UTRECHT 27 SEPTEMBER 2016 – Yesterday a successful Taiwan Business Day was held in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht which was attended by over 125 people from The Netherlands and Taiwan. Businessmen, innovators and government officials liaised to enhance opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovation between the Netherlands and Taiwan. This year Taiwan Business Day was honored with the participation of a large (53 participants) delegation from the Taichung municipality which is the second largest city in Taiwan.
WHY TAIWAN BUSINESS DAY?
Taiwan Business Day in the Netherlands is initiated and organized by Taiwan Globalization Network (TGN), since 2012.
Taiwan Business Day in the Netherlands promotes the entrepreneurship and Innovation of Taiwan in the Netherlands and Europe.
Taiwan Business Day in the Netherlands creates the platform and marketplace for Taiwanese and European business people to meet together.
Through Taiwan Business Day, the soft-landing bridge between Taiwan and the Netherlands is initiated and under construction.
Since 2012, Taiwan Business Day in the Netherlands is greatly supported SMEA, CBIA, TBIA, South Region Incubation Alliance, ITRI, III in Taiwan, as well as DIA, KvK, NCH, several cities in the Netherlands, etc.
Taiwan Business Day creates the opportunities for Dutch and European business people to learn the business ecosystem and innovation of Taiwan, before they actually travel to Taiwan. The companies in Taiwan can also showcase their technology, products and services in the Netherlands. Living Lab and test bed opportunities are very valuable for companies to test and validate their concept for successful market access.
DELEGATION FROM TAICHUNG, SECOND CITY OF TAIWAN
Taichung City delegation, is the first Taiwanese city government to participate in Taiwan Business Day in the Netherlands.
Recently, innovative entrepreneurship has become one of the most important developments worldwide. The municipal government of Taiwan, then, succeeds years of cooperative groundwork established in Europe by SMEA to effectively expand Taiwan’s cooperative network, and build a bridge to international markets. Therefore, the 2016 Taiwan Business Day is the fruitful result between the strong bond of Utrecht City and Taiwan.
Not only is Taiwan Business Day purposed to strengthen the industrial relationship between Netherlands and Taiwan, but also utilize the foundation of prior Taiwan Business Day to continue the collision of two to bring out innovative solutions.
This year, we have had the pleasure to welcome officers from Taichung City Government, and experts from industry to share their valuable inputs with us.
Taichung City Government is on foot to introduce a sophisticated investment environment, and well-designed ecosystem for start-ups; thus, to increase the desire of cooperation from other countries in Europe.
Meanwhile, Taichung City Government and Utrecht City will jointly strive toward the same mission; the mission is to construct a soft-landing bridge connecting Asian markets and European markets for startups in both countries.
Utrecht, second city of The Netherlands, a perfect host and partner
In recent years, The Netherlands is growing its economies through greatly promoting emerging industry. Ever since commence of the Startup Delta program in 2014, Netherlands, through policy incentives, has been attracting potential startup worldwide to grow their businesses in Netherlands. Led by the government to form a triple helix collaboration among startups, financial giants, local businesses, Netherlands is motivated to elevate, and become the new focal point of the Europe.
In addition, Utrecht is the center of the train network in Netherlands, also, the junction of international train network; therefore, Utrecht’s high speed railway is swishing through numerous significant and important business centers. Not only does Utrecht have the ground advantages, but having the fourth busiest airport, Schiphol, at 0.5 hours driving distance definitely brings enormous opportunities. Plus, the air time is only within 2 hours from Schiphol to most other European countries.
Indeed, Utrecht is the strategic base, concluding all the advantages, for startups that allow them to penetrate into the rest of European markets. In the interim, Utrecht is congregating remarkable talents and amazing solutions for the three challenges arise at the moment, and they are Green Energy, Home Care, and Smart City. As a result, the interactions between Utrecht and Taichung City Government are expected to explore potential business opportunities for both sides.
Cooperation between Utrecht and Taichung on ‘innovation & entrepreneurship’
Geographically, both Taichung and Utrecht are quite similar. Both have ground & sky hubs, highway, and a union station. A thorough and well planned public transportation is definitely beneficial to logistics. Therefore, Taichung has become the center hub of Taiwan. Secondly, mid Taiwan has developed an influential industrial tech. cluster formed by precision machinery industry, and optoelectronics industry, and the annual production value is growing dramatically. The center hub in Taichung has become an indispensable cluster for developing smart city.
In conclusion, the development is quite similar in both Taichung and Utrecht; both are gradually become the new industrial main port; both are developing innovative solutions in the areas of Smart City, Green Energy, and Home Care. Through 2016 Taiwan Business Day, it is to showcase Taiwan’s R&D capability, and innovation in order to increase potential cooperation between both Taichung and Utrecht for further business development. Also, it is a step forward to construct a platform for SMEs in Taiwan entering European markets.
Signing MOU on soft-landing bridge Taichung and Utrecht
Thanks to the Hub positions of Taichung and Utrecht, MOU is signed by Dr. Yau-Jr Lu, Director General, Economic Development Bureau of Taichung City (on behalf of Taichung City Mayor, Dr. Chia-Long Lin), and Mr. Jeroen Kreijkamp, Utrecht Vice-Mayor, to develop the soft-landing bridge between Taichung and Utrecht.
