Taiwan is a food lover's paradise, internationally recognized for its gourmet cuisine. This also means the food service industry in Taiwan is incredibly competitiveWhether restaurants can survive and thrive for long depends on their ability to attract customers. Wowprime provided the challenge for the innovative food service division of the AI Wave: Taiwan Generative AI Applications Hackathon, held on May 18-19, 2024 by DIGITIMES, challenging the participating teams to utilize generative AI to create innovative interactive applications that drive customers to restaurants.Wowprime also provided resources and data for the teams to use. The team named "Hoping to Meet the Turtle," comprising Yu-Xuan Liu from the graduate program of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Cheng Kung University, as well as Wei-Xu Chen and Yan-Ting Lin from IBM, used generative AI coupled with game-based marketing to increase customer loyalty and draw new customers to restaurants. The team stood out from the competitors in the Wowprime - innovative food service division and won the honorable mention award, voted unanimously by all the judges.People in Taiwan enjoy good food. This is the key growth driver for the country's food service industry.A restaurant's ability to attract more customers is critical to its long-term operation. Hoping to Meet the Turtle used the Anthropic Claude 3 Sonnet model in Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes high-performing foundation models on Amazon Web Services (AWS), to analyze restaurant data provided by Wowprime and found the group of customers aged between 26 and 45 is the largest.According to Business Wire, the global gaming market value is set to reach US$40 billion in 2024 and the 26-45 age segment is also the most dominant. Because of this, the team came up with the idea of incorporating game-based marketing in their solution.Games evoke positive emotions, pique great interest, encourage interactions at a low cost, and build brand identity so game-based promotion is ideal for restaurants with a limited marketing budget. Apart from designing games catering to Millennials, the team also used location-based push notifications and Online Merge Offline (OMO) approaches to create winning marketing funnel strategies that enable continuing customer interactions and increase customer stickiness. For future enhancements, the team proposes add-on features including special holiday promotions, social media posts, and customized menus.In response to the award, Hoping to Meet the Turtle noted that game-based marketing has wide-ranging applications. Backed by powerful generative AI and suitable data for training, game-based marketing can be used in all kinds of scenarios wherein businesses need to reach out to customers. Going forward, the team will stay committed to related technology research and find more application scenarios.The team named "Hoping to Meet the Turtle Team" won an honorable mention award for their AI-driven game-based marketing solution to boost restaurant

Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) Taiwan 2024 demonstrated the state-of-the-art EDA innovations and Artificial intelligence (AI) driven solutions for the chip design community.With the theme of "Our Technology, Your Innovation," this annual event took place on June 19, 2024, and showed how Synopsys uses its advanced technology to help customers forge success with innovation. Joachim Kunkel, Synopsys General Manager of Solutions Group, delivered a keynote titled "Powering Innovation in the Era of Pervasive Intelligence."Kunkel said, "AI technology has brought unprecedented new opportunities to the industry. All of this will drive an explosion of intelligent systems and smart applications. But this is also pushing the limits of computing and energy resources. Synopsys' solutions will support customers to cope with these challenges."The Pervasive Intelligence era is comingSynopsys highlights three key paradigms driving the era of Pervasive Intelligence. That is the rapid advancement of AI, silicon proliferation, and software-defined systems.These days, more electronic products are now driven by sophisticated software. The rapid acceleration of AI technology is empowered and embedded in various smart devices and systems.A huge number of AI chips will be required to achieve these benefits. These efforts will increase the proliferation of silicon, which is powering AI acceleration, bringing it to multiple applications controlled by sophisticated software. This will lead to the burst of Software-Defined Systems.Together, these three paradigms are shaping the new era of pervasive intelligence, where AI and smart technologies are seamlessly integrated into our daily lives. Whether it is PCs, smartphones, autonomous driving cars, or industrial automation systems and robots, behind these systems are the technological foundations of AI chips and integrated software that will help us find better ways of doing things to achieve better outcomes. All these efforts support the exponential growth of the semiconductor industry.However, three key challenges immediately arise including silicon complexity, productivity, and software-defined system capabilities. To respond to these challenges, Synopsys provides solutions ranging from New AI-driven EDA tools, IP offerings and Systems Design Solutions.AI across the entire EDA flow from Synopsys.ai to Synopsys.ai CopilotSolving the silicon complexity challenge, the engineering team is dealing with projects such as trillion transistor counts in