announced that 20 tech startup companies would showcase Taiwan’s Biotech capabilities to the world connect with the global ecosystem, resources and industries in the forum organised by Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA). There are 20 TTA startup teams are selected by industrial experts and focused on global bio-industrial market potential startups.
Taiwan has demonstrated how to democratically tackle the COVID-19 threatening and how to be a truly global partner by utilising technologies. Taiwan’s efforts and commitments have drawn international attention and the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. has become stronger than ever before in the past year.
By working together, Taiwan can speed up the transition from scientific findings into practical technology applications and create a win-win situation and achieve future possible collaborations in the US. The companies presented disruptive biotech innovations such as vocal implant systems, AI Video-based telemedicine solutions and detection of respiratory function with ultrasound technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly boosted the e-commerce market, with non-cash payments accounting for 70% of total retail transactions in Vietnam last year. According to a survey of 15,000 retailers, cashless payments in 2021 made up 72.8% of total transactions, up 9% year-on-year. Payments through bank accounts became the most popular method, accounting for 36.5% of total transactions at retail shops, restaurants, and cafés followed by cash (29.8%), e-wallets (14.8%), QR code (9.9%), bank cards (8.5%), and payment gateways (0.5%).
Notably, 89.3% of retailers have positive assessments on non-cash payments, considering them a trend at present and in the future. New cashless payment tools are expected to be launched in the time to come to reduce difficulties that retailers currently face. Telecommunications is not the booming industry it once was as the mobile market has become saturated over the past few years. This has forced telecom providers to look for “new spaces”, one of which is mobile money.
In early December, the State Bank of Vietnam officially licensed three carriers, VNPT, Mobifone, and Viettel, to pilot mobile money services. VNPT and Viettel are the only two that have so far put mobile money services into commercial use. According to a news report, mobile money is expected to be a push towards cashless payments in the country, where only 70% of the population have bank accounts. The biggest difference between mobile money and e-wallets is that customers can pay for services and goods of small value, without a bank account. Additionally, mobile money accounts can also be used on feature phones, which do not connect to the Internet.
Mobile money services will be easy-to-use in rural and remote areas, where bank branches and the Internet have not yet been strongly developed. Once mobile money services are licensed, in theory, any telecommunications subscriber can access the service. However, operators must ensure that subscribers have the correct identification information to provide services, as well as bring convenience and trust to customers, an official noted. The country’s telecom market currently has about 126.3 million subscribers, of which the three largest carriers and those licensed to pilot mobile money account for more than 97% of the market share.
Since the pandemic started, there has been a significant increase in the use of e-wallets, payments via smartphones and QR codes, and high demand for ‘instant credit’ solutions such as buy-now-pay-later, particularly among those segments of the population that remain unbanked or underbanked. Fintech and e-wallet penetration reached 56% in 2021 for Vietnam, a hike of 40 percentage points from 2017. This penetration level is higher than the average of Asia-Pacific (APAC) emerging markets (at 54%) and developed markets (43%).
Last year, Vietnamese people spent most of their time using social networks, texting, watching videos, shopping online, and emailing, OpenGov Asia reported. The number of goods categories purchased by Vietnamese online shoppers went up 50% compared to 2020, while that of online stores in Vietnam also rose by 40% year-on-year, resulting in a 1.5-fold increase in total online retail sales nationwide. Some 49% of Vietnamese consumers switched to a new online marketplace, based on considerations of price incentives (45%), product quality (34%), and availability of goods (33%).
The digital economy is expected to play a bigger role in bolstering China’s high-quality development and accelerating digital transformation and upgrading traditional industries. Innovative digital technologies like big data, cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence are increasingly being integrated into all other sectors of economic and social development. This trend is injecting new impetus into global economic recovery as well.
By 2025, China will establish a market system for data elements and see the digital transformation of industries reach a new level. Moreover, digital public services will become more inclusive and a sound governance system for the digital economy will be established.
Facilitating the growth of the digital economy is of vital importance to cultivate new driving forces, boost high-quality and innovation-driven development and effectively address the unbalanced development in society. Technologies like big data, cloud computing, AI and the internet of things are evolving fast and finding a wide range of applications across industries and other economic sectors, speeding up their integration with the real economy
– Long Haibo, Senior Researcher, Development Research Center, State Council
China also needs more efforts to make breakthroughs in core and basic technologies, expand the industrial application scenarios of leading technologies as well as strengthen the protection of data security and personal information. China’s digital economy was worth nearly $5.4 trillion in 2020, up 9.6% year-on-year, ranking second in the world.