Both Taichung city and Utrecht city promote the co-innovation and co-incubation, entrepreneurship and soft-landing. So we gather at Taiwan Business Day to build the soft-landing bridge together. Both cities are positioned as the hub and bridge head of business ecosystems both regions. Both Taichung and Utrecht will offer their cities as the living labs and testbeds for startups and scale ups from each other’s region. Free or low costs soft-landing service packages will be prepared and offered
Why soft-landing bridge?
The softlanding bridge between Taiwan and the Netherlands as the springboard to Asia and Europe is established and the networking is still expanding.
Internationalization is the key for the growth of startups and scale ups, according to the EU Innovation Research. TGN sets up and manages the soft-landing bridges, using Taichung and Utrecht as the hubs or bridge head to connect the Taiwanese and European business ecosystem.
The real value of the soft-landing bridge is the power of the network connecting and sharing the knowledge and expertise from mentors, business angels, industry leaders and public-private initiatives, as well as the resources such as incubators, co-working spaces, facilities etc.
TGN’s mission is to connect those networks of accelerators, and regional incubation networks, etc. So the free or low-cost soft-landing service packages can be shared and offered based on the specific needs to accelerate the business growth of the companies to other regions.
Startup and scale ups are per definition born global, who will be benefited from the soft-landing packages connected by the soft-landing bridge.
Taichung-Utrecht Soft-landing bridge will boost and accelerate the international cooperation and international market access of the startups and scale ups of both regions.
TGN Taiwan Explorer Award 2016Taiwan Explorer Award 2016
Because of the 5th anniversary of Taiwan Business Day, TGN offered the Taiwan Explorer Award 2016. The luck winner was drawn today at 12:00. The winning e-mobility entrepreneur Bruno Smulders, was randomly selected from all the Dutch entrepreneurs that participated in TBD16.
This is a great opportunity for the lucky winner of a business trip to Taiwan to gain the opportunity to explore their market access in Asia, via Taiwan !
Taiwan Explorer Award 2016, worth EUR 3,500 is made possible by China Airlines and other TGN partners;
Free flight from Amsterdam to Taipei v.v. – offered by China Airlines, starting direct flights from 01/01/2017
Free stay in dormitories of Universities in Taichung and Kaohsiung
Free co-working or incubation space offered by Chaoyang in Taichung, KUAS in Kaohsiung and many others in Taipei.
Free active matchmaking & mentoring by TGN-experts in Taiwan and Netherlands.
Free tailor made visiting program with TGN partners like SMEA’s Taiwan Startups Accelerator, ITRI Accelerator, TRIPLE and III.
TGN PARTNERS
TGN has established very intensive softlanding network with almost all incubators, accelerators, business angels, and venture capitalits in Taiwan, effectively offering access to the Taiwan ecosystem. Among others with:
Institute for Information Industry (III)
III, “Institute for Information Industry (III)” founded in 1973 Taiwan, has over 2,000 staff members, in which 85% of the staff members holds master degrees or doctors degrees. III has been incorporated as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) through the joint efforts of public (incl. Ministry of Economic Affairs) and private sectors, to support the development / applications of the information industry as well as the information society in Taiwan as a whole. III itself has around 15 years of experience in incubation to assisting, supporting, and mentoring startups to grasp various commercial interests such as funding, business orders, letter of intents, and etc. III operates 5 incubators with extensive network among Taiwan and China, especially the Nangang Software Incubator (NSI), it is the first self-sustained incubator in Taiwan. It has not received any support from external resources, and also awarded “Incubator of the Year 2014 Award” by Asian Association of Business Incubation, AABI.
The profound cooperation among III, Utrecht, and TGN commences to establish the concept of a triple helix formation to create a soft-landing program as a bridge for startups from both Taiwan, and Netherlands to penetrate into different markets. By now, Health Care (incl. Home Care), Digital Content (such gaming, animation, etc.), and Smart City have been identified with high potential for further exploration.
Moreover, in order to speed up the cooperative relationship development, III not only has worked on the ChallengeClub and InnoLab together with TGN, but also brings the 2 Taiwan startups attended Campus Party to showcase Taiwan’s innovative solutions, as well as to seek for local partners from Utrecht to penetrate into European markets. Besides, III also arranged 10 outstanding Taiwan Startups participating in”Connect 2 European markets via Utrecht” event to meet with the Utrecht City government officers and TGN to demonstrate their excellent innovation, and to show their strong soft-landing desire in Utrecht. With the effective cooperation, we believe the great achievements and the win-win benefits are going to be realized in the near future.
With such a well-designed, and all-stages acceleration services, III has basically formed an sophisticated ecosystem by itself; however, III is always welcoming brilliant startups to join our family, because III believes that only the concept of unity will drive us to success. As a result, III’s years of expertise will assist your startup to grow both locally and internationally. Our scope of service includes seeking for local partners, connection to funding, mentoring from experts, and etc. In the end, family matters the most, and III welcomes all startups from Utrecht, Netherlands, and the entire Europe to join this family. In addition, III will continue to work with TGN, and Utrecht to establish a bridge between Taiwan and Europe.