a single chip. Considering performance, Power Performance and Area (PPA) improvements, Synopsys provides the AI-driven EDA suite Synopsys.ai for a chip design spanning implementation, verification, testing, and simulation to manufacturing processes.These autonomous AI-driven full-stack EDA suite launched in 2020 and has achieved hundreds of successful tape-outs that supported customers' gaining project goals. In 2022, Synopsys also implemented a set of AI-driven data analytics solutions that allow insightful analysis of the vast amount of data collected on the customer side and released the Synopsys.da product line.In addition, with the introduction of Synopsys.ai Copilot, Synopsys is harnessing the power of generative AI to help design teams with new levels of productivity. Integrated into the full Synopsys EDA stack, Synopsys.ai Copilot allows design engineering teams to be more flexible in the use of customized data sets and facilitates internal deployment of physical isolation to meet data security requirements.The integration of generative AI capabilities is just the latest step in the journey to drive greater productivity for solving silicon complexity challenges. These AI-assisted tools will continue to evolve, and new tools will bring continuous design creativity.Synopsys Expands Silicon IP Portfolio to help customers to drive productivityIn addition to providing full stack of AI-driven EDA solutions, Synopsys further reduces customers' chip design burden through the offering of silicon intellectual property (IP). Synopsys is a leading provider of silicon-proven semiconductor IP solutions for SoC designs and partners with customers and collaborators to enhance their next-generation designs, incorporating new features to reduce the complexity of large-scale chip design.It is worth mentioning that Synopsys continues to expand its IP product portfolio with a design team of 2,000 engineers. After 2020, the offerings further expand to use subsystems as an extension of IP products to help customers' AI chip projects enhance the standard architecture for their next-generation designs, incorporating new features now available with the latest specifications, which will further shorten the design process.As part of its efforts to drive mainstream adoption of multi-die design, Synopsys has successfully demonstrated the first silicon-proven UCIe-connected and a result of collaboration between Synopsys and its foundry partners. UCIe's high-speed data transmission features will continue to assist in the design of multi-die systems in the future.This is an important foundation for High-Performance Computing (HPC) and AI chips that require large amounts of data transmission and processing capabilities. Synopsys helps customers to stay competitive in a market where new standard developments are already being adopted.The development of 2.5D, 3D, and even 3.5D multi-die heterogeneous integrated chips will continue to evolve. Moreover, a broad IP portfolio, an end-to-end, AI-driven EDA platform, and the most advanced multi-die solutions will boost the development and enable the march to trillions of transistors IC innovation.Digital twins of electronic devices enhance software-defined systems prototypingWith software-defined systems, taking the example of the modern car with its 500 million lines of code, in which operations and enablement of new features are primarily managed through software, verification, and validation of these systems are dominating the cost of product development. For these products, digital twins enable a dramatic reduction in cost and design risks.In response to the design requirements of software-defined systems, software simulation, and verification have become important requirements. For faster, higher capacity emulation and prototyping, Synopsys provides system-level design and simulation tools to verify the real software execution to ensure the correct operation and use of software-defined systems.The HAPS-100 12 virtual prototyping solution is targeting high-capacity FPGA-based prototyping with a mix of fixed and flexible interconnects and a rack-friendly design, particularly useful for prototyping big designs that require many FPGAs, such as multi-die systems and large SoCs.Meanwhile, the ZeBu EP2 hardware simulation system is the latest version in the Synopsys ZeBu EP family of unified emulation and prototyping systems with the fastest emulation and prototyping platform for AI workloads, making it ideal for software bring-up, hardware validation, and power performance analysis. Both systems can help customers reduce design risks and provide automotive engineering teams with digital twin applications of vehicle electronic systems to facilitate automotive software and ensure that increasingly complex semiconductor designs and high-function software systems can be integrated and operated smoothly as expected.Kunkel pointed out that AI-driven EDA tools are developing rapidly to assist engineers in solving problems. By automating tedious repetitive tasks and optimizing design process flow, AI can free up the mental bandwidth of design engineers for the creative work that drives growth.His advice to engineers is: By continually analyzing data and learning optimal approaches through AI-driven EDA solutions, engineers still need to go back to the role of a designer to focus on design and creative work that drives innovation and growth. Learning more about application areas and system architectures will help engineers understand how to design things and make your work more fun.