Moreover, the plan details key tasks in eight areas, including optimising and upgrading digital infrastructure, pushing forward the digital shift of enterprises and expanding international cooperation on the digital economy. It stresses enhancing innovation of key technologies in strategic and forward-looking fields like quantum information, network communications, integrated circuits, key software, big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain and new materials, as well as fostering new business forms and models.
The emerging digital technologies represented by 5G, big data and AI have played a critical role in enhancing operational efficiency, cutting costs and improving the core competitiveness of traditional industries amid economic downward pressure. China’s intensified efforts to develop the digital economy will inject fresh impetus into the country’s economic growth and speed up digital and intelligent upgrades in enterprises. The in-depth integration of digital technologies with the real economy will further reinforce China’s advantages in global supply chains.
The digital economy has become a major driver of economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic and network security provides a good foundation for boosting the digital economy. internet-driven companies should collaborate with traditional industries, and leverage their advantages in technologies, talent and capital to support the latter’s digital transformation.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, China will further promote the development of a digital economy during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, according to a circular issued by the General Office of the State Council. By 2025, the digital economy should be in full expansion mode, with the added value of core industries in the digital economy accounting for 10% of GDP.
According to the plan, efforts will be made to accelerate the construction of the information network infrastructure, and a national-level integrated big data centre system coordinating computing power, algorithms, data, and application resources. High-quality data elements will be provided.
The plan also emphasised industrial digital transformation. To accelerate digital transformation and upgrading in enterprises, qualified large-scale enterprises will be encouraged to build integrated digital platforms. Efforts will also be made to deepen comprehensive digital transformation in key industries, including the all-around and full-chain digital transformation of traditional industries and higher digitisation level in the agricultural industry.
While data is an important factor in the digital economy, more effort should be made to bridge the digital divide to benefit more user groups. To be specific, we need to improve infrastructure construction and the sharing of computing power from leading companies to smaller ones
Vietnam Airline officially launched two e-commerce platforms VNAMAZING, VNAMALL as well as its Vietnam Airlines Gift Card. The services were unveiled on 7 January and are the first of their kind in the domestic aviation sector. VNAMAZING offers online tourism services including tour and accommodation bookings. VNAMALL provides a wide range of aviation and non-aviation goods and services. As these are the first e-commerce platforms run by an airline in Vietnam, they have significant advantages for the carrier’s air logistics and partner networks worldwide.
According to a report, the Vietnam Airlines Gift Card is a product available on VNAMALL, which can be used to exchange airline tickets or avail of business class upgrade benefits on flights operated by Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines, and VASCO. The General Director of Vietnam Airlines, Le Hong Ha, noted that as the carrier aims to become a digital airline, it considers e-commerce development one of its top priorities.
Vietnam’s digital economy has been growing at the fastest pace in ASEAN, about 38% annually compared to the region’s average of 33% since 2015. The country expects the digital economy will make up 20% of its GDP and at least 10% in each sector. Recently, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan, informed that local e-commerce has been thriving, playing an important role in economic development. E-commerce development is an inevitable trend in the country, and the COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed it.
As per the Vietnam E-commerce White Book, e-commerce expanded by 18% in 2020, reaching US$11.8 billion, making the country the only one in Southeast Asia to post a double-digit growth rate in this regard. Estimates by some major businesses indicate that the digital economy of Vietnam is likely to top US$52 billion, which would place the country third in ASEAN by 2025.
Amid the resurgence of COVID-19 in 2021, e-commerce proved to be an increasingly useful tool for enterprises. Local consumers are rapidly moving from traditional in-person shopping to online platforms. A survey by the Ministry of Industry and Trade showed that Vietnam had 49.3 million online shoppers in 2020, compared to 32.7 million in 2016. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are among the largest cities in terms of digital economic development in the region. In HCM City alone, there are currently 567 e-commerce platforms, over 20,680 websites, and 134 apps. Although the lingering COVID-19 pandemic has hindered the flow of goods, many e-commerce platforms and websites still posted fast growth.