KUAS
The soft-landing package offered by Innovation & Incubation Center, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences (KUAS) is mainly to help international startups and scale ups to access to mentoring and network resources:
Mentoring: We will have a Chief Resident ( CR) to be the front desk which deal with all applicants who want to join our soft-landing program, once we accept the applications, we will contact various type of mentor who meet the applicant’s need to do the one-on-one coaching to achieve their goal.
Network: KUAS’s Incubation Center is Taiwan Southern Regional Incubation Center, we are specialize on Manufacturing and ICT industries, if there are other industry coming for incubation, we have other 26 universities’ incubation centers which almost include all industries could help the company which request help, moreover, due to we have very strong connection with local supply chain, we are very efficient to get any part of supply chain to meet your needs.
Taiwan Incubators and Accelerators
All incubation centers which attend this TBD16 are welcome and positive to this soft-landing bridge between Utrecht and Taiwan.
TBIA (Taichung Business Incubator Alliance) and CBIA (Chinese Business Incubation Association, CBIA) are currently supporting their members to upgrade their expertise and knowledge and actively participating in the international incubation associations and organizations such as AABI, EBN and iNBIA as well as with TGN and UBI, to foster the international cooperation and exchange.
CBIA is established in 1997 with MOEA’s guidance and support. CBIA is non-profit organization and its mission statement is to facilitate and improve the operation effectiveness, exchange experiences and sharing resources.
Chaoyang is the first Taiwanese incubator granted full EBN BIC Membership since 2013. Chaoyang was awarded as the best incubator in Asia and 2nd best global by UBI in 2015. Chaoyang has very valuable incubation and internationalization experiences, as well as a professional incubation volunteers and managers. Chaoyang was awarded as the best international incubator center by MOEA Taiwan in 2015.
TBIA is established by the incubation centers in central Taiwan region. TBIA’s missions are to build the communication channels among industry, academic and government, to help alliance members to match with the incubation resource and business cooperation opportunities.
Due to the outstanding performance and achievement, currently TBIA has expanded nationwide with nearly 35 incubation centers and institutes.
TBIA actively uses strategic alliances and resource platform to promote information sharing, resource exchange, experience sharing and cross-sector cooperation., which substantially upgrade the performance of incubators. In recent years TBIA actively promotes international incubation and acceleration business through international platforms, and has substantive cooperation and exchange with the incubators in Singapore, Hong Kong, China Pingtan, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, to assist companies and alliance members to explore business opportunities through the soft landing support.
ITRI TRIPLE-Innovation in Taiwan
The Taiwan Rapid Innovation Prototyping League for Entrepreneurs (TRIPLE) seeks to become a partner to entrepreneurs across the world and help in making their dreams come true. By also introducing the strengths of Taiwan’s supply chain in manufacturing processes and the integration of hardware and software, TRIPLE will help to rapidly turn creative ideas into actual products. This will both add value to new ventures and Taiwan’s overall manufacturing sector. TRIPLE will become a platform for global entrepreneurs in achieving their production dreams, while also enabling Taiwan to become a beachhead for new ventures.
Establishing of TRIPLE is one of the key objectives of a governmental innovation and entrepreneurship task force, and is an important move in paving the way for Taiwan to become an international hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. These two units will cooperate in attracting potential new ventures from across the world to Taiwan, while also tapping into Taiwan’s strengths in software and hardware, as well as its advanced production capabilities. Taiwan’s systems integration and ODM companies will also be introduced, thereby helping to turn the ideas and dreams of startups into tangible products.
TRIPLE will attract international startups to Taiwan, which will inject new vitality into Taiwan’s manufacturing sector and help young people find new paths to pursue. Consequently, Taiwan will become a rapid accelerator in adding value to innovation from throughout the world, while also forming a high-value ecosystem within Taiwan’s supply chain featuring the integration of hardware and software.
TRIPLE will enable Taiwan and the Europe together promote changes in industry. Taiwan industry will be able to participate in founding or preliminary investment as new markets and new technologies take root, thus assisting entrepreneurial teams and venture capitalists to rapidly assess the feasibility of commercialization. This will turn innovation into concrete business opportunities.
At this stage, TRIPLE will focus on providing services to five main industries that are at the forefront of the current wave of innovation, namely wearable devices, the Internet of Things, advanced manufacturing, advanced medical devices, and advanced materials. This will provide domestic and foreign entrepreneurial teams with prototyping services and allow Taiwan to gain a foothold in the global market for these services.
We intended to assist Taiwan’s innovative startups to use Taiwan Soft-landing Bridge in Utrecht, the Netherlands, as the spring board to European market. Taiwan globalization network (TGN) and Economic Board Utrecht (EBU) in Netherlands are working on establishing Taiwan Innovation Hub in Utrecht. We anticipate that both Taiwan and the Europe will have more collaboration in the future.
Source: https://www.persbericht.nu/taiwan-business-day-2016-held-in-utrecht/