In alignment with the global ESG initiative, businesses are increasingly paying attention to energy management.However, without specific expertise, most people have difficulty keeping abreast of energy efficiency issues. Fortunately, generative AI can help. Advantech provided the challenge for the smart energy management division of the AI Wave: Taiwan Generative AI Applications Hackathon, held on May 18-19, 2024 by DIGITIMES, challenging the participating teams to utilize generative AI to revolutionize user experience of smart energy management.Advantech also provided resources and data for the teams to use. The team named "Playing a Part in AI", comprising De-Ru Yu and Si-Yu Tsai from 8 Interactive and Ting-Ni Wu from CTBC Securities, created AI Agent, a virtual expert guiding energy conservation meetings.The team aimed to help managers new to energy conservation tackle challenges as they lack the experience to ask the right questions, sort through the data, and perform analyses. The team stood out from a group of strong competitors and won the honorable mention award, voted unanimously by all the judges.Generative AI has demonstrated its strong capabilities in a multitude of application scenarios. Businesses are now striving to harness the power of generative AI.To enable one-key data analysis and efficient energy management, Playing a Part in AI developed a solution that uses generative AI to look up data and prepare a presentation before a meeting, provide strategy suggestions and insights after the meeting, and regularly track records and personalized reports. It can help managers unfamiliar with energy conservation quickly grasp key points in a meeting.Playing a Part in AI built its energy conservation meeting AI Agent using the Anthropic Claude 3 Sonnet model in Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes high-performing foundation models on Amazon Web Services (AWS), coupled with AWS Lambda, a serverless compute service, and Amazon DynamoDB, a fast NoSQL key-value database service.Before a meeting, managers only need to input the meeting topic, and the AI Agent will analyze a great amount of data and generate charts to help managers identify the key points. After the meeting, managers can use their mobile phones to upload data to the platform for the generative AI engine to sort, analyze, and archive. For regular tracking purposes, the AI Agent can send notifications with customized reports and charts according to user settings to help managers stay on top of project status.The Playing a Part in AI team members come from various backgrounds encompassing engineering, marketing, and business planning. The team attributed their success to the comprehensive training they received at the AWS generative AI workshops. It brought them on the same page and allowed them to communicate without barriers so that they could complete the project and win the award.The team named "Playing a Part in AI" won honorable mention for their AI Agent, a virtual expert for energy conservation meetings

Amid global warming, the COVID-19 pandemic, and armed conflicts around the world, energy prices have been soaring and everyone is searching for ways to reduce energy consumption and costs.Hitachi Air Conditioning assigned the problem for the innovative energy conservation division of the AI Wave: Taiwan Generative AI Applications Hackathon, held on May 18-19, 2024 by DIGITIMES. They challenged the participating teams to utilize generative AI to develop smart interactive applications for air conditioning systems that enhance user experience.Hitachi Air Conditioning also provided resources and data for the teams to use. The team named "Hao I Coding," comprising Zi-Zun Fang, Ying-Rong Lin, Yun-Hao Chang and Ruo-Yu Wu from the graduate program of the Department of Information Management at the National Central University as well as An-Chi Wang from Institute of Information Management, Department of Industrial and Information Management, National Cheng Kung University, built a solution that uses smartphones to keep an eye on electricity usage and leverages generative AI for electricity usage analyses. The team stood out from the competitors in the Hitachi Air Conditioning- innovative energy conservation division and won the honorable mention award, voted unanimously by all the judges.Coping with rising electricity prices, households are taking measures to reduce power consumption. After in-depth research, Hao I Coding found three major challenges hindering households' energy conservation efforts - inaccurate responses from chatbots, lack of air conditioning settings, and no way of knowing the electricity usage of traditional home appliances.To help address these challenges, the team decided to start by connecting smartphones with air conditioning systems to collect complete operation data and detect system malfunctions as soon as they occur. Based on that foundation, the team used generative AI to analyze air condition systems' electricity usage to help users find a perfect energy conservation balance, thereby resolving the two challenges - lack of air conditioning settings and no way of knowing the electricity usage of traditional home appliances.Although there are many generative AI solutions with Large Language Models (LLMs), they have difficulty providing correct responses to energy conservation questions without appropriate training using domain-specific data. Because of this, Hao I Coding conducted complete testing and decided to use the Anthropic Claude 3 Sonnet model in AWS Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes high-performing foundation models on Amazon Web Services (AWS) coupled with energy conservation big data, Hitachi Air Conditioning user manuals, and power-consuming appliance lists for training. They were able to build a chatbot that provides information-laden, logical and practical advice.Hao I Coding noted that the AWS workshop was a very valuable part of the hackathon as they did not have any opportunity to learn about generative AI and LLM before.The team named "Hao I Coding Team" won honorable mention for their smartphone-based AI solution for electricity usage analysis

