The Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Intel, and Siemens officially kicked off the 2015 APEC Accelerator Network Summit & Global Challenge on April 12. Participating entrepreneurial teams will receive counseling from international experts, potential for financial investment, and a chance for media exposure. The event will also connect Taiwan's innovative energy with the global entrepreneurial ecosystem, highlighting island nation's thriving and abundant creative energy.
Minister Deng stated that, due to the fruitful results of the past two years' challenges, APEC members actively expressed a desire to host the challenge with Taiwan overseas. As a result, the challenge has been expanded to a global scale. A series of meetings will be convened in the United States on June 8 in Atlanta, and in the Philippines in September to warm up for the global finals that will be held on October 19 and 20 and to recruit more excellent entrepreneurial teams to join. The first place winner will be awarded US$100,000, and will even have a chance to conduct actual technological cooperation with Intel and Siemens. The sign up date for the challenge begins today and lasts until June 30. Startup entrepreneurial teams and innovative teams who are dream achievers and are seeking excellence are welcome to sign up.
Global Entrepreneurship Challenge: The Chance to Make Your Dreams Come True
Minister Deng further expressed that in order to give the best training to teams from Taiwan, famous accelerators from Silicon Valley, such as Startup Experience, Founders Space, and others have been invited to host two international boot camps for selected teams in August and October in Taiwan. During the boot camp, Silicon Valley experts will personally give entrepreneurs the knowledge they need and assist them to quickly integrate into the international entrepreneurial environment of Silicon Valley.
Mr. Yeh, the Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, pointed out that the APEC accelerator network set up by Taiwan already has 15 member countries and 47 business incubators and accelerators. The network includes well known American accelerators such as 500 Startups, Mass Challenge, Plug & Play, and many more. Moreover, in the past challenges hosted by APEC, Taiwan has had many successful cases that promoted APEC accelerators and the global entrepreneurship challenge, establishing the competition as a springboard for startup companies to receive investment and enter the global market. Taiwan's startup team Gogolook was purchased by Naver, the parent company of Line, in 2013 for US$18 million; the winner of the 2014 challenge, ServTech, also won first place for the Internet, Mobile, and Software Computing Category in the Intel Entrepreneurship Program in November this year in Silicon Valley. ServTech became the first team from Taiwan to have won first place in the Intel Entrepreneurship Program. AirSig also received a US$ 2 million investment from Hon Hai after the challenge, and set a new record for the value of a startup company in Taiwan.
Finally, Director General Mr. Yeh also gave special thanks to Intel and Siemens for upholding corporate social responsibility and participating as partners in the APEC Accelerator Network Summit & Global Challenge for three consecutive years. Both companies have participate in the full process of the event from planning to implementation, provided important resources and sponsored the awards, taken winning teams to the international stage, and provided the opportunity to work with multinational corporations