Digital transformation has touched every industry around the world. However, because the textile industry chain is extremely long and complicated, the process of digitalization has become equally complicated.
Taiwan is promoting the development of Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Earlier in 2021, the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC) authorized a MaaS plan for four counties and cities in Taiwan including Kaohsiung City, Taichung City, Penghu County and Taitung County. MaaS plans already in place in Taiwan include the MeN Go plan in Kaohsuing City, the NT$1280 All Pass in Taipei City and New Taipei City, and the MOTC-developed UMAJI App.
Homo sapiens always looked at the heavens and wondered about the nature of the objects seen in the night sky. With its customized virtual reality (VR) "Outer Space Camera" systems, the Montreal-based Felix & Paul Studios takes the audience through a virtual journey into glimpses of astronauts' life with the premiere of "The Infinite," the first multi-sensory interactive VR experience based on the International Space Station.
With CES 2022 just around the corner, Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) will showcase 100 high-potential Taiwanese startups at the annual event, including seven award-winning startups. Between January 5-8, the CES 2022 TTA Pavilion will display the innovative energy of Taiwan.
After announcing partnerships in 2021 with Hero Moto in India and Gojek in Indonesia, the electric motorcycle and battery swap company Gogoro aims to start producing electrical motorbikes in China, India, and Indonesia in 2022. What is its secret sauce for expanding its supply chains at such lightning speed? The answer lies with its smart manufacturing partners, PowerArena and NTT Data.
In Asia, a few factors make the impact of innovation more pronounced than in other markets, including the "Big 4" semiconductor players – China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan – within the Asia Pacific region alone, consumers' openness to new technologies, competent tech talents, mobile internet. At the sixth round of Asia Venturing, hosted by Anchor Taiwan and DIGITIMES Asia, Tina Lin, GM in Google Taiwan, along with Sascha Pallenberg, chief awareness officer of Germany's first sustainability platform aware_ shared their insights about Asia innovations in the panel, moderated by Elisa Chiu, founder & CEO at Anchor Taiwan on December 14th. Below is a summary of the panel discussion:
In the early days, investors were not particularly keen on the development of 5G as they were uncertain whether the communication technology's high transmission speed was necessary for the IT industry back then. However, with the emergence of new-generation concepts such as the metaverse, how 5G can be applied to emerging innovations has become a topic of interest.
Vision impairment and blindness caused by diseases such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a concern and potential threat to the economy for Asia, as the population is rapidly aging. eSight, a Canadian startup providing wearable devices to help restore or enhance the vision of people with low vision, is planning to expand to Asia by leveraging Taiwan as a platform for R&D and manufacturing for the region.
The rise of "mobility-as-a-service" or "vehicle-as-a-service," such as car rental services, car sharing, or ridesharing services, not only provides people with more alternative ways of commuting but also drives the transformation of fleet management companies and operators to optimize the fleet operation and EV adoption.
Cloud kitchens have seen popularity grow fast in the Asia-Pacific amid the pandemic. Since 2020, the Asia Pacific region has gained the highest market share in the cloud kitchen sector, according to Reportlinker. Agri-food tech firms from China, India, and Singapore have accumulated more than US$7 billion in investment in the first half of 2021.
State-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) has inaugurated an Energy Trading Platform (ETP) for open transactions of day-ahead electricity ancillary services provided by power generators, own-use power-generating facilities, and energy storage systems in the private sector, a bid to stabilize the operation of power supply systems nationwide via electricity sharing economy, according to Taipower.
New trends and tech advances are emerging from the horizon of blockchain technology. On the second day (Nov.13th, Taipei time) of the 2021 U.S. Taiwan High-Tech Forum (UTHF) hosted by the North America Taiwanese Engineering and Science Association (NATEA), Blockchain experts including Edward Chang, adjunct professor at Stanford University, Andrew Tang, chair of the executive committee at Draper University, Clara Tsao, founding officer and director of Filecoin Foundation shared insights in new technologies and latest trends.
Companies around the world kept tapping the capital market with trillions of dollars. In 2021, some US$8.7 trillion has been raised through equity sales, bond offering, and loan deals, according to the data of Refinitive, also cited by Financial Times. This year, SPACs boom and the number of IPOs also broke the record in the past decade. All these stats show the capital market has never been so hot and full of investors from all over the world.
Almost six years after its establishment in Europe, Belgian company IOT Factory is paving the way for its future development in Asia, avid for serving the Equipment as a Service (EaaS) market with its strength in IoT applications. The company joined Garage+, an incubation project for startups initiated by the Epoch Foundation, to unlock the door to the Asian IoT market.
Gojek and Gogoro are testing out battery-swapping e-scooters soon in Jakarta, Indonesia, while Germany-based IC vendor Infineon is encouraging more innovations on mobility and sustainability in Asia.
Geniebook, the largest online education provider in Singapore, has raised US$16.6 million in round A fundraising led by well-known angel investors and a few private investors including senior executives from Grab, Shopee, and Go-Jek, according to VIR.