Walter Liu has been hired by American Express for the recently created role of Head of the Asia Region.In this capacity, he is in charge of managing AmEx's issuance operations in the markets of Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. He oversees the Company's proprietary business and acts as the Managing Director of their operations in the market.Liu has over 20 years of experience with American Express and is a seasoned business leader and risk management expert. He is in an excellent position to manage the region as AmEx pursues its goal of controlling and catering to the premium segment in Asia because of his background in creating and managing high-performing teams and his comprehensive knowledge of the Asian market.Liu's appointment marks a huge step in AmEx's expansion plans, and it is expected to boost its presence and adaptability in the market. With his deep understanding of the Asian market dynamics, Liu is poised to lead AmEx's efforts in expanding its footprint across key Asian economies.One of the key areas of focus under his leadership will be the enhancement of AmEx's digital and online services. As more consumers and businesses in Asia embrace digital payments, AmEx aims to provide cutting-edge solutions that cater to the evolving needs of its customers.The evolving needs of AmEx customers mean that the plastic card is becoming popular for a variety of uses. From shopping to online gaming and gambling, AmEx is leading the way in Asia.When it comes to online gaming and gambling, the AmEx payment options are endless, with a huge variety of gambling sites now accepting AmEx. As Techopedia author and casino expert Sergio Zammit notes, AmEx is popular because players get points in return for every payment. Beyond that, AmEx is also setting itself apart by offering players:Safety and security: AmEx is known for its strong security features. This makes it a trustworthy choice for online transactions. Users appreciate the added layer of protection that comes with using a credit card with a strong fraud prevention system.Convenience: Many online casinos and betting sites have started accepting AmEx because of its popularity and ease of use. Players can quickly and securely deposit funds into their gambling accounts, allowing for a hassle-free gaming experience at online casinos and crypto betting sites.Beyond online gaming and gambling, AmEx is also widely used for online shopping across Asia. Let's explore why AmEx, in particular, is becoming one of the most popular plastic cards for shopping in the region:Partnerships with Retailers: AmEx has established partnerships with major online retailers, offering exclusive deals and discounts to cardholders. This has encouraged more consumers to use their cards for online purchases.Growing E-commerce Market: The e-commerce market in Asia is growing, with countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and India leading the charge. AmEx's presence in this market is growing as more consumers turn to online shopping for convenience and variety.Cross-border Shopping: AmEx is favored for cross-border transactions because of its reliability and acceptance at international online stores. Asian consumers often use AmEx when purchasing goods from overseas, leveraging the card's global acceptance.Under Liu's direction, AmEx is starting this new chapter in a position to take advantage of the expanding potential in the Asian market. AmEx is poised to solidify its position as the area's top financial services provider by emphasizing digital transformation and customer-centric solutions.American Express names its new head of the Asian region and plans to grow in the online and digital sectors

The finance sector is one of the key areas where AI is put to use to drive innovations.FinTechSpace provided the challenge for the AI finance division of the AI Wave: Taiwan Generative AI Applications Hackathon, challenging the participating teams to utilize generative AI to develop innovative fintech solutions. The teams named "Happy Oh Oh" and "I Want to Travel Abroad" stood out from the competition and won the gold and silver awards.Happy Oh Oh drives green finance with generative AIYi-Ling Li, Xiang-Yi Ke, Hong-Chang Lin, Jia He, and Shao-Wei Chu from the Interdisciplinary Program of Management and Technology at National Tsing Hua University formed Happy Oh Oh. They used generative AI combined with green finance to solve financial difficulties for farmers and drive the low-carbon agriculture transition.Leveraging AWS Partyrock to build a generative AI application platform without coding, the team built three systems. They include an evaluation system that assesses farmers' credit risk and expected return, a check system that tracks farmers' project progress, and a settlement system that calculates carbon credits and issues payments.The way it works is that the bank grants a green loan to the farmer to cover upfront investment costs and the farmer earns carbon credits which can be used to pay off the loan. After the load period ends, the farmer can sell the carbon credits at the purchase price and the bank can trade the carbon credits in exchange for profit and SG responsibility fulfillment.With the solution, farmers can get extra income from selling carbon credits. Corporations can buy carbon credits as a way to reduce spending.Banks can make a profit while making a social influence. Governments can use the opportunity to build a carbon trading and offsetting system. Benefiting multiple parties, the solution integrates generative AI with green finance to improve farmers' financial well-being and drive low-carbon agriculture transition.I Want to Travel Abroad uses generative AI for fraud preventionMeng-Ru Chuang from AVA Angels and Hsiao-Hung Huang from Taiwan Association for Blockchain Ecosystem Innovation formed I Want to Travel Abroad. The team used generative AI to develop an innovative solution that fights increasing financial scams on social media.The team built a chatbot on the foundation of AWS PartyRock. Using an automated process, their solution gathers past performances of stock market gurus, analyzes the content, finds suspicious investment advice using big data algorithms, sorts the findings into personalized investment portfolios, performs fact checks, and offers the information to users via a friendly interface. The solution was aimed at using generative AI to help users identify suspicious investment advice and prevent them from falling victim to financial fraud.The rapidly rising popularity of social media on top of people's increasing need to invest their money provides a breeding ground for financial scams. The solution from I Want to Travel Abroad uses generative AI to collect different perspectives and convey them via a chatbot.It perfectly fits what users need and thus has great market potential. Future developments of the solution include collaborations with brokerage firms to provide their clients with tailor-made AI investment advice to create more revenue streams.The teams named "Happy Oh Oh" won the gold award for their innovative generative AI fintech solutionThe teams named "I Want to Travel Abroad" secured the silver award with their creative AI-driven fintech innovation

Rugged embedded computer brand – Cincoze recently received two international awards honoring its DS-1402 high-performance and PCIe expansion rugged embedded computer. Part of the Rugged Computing – DIAMOND product line, the DS-1402 meets the performance and expandability demands of edge computing, with the reliability and stability required for smart factories, machine vision, and other industries.The DS-1402 was recognized by two professional media outlets, receiving the Innovators Awards from Vision System Design (a well-known American machine vision media outlet) and the Product of the Year Awards from Control Engineering (a major industrial automation magazine), affirming its design innovation and technical prowess.Cincoze DS-1402 can be equipped with Raptor Lake-S / Alder Lake-S 65W processorExcellent Computing Performance for Machine VisionFor machine vision and industrial applications, performance is key, and the DS-1402 is the ideal choice. It can be equipped with a 13/12th gen Intel (Raptor Lake-S / Alder Lake-S) 65W processor, with up to 24 cores (8P + 16E) and 32 threads that deliver 1.35 times the processing performance of its predecessor, the Comet Lake-S.The DS-1402 supports 64GB 4800MHz DDR5 ECC memory to meet the needs of applications requiring high reliability and data integrity. Storage options include 2.5" SATA, mSATA, and M.2 Key M, offering flexible configuration to match application requirements.PCIe Expansion for Various ApplicationsThe DS-1402 has two PCI/PCIe expansion slots that support various I/O, GPU, image capture, data acquisition, and motion control cards to tailor-match the system to application requirements. For applications that require maximum computing performance, a 110W GPU card with a size of 111 x 235mm can be installed.Poor contact is a big headache when cards come loose in high-vibration environments, so the DS-1402 has a patented adjustable PCIe holder (patent number: I773359) that secures the expansion cards and eliminates the loosening that can cause operation shutdown. GPU cards can generate a lot of heat, so Inhaling and Exhaling fans are available to wick that excess heat away, these fans can be added according to the cooling needs of the GPU card to improve the cooling performance.The DS-1402 can also easily add additional I/O and functions (PoE or IGN) through Cincoze's exclusive CMI/CFM moduleRich Expandability for Wireless and MoreIn addition to the native high-speed I/O interfaces (2x 1GbE LAN, 8x USB), the DS-1402 can also easily add additional I/O and functions (PoE or IGN) through Cincoze's exclusive CMI/CFM module, effectively shortening the Configuration deployment cost and time. Three Mini-PCIe slots support the full spectrum of wireless transmission, such as WiFi, GNSS, 4G, and Bluetooth, and also support other add-on cards to meet diverse application needs.Professional-Grade Protection and Industry CertificationsThe DS-1402 is built tough, with industrial-grade protection design and industry certifications in different fields to back it up. The DS-1402 can withstand a wide temperature (-40 - 70°C) and wide voltage (9 - 48 VDC) range; boasts overvoltage, overcurrent, and ESD protection; and complies with the US military shock standard MIL-STD-810G. Internationally recognized UL 62368-1 safety certification further ensures its safety and reliability. For maximum security in railway computing solutions, it has also passed the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) EN 50121-3-2 standard in EN 50155.

Targeting one of the most complex and sensitive parts of the human body, any minor error during a spinal surgery could lead to severe consequences such as infection, nerve damage, or spinal cord injury. This makes spinal surgery a high-risk surgical procedure.To overcome the challenges, Point Robotics MedTech created a minimally invasive spine surgery robot platform by combining medical expertise and state-of-the-art technologies such as robotic arms, optical positioning, and algorithms. The platform can help surgeons perform complex spinal surgeries with high precision and optimize the patient's medical experience.Point Robotics' surgical robotics technology is inherited from a professor at Imperial College London with over 30 years of experience. The company was founded in 2016 with support from the National Science Council's Germination Program. It aims to leverage the technical prowess of Taiwan's medical and mechanical industries to develop a spinal surgery robot that assists surgeons in enhancing surgical precision and reducing risks.Minimally Invasive Spine Surgical Robot with Precision and ReliabilityAccording to Brad Lin, Chief Marketing Officer of Point Robotics, there are two main challenges in existing spine surgeries. First, surgical precision requirements from medical institutions and patients are increasing, especially in minimally invasive surgeries.Traditional surgeries rely on surgeons' experience and tactile sensation, but this approach has limitations, particularly in tasks like bone grinding, where achieving high precision is more challenging. Moreover, surgeons performing spine surgeries over a long period are prone to wrist and eye fatigue, which can adversely affect surgical quality and career longevity.The second challenge lies in the increasing expectations of patients regarding surgical outcomes and post-operative recovery periods. Improving surgical efficiency and post-operative recovery outcomes have become significant missions for medical institutions. Not only to achieve precision, surgeries today also aim to minimize incisions and recovery time as much as possible.While technologies and equipment for spinal surgery have advanced rapidly, there is still room for improvement to meet all those demands. Particularly in the realm of robotic surgery equipment, existing systems are mostly focused on soft tissue surgeries, with fewer applications for hard tissue surgeries. Point Robotics' minimally invasive spine surgery robot and navigation system are perfect for addressing clinical needs today.Michael Lo, Head of Corporate Strategy of Point Robotics, explained the architecture of their product, which integrates a six-motored robotic end-effector with navigation systems and control technology, combining precision and flexibility. The company's surgical robot uses a robotic end-effector to compensate for deviations from the planned path, enabling real-time tracking of patient movement during surgery. This allows surgeons to perform precise and stable surgeries.By precisely controlling the robotic end-effector, the surgical robot has expanded its functionality to decompression capabilities. The precision of bone grinding can reach mere paper-thin thickness. During surgery, the force feedback system detects changes in bone density and dynamically adjusts grinding force, depth, and path accordingly to ensure surgical precision and safety.Point Robotics' Detail-focused Product Development Builds a ReputationAccording to Lo, for a medical device to gain industry recognition and successfully commercialize, it needs to overcome technical challenges and undergo lengthy clinical validation. "Robotic technologies are categorized as the high-precision, cutting-edge field, and the medical products are closely related to human safety," he emphasized. Thus, every prototype of a medical device must undergo rigorous validation and continuous communication with clinical physicians to ensure that the product design meets medical needs.In practical application, variations in each patient's bone density and other external factors can also impact the surgery process and outcomes, presenting challenges from theory to clinical practice and commercialization. Point Robotics' products have undergone iterative modifications and validation to achieve the clinical benefits doctors expect.Point Robotics' navigation system has been in clinical use since 2023. As of now, it has been utilized in 150 surgeries. The first-generation navigation system and robotic-assisted surgical system were cleared by the U.S. FDA and certificated by Taiwan FDA between 2022 and 2023.Regarding the product marketing plan, Lo mentioned that because the medical industry is typically cautious about new products, they will initially focus on the navigation system, which has higher market acceptance. Next, the company will develop a decompression surgery robot capable of performing various functions such as bone grinding, assisting surgeons in conducting more spine surgeries and improving surgical efficiency.According to Lo and Lin, the success of Point Robotics' technology in transferring from concept to product is due not only to the full commitment of the team members but also to the continuously improving ecosystem for startups in Taiwan. For example, while Point Robotics was looking for clinical resources, BE Accelerator – a TTA accelerator partner, helped the company connect with suitable physicians, enabled product testing, and received feedback on suggestions and feasible directions.The locally enthusiastic startup atmosphere and policy support have also attracted many young overseas Taiwanese entrepreneurs to return home. These entrepreneurs bring back global perspectives and innovative thinking. When combined with Taiwan's technology, medical and manufacturing industries, a virtuous cycle begins.Looking ahead, Taiwan's startup ecosystem is expected to mature further and be more internationalized. Point Robotics also looks forward to interacting and collaborating with other companies, expanding Taiwan's influence in the global medical technology field.(Editor's note: The original article was published in TTA Magazine Issue 14. Read more startup stories in TTA Magazines.)Point Robotics’ robotic-assisted surgical system and navigation system can help surgeons perform complex minimally invasive surgeries with high precision.