Engagement in the online export-import system and stages of transboundary e-commerce will generate opportunities for Vietnamese firms to increase product quality, improve capacity, and make Vietnamese brands popular among consumers around the world. To help boost the sale of Vietnamese goods internationally, the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA) has launched the Vietnam National Pavilion, a worldwide e-commerce platform. It has several industry partners and has formulated policies related to marketing, transport, and lending interest rates to support Vietnamese manufacturers that are carrying out the programme. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has been developing and applying an array of measures such as a certified e-contract authority, guaranteed payment infrastructure for e-commerce, and a platform for managing the e-commerce product flow.
Last November, the Prime Minister approved a plan to step up the application of IT and the development of digital transformation in trade promotion. Further, to create a legal framework for protecting consumers in the e-commerce market, the government issued a decree that amended and supplemented another on e-commerce released in 2013. According to the new decree, sellers must publicise information about products as well as business licences and related certificates when doing business on e-commerce platforms.
Apart from that, business activities on major social networks were also placed under management. The ASEAN Agreement on Electronic Commerce, which was signed in Hanoi in January 2019 and took effect in December 2021, set up common principles and rules for facilitating e-commerce development in the region and enhancing the rule enforcement capacity.
Medical and nursing students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine will be using three-dimensional holographic technology from Microsoft to help them learn certain medical procedures and study anatomical structures. The collaboration, which spans NUS Medicine, the National University Health System and a tech company add mixed reality to the learning experience.
Through holographic technology, medical and nursing undergraduates can expect to better hone their skills through training. This progressive use of mixed reality in healthcare education stems from the tech company’s work with the National University Health System, which is embarking on Holomedicine research in Singapore to enhance patient care.
The holographic technology will be used to project three-dimensional holograms to give medical and nursing students a visual appreciation of actual clinical scenarios in practice. The suite of instructional software developed by the team from NUS Medicine and Microsoft Industry Solutions provides 3D, mixed reality technology that will be used to help students practice clinical procedural skills.
We are continually pursuing new and innovative teaching methods to help medical and nursing students better understand the medical curriculum and gain a new appreciation for healthcare and health, while striving to maintain a balance with time-tested traditional approaches. This incorporation of holographic mixed-reality learning fits in well with our teaching initiatives
– Associate Professor Lau Tang Ching, Vice-Dean for Education, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
The project comes with three levels of difficulty, with a goal to train and provide sufficient direction to allow students at varying levels of competence to achieve the highest standards of clinical practice in a safe. With the ongoing pandemic, virtual reality and mixed reality has been identified as a must-have tool for teaching and learning in onsite and remote environments.
The project aims to train students in clinical soft skills and clinical anatomy respectively, positioning NUS Medicine as the first in Southeast Asia to introduce holographic mixed reality as a teaching tool to train medical and nursing students. The medical and technical expertise of NUS Medicine and the tech company will pave the way for the development of a niche technological competency, in which clinical training tools can be developed to introduce realistic clinical scenarios for use in medical education.
From delivering better healthcare experiences at the frontlines to helping neurosurgeons keep patients better informed of what could happen during their surgeries, technology has been an empowering tool for healthcare workers as they protect and save the lives of patients. As one of the few hospitals in Southeast Asia that has a tertiary education arm that collaborates with a training hospital, NUS Medicine is in a unique position to use mixed reality solutions.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, a team of researchers from the NUS Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology has invented a smart suture that is battery-free and can wirelessly sense and transmit information from deep surgical sites. These smart sutures incorporate a small electronic sensor that can monitor wound integrity, gastric leakage and tissue micromotions while providing healing outcomes that are equivalent to medical-grade sutures.
In future, the team is looking to develop a portable wireless reader to replace the setup currently used to wirelessly read out the smart sutures, enabling surveillance of complications even outside of clinical settings. This could enable patients to be discharged earlier from the hospital after surgery.
The team is now working with surgeons and medical device manufacturers to adapt the sutures for detecting wound bleeding and leakage after gastrointestinal surgery. They are also looking to increase the operating depth of the sutures, which will enable deeper organs and tissues to be monitored.