Cerebrovascular Accidents (CVAs), or stroke, are the top cause of disability and the second leading cause of death worldwide, posing significant threats to human health.Unfortunately, many individuals only become aware of their condition after experiencing a stroke, missing the optimal window for early intervention and treatment.Carotid Artery Stenosis (CAS) has been identified as a crucial factor contributing to strokes, serving as an early indicator. Therefore, early detection and treatment of carotid artery stenosis are vital measures for stroke prevention.However, traditional methods for detecting carotid artery stenosis are limited by expensive equipment, heavy reliance on specialized medical personnel for operation and interpretation, lengthy testing procedures, and high costs, preventing widespread early detection of risk for stroke.Through collaboration with a team of professionals from National Taiwan University, Pulxion Medical Technology has developed a non-invasive AI imaging technology for rapid screening of the risk of carotid artery stenosis, PulStroke, which breaks through traditional testing limitations.With rapidity, standardization, and high cost-effectiveness features, the technology can significantly reduce the need for medical manpower and resources. It is poised to enhance the accessibility of early stroke screening greatly.The limitations of traditional methods make early stroke detection challengingPulxion was founded by Professor Hao-Ming Hsiao from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Taiwan University. The co-founder is Dr. Hsien-Li Kao, a Professor in the Medicine School at the National Taiwan University and Chairman of the Cardiology Division at the National Taiwan University Hospital. Their long-term collaboration started in 2014, dedicated to addressing numerous challenges in early stroke detection, and they officially established Pulxion in 2020.According to Professor Hsiao, the main reason for choosing the carotid artery as the topic of their research is that there are over 12 million new cases of stroke worldwide every year, which means one new case occurs every 3 seconds. It is not only a threat to human health but also significantly impacts healthcare and societal costs. There's an estimation that by 2030, the global economic burden of stroke, including post-care, will exceed one trillion US dollars.Carotid artery stenosis serves as a critical early indicator of stroke. Existing common diagnostic methods for carotid artery stenosis include carotid artery ultrasound, Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA), and Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA). However, due to issues such as expensive equipment and complex operations, early screening is challenging to implement widely.The carotid artery is the closest blood vessel to the body's surface, making it easier to observe the pulsation characteristics. Therefore, Pulxion starts with carotid artery stenosis assessment and utilizes non-invasive AI imaging technology to evaluate the risk of stroke.Unique Screening Method: Rapid, Accurate, and Easy-to-UseBy analyzing subtle pulsation variations on the subject's skin surface, Pulxion's PulStroke can differentiate between the pulsation patterns of normal individuals and those with carotid artery stenosis. The device projects visible light onto the subject's neck and then performs the video motion analysis with AI algorithms to highlight skin surface pulsations.Comparing these pulsations with features associated with carotid artery stenosis, a risk assessment report is generated to evaluate the subject's risk of carotid artery stenosis. The entire process is completed within 1 minute, with reports available within 5 minutes.PulStroke possesses several key advantages. First, compared to traditional methods like carotid artery ultrasound, CTA, and MRA, the technology is non-invasive, offering a non-invasive and radiation-free screening approach for subjects.Second, it's portable and user-friendly, with a compact size and no need for specialized operators, making it suitable for placement in small to medium-sized clinics, health examination centers, and potentially homecare and community service in the future. Third, utilizing AI algorithms and big data analysis supported by PulStroke, clinical trials have demonstrated an accuracy of nearly 90% when compared to ultrasound.Regarding the business model, Joy Chen, CEO of Pulxion, said that PulStroke includes both hardware device and cloud platform. The hardware device can be set up in medical facilities with buyout or leasing options. The analysis reports generated on the cloud platform are billed separately and also come with several options for users.For marketing, Pulxion will first work with health examination centers and large hospitals, with plans to participate in government disease prevention programs. The next step is to enter the community clinics with the ultimate vision of making the technology accessible to the general public and integrating it into home healthcare and nationwide health services to increase stroke screening rates and ultimately reduce stroke incidence.Pulxion has completed its angel round funding and plans to sign an MOU with internationally renowned medical device companies this year. Pulxion also plans to file the medical device regulatory submission to the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) this year and is preparing to apply for the Breakthrough Devices Program of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Chen said that Taiwan will be the first launch market for Pulxion, and the company will subsequently begin preparations for regulatory submission in the United States.PulStroke enables rapid and accurate assessment of stroke risk. The company immediately attracted attention from the medical industry upon its release. Professor Hsiao believes the key driving force behind the successful commercialization of Pulxion technology is the Startup Value Creation Program promoted by the National Science and Technology Council. As he mentioned, the program activates the value of academic research by providing resources, regulatory ease, and policy support to allow professors to play significant roles in startups. It also encourages various forms of innovation matchmaking.Pulxion has participated in the acceleration program of Mosaic Venture Lab – a TTA accelerator partner as well. The program not only organizes various activities to increase interaction opportunities with investors but also helps startups to expand their exposure. All the support for Pulxion has transformed into its competitiveness. The company will do its best to broaden the applications of its technology to other diseases, creating a healthy society in the future and fulfilling its vision of preventive medicine and home healthcare.(Editor's note: The original article was published in TTA Magazine Issue 14. Read more startup stories in TTA Magazines.)Pulxion PulStrokePhoto: Pulxion

Endoscopes play an instrumental role in minimally invasive surgeries.They allow doctors to perform inspection and treatment procedures inside the body using smaller surgical cuts or even without cuts while increasing surgical precision. EndoSemio's single-use endoscope developed on the foundation of miniature imaging devices and high biocompatibility tubing materials boosts surgical safety, drives technological innovations, and satisfies special healthcare needs. With EndoSemio's single-use endoscope, hospitals will be able to improve patient experience.Leveraging technological and medical strengths, EndoSemio overcomes the shortcomings of traditional endoscopesTing-Xuan Chen and Chih-Peng Lin co-founded EndoSemio. Chen worked for the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in charge of helping medical research organizations turn clinical needs into products.Lin is an attending physician and director of the Division of Pain Management, Department of Anesthesiology, National Taiwan University Hospital. Their decade-long partnership has brought multiple healthcare products into reality.Following his return to Taiwan after completing advanced study at Stanford University, Lin found Taiwan's healthcare sector, despite being among the world's front runners, still has needs that were not addressed due to the lack of cross-industry collaborations. Such needs can be fulfilled through rapid prototyping and technological R&D to thereby improve healthcare quality and efficiency. This prompted Chen and Lin to establish EndoSemio, focusing on special-purpose single-use endoscopes to solve the many pain points of traditional endoscopes and address a small portion of clinical needs. According to Chen, an endoscope reprocessing guide easily goes over 100 pages and contains more than 150 procedures. In reality, as high as 45% of the important cleaning steps are skipped as they are too complicated.In particular, the steps of brushing the accessible channels and forced air drying are often carried out for no longer than 50% of the specified duration. Furthermore, not only is it costly and labor-intensive to maintain traditional endoscopes, but improper cleaning may also lead to cross infections. All the time and effort for disinfection and preparation also hinder patient flow and undermine hospital operation efficiency. The slew of limitations with traditional endoscopes give rise to tremendous opportunities for single-use endoscopes. FDA has approved multiple single-use endoscopes in recent years as part of the efforts to promote such products.As opposed to traditional endoscopes with a long history, single-use endoscopes are still in early-stage development. Those currently available on the market generally target large usage applications, rather than special-purpose small-quantity needs. In view of this, EndoSemio decided to start with tracheostomy endoscopes, neonatal catheters, and flexible ureteroscopes.EndoSemio introduces three single-use endoscope products to meet clinical needs According to Lin, a traditional tracheostomy requires two teams of medical professionals, one monitoring the bronchoscopy while the other performing the tracheostomy. Things could go wrong when surgeons have to perform tracheostomy without bronchoscopic images.Without an imaging system on the tracheal tube, surgeons can only rely on experiences and feel the way through. Now with EndoSemio's innovative endoscope imaging tracheostomy kit, featuring the world's first tracheal tubes integrated with endoscopes, medical professionals can avoid complications and mitigate the risk of incorrect placement in false lumen, improving tracheostomy efficiency and ensuring patient safety.The product has won the 20th National Innovation Award. Neonatal respiratory imaging devices are generally miniaturized.Their level of precision is critical to neonatal respiratory care. EndoSemio's neonatal and pediatric respiratory imaging catheters help physicians correctly identify delicate infant airways and examine the conditions therein to effectively lower the risks of hypoxia or complications.The flexible ureteroscopes that EndoSemio provides combine miniature imaging modules with tubes made of advanced materials to enable visibility. The solution reduces chances of infection and cross-infection and therefore is an ideal choice for stone removal in a laser lithotripsy.Lin pointed out EndoSemio's advantages in a few aspects. First, the EndoSemio team interviewed 20-some physicians and designed the products based on their comments and feedback to ensure the products addressed their needs. As such, the resulting products feature a user-friendly interface and simple structure design, requiring no learning curve for users to effortlessly operate. Moreover, their digital imaging and navigation functions with enhanced navigation precision and optimized operation flow are also highly praised by medical professionals.Second, the EndoSemio engineering team has a decade-long experience developing endoscopes. Integrated with patented designs including medical-grade high-resolution miniature CMOS image sensors, color calibration, and silicon endoscope tubing, EndoSemio's products boast superior performance and reliability. Last but not least, EndoSemio has grasped critical manufacturing know-how for miniature front-end camera modules and tubing so it has full control over its product quality and performance. It is also able to keep costs at bay through vertical integration efforts.EndoSemio has submitted applications for FDA approval. It expects to obtain FDA approval by year-end 2024, allowing it to launch the products in 2025. Everything is proceeding according to schedule, noted Chen.For the smooth progress, EndoSemio gives credit to not only team efforts but also Taiwan's startup environment fostered by industry-government-academia-research collaborations. Lin spoke candidly that physicians or scholars involved in startup ventures were considered impractical but things are different today.Taiwan's startup scene, especially in the healthcare sector, has exhibited significant changes in the recent decade. The National Science and Technology Council and the Ministry of Economic Affairs support multiple projects aimed at cultivating an environment that appeals to entrepreneurs and effectively accelerates startup development. Going forward, EndoSemio has set goals for each development stage and will continue to endeavor on medical imaging solutions for special-purpose applications to help medical institutions create premium patient experiences.(Editor's note: The original article was published in TTA Magazine Issue 14. Read more startup stories in TTA Magazines.)Innovative endoscope imaging tracheostomy kitPhoto: EndoSemioNeonatal and pediatric respiratory imaging cathetersPhoto: EndoSemioEndoSemio's neonatal and pediatric respiratory imaging catheters on display at a medical technology exhibitionPhoto: EndoSemio