Aviation students at the University of South Australia will be training in cockpits of the two most popular jetliners in the world going forward. UniSA is due to take delivery of its second simulator this year – the Airbus A320 – allowing budding pilots to learn their way around a new cockpit, alongside the existing 737 flight simulator which is used for training undergraduate aviation students.
Bachelor of Aviation Program Director stated that the state-of-the-art Airbus A320 simulator, manufactured by a New Zealand firm, should be in place by mid-2022. He noted that for students to be able to train on both the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 simulators is a very rare opportunity. To his knowledge, UniSA will be the only university in Australia offering both Boeing and Airbus based flight simulators as part of its undergraduate aviation experience.
The exposure to two very different simulators will give UniSA’s aviation graduates a competitive edge by aligning their competencies with the industry requirements. While flying these planes may only happen later in their career, the fact they have been trained in two different cockpit environments will give them a definite advantage.
Apart from training students to fly, the new simulator will also be used for research purposes, investigating how fatigue, lack of movement, and other aspects of human factors affect pilot performance.
UniSA also hopes to incorporate virtual and augmented reality into the simulator training. The software components of the new simulator are similar to the Boeing 737, but the hardware is a fully enclosed shell structure with a 180-degree visual range.
Approximately 100 Bachelor of Aviation (Pilot) students use the simulator in their third year, putting into practice the theory they have learned up to that point in aircraft systems, flight plans, aerodynamics and navigation. The simulators allow students to work as a crew, giving them exposure to abnormal procedures, including engine failures, tricky weather conditions, and other scenarios that might not be suited for actual flight.
Simulators save lives and training costs, and with the addition of a second simulator, they will also give the university’s students a broader range of aviation experience that will serve them well in the real world. The idea that 100 pilots a year could walk out of university at a much higher bar, is great for the Australian flying community, the Program Director said. While COVID-19 has grounded many pilots temporarily and forced some into early retirement, the airline crisis has a silver lining for new students, he added. Most pilots who stood down or were made redundant during the height of the pandemic will not return, he predicts, providing plenty of job opportunities for newly trained pilots in the next few years.
According to a recent paper released by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, aviation is central to Australia’s economy and quality of life. Aviation underpins Australian business: transporting workers, tourists and high-value freight. The sector directly employed over 90,000 people and contributed $20 billion to the economy before COVID-19. Furthermore, the sector indirectly enables the tourism, mining, manufacturing and higher education sectors.
Aviation plays an important role in servicing the needs of regional and remote communities across Australia by providing and maintaining access to air services that include transport and freight, medical, search and rescue, social and law enforcement, and business/tourism travel.
Aviation is key to the tourism sector which accounts for around six per cent of GDP and is Australia’s fourth-largest export industry. Total international passenger traffic increased by around 75 per cent over the past 10 years to 2019.
The aviation sector acts as a crucial enabler across mining, construction, manufacturing and higher education. More than 60,000 people work more than 350 kilometres from their usual place of residence, the vast majority are likely to travel by air. Thousands of fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers serve the mining, construction, and oil and gas industry. A large majority (about 86%) of FIFO workers work in remote or very remote areas. Thus, training the pilots of Australia’s future is a necessary and important task.
The Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati (IIT-Guwahati), in partnership with a private player, has announced the launch of a postgraduate (PG) certificate programme in cybersecurity and a PG certificate programme in artificial intelligence (AI). The demand for cybersecurity domain experts has increased two-fold in the past year as tech-enabled solutions and digitalisation became a staple addition to institutions, governments, and organisations. This has globally increased the risk of security breaches as well.
The 8-month-long course focusing on cybersecurity will equip students with subjects that will help them become adept for careers as network security specialists, cybersecurity analysts, cybersecurity architects, cybersecurity managers, etc. The 9-month-long course on AI and deep learning will cover fundamental modules such as Python programming, data analytics, neural networks, computer vision, image recognition, etc. The course will prepare students for careers as AI and ML engineers, computer vision experts, software R&D engineers, cloud support engineers, etc.
A news report stated that the PG programmes have designed their pedagogy to cater to the latest industry requirements. Leading faculties from IIT-Guwahati and the industry player will conduct live instructor-led sessions over the weekends, along with prominent experts from relevant industries. The students will showcase their learnings and skills by participating in a Capstone project and solving real-world business problems.
The courses are currently accepting applications from candidates who have scored at least 50% marks in a relevant bachelor’s degree and have a minimum of two years of work experience in IT or software development. After the course, the students will receive certificates issued by the partner organisations. Speaking at the launch event, an official noted that IIT-Guwahati has been working to offer professional courses in futuristic areas of technology, science, and management. Since data science and AI-based technology have made rapid inroads through its seamless mechanisms and improved productivity through reduced human intervention, IIT-Guwahati has initiated undergraduate and doctoral programmes in the fields through its new Mehta Family School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
With the greater adoption of technology, there is a growing need for people with the best-in-class technical skill sets to meet this demand. This public-private collaboration will fulfil the requirements for AI, deep learning, and cybersecurity across all sectors. The official informed that the curriculum is meticulously developed with foundational and advanced subjects to provide learners with comprehensive knowledge leading across these specialised domains conforming to industry requirements. These programmes will enable professionals to upgrade their skills, knowledge about evolving technologies, and upscale their career graphs.
Earlier this month, OpenGov Asia reported that IIT-Madras and an Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-Ahmedabad)-incubated start-up, GUVI, are offering Python and AI upskilling courses for free. They are available to more than one million socially and economically disadvantaged youngsters in India. The Python and AI skills included in this initiative focus on face recognition technology that any beginner can master. The courses will be taught in various vernacular languages including English, Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu, among others. Free access to the courses will be available through a registration process enabled on GUVI’s official website.
Argonne National Laboratory is expanding its digital presence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education with two channels aimed specifically at students and teachers: STEAMville and a social media account that focuses on education. These new virtual programming initiatives, led by the laboratory’s Educational Programs and Outreach (EDU) department, will connect EDU and Argonne to STEM-driven students, teachers, and communities in Chicagoland and beyond.
Online social networks are a big component of how students and schools interact today. While other parts of the laboratory have used digital platforms before, this is a relatively new area for EDU, and we’re excited to dive into the field. By stepping into digital platforms, we can advance STEM learning to new audiences and influence the STEM growth of more students than ever before. And at the same time, these networks expose us to new perspectives on STEM learning that we can use to further develop our interactive programs.
– Jessica Burgess, Outreach Lead, Argonne EDU
One of the new platforms being explored by EDU is STEAMville, a combination of a social learning network and a learning management system. Northwestern University has developed the network over a decade to give schools, students, and science organisations their own virtual space to share and utilise STEM activities. This creates a rich catalogue of STEM programming that individuals and institutions can use and apply to their own programs, while also letting different groups and individuals interact with each other.
The platform closes the learning gap by providing kids with 24/7 STEM learning opportunities, so they can engage in STEM anytime, anywhere — whether they are at school or home for the summer. By joining STEAMville, Argonne creates the opportunity to reimagine itself as a national educator. The platform allows Argonne to extend its reach and connection to young people across multiple states.
In addition, EDU now has its own social media account. Although Argonne National Laboratory has maintained its own account, EDU’s separate social media account will allow it to more personally connect with audiences and inform them about EDU opportunities — and for some, introduce Argonne and its research.
Furthermore, this account will build ties with other youth-serving STEM institutions in the Chicagoland youth area by providing an educational social media presence in addition to their main channels. This in turn will increase EDU’s presence in the Chicagoland out-of-school learning community.
For teachers and students who are interested in STEM but do not usually look at things related to Argonne, EDU’s page will act as a friendly virtual introduction to the lab and Educational Programs. Through these new outreach initiatives, EDU can create new ways to communicate with our audiences — both youth and adults — and welcome them into our STEM education community.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have been using AI to search through a vast number of small molecules to find usable drug candidates. Recently, they have utilised new computing hardware to speed the process, reducing searches that might have originally taken years to mere minutes.
The advantage of using AI is that it can quickly adapt to and accommodate chemical structures that it has never seen and that has never been synthesised and do not exist in nature. Artificial intelligence gives us both the speed and flexibility that pure physics-based computation would have a very hard time achieving.
In tests on a large dataset of small molecules, the researchers found they could achieve 20 million predictions, or inferences, a second, vastly reducing the time needed for each search. Once the best candidates were found, the researchers identified which ones could be obtained commercially and had them tested on human cells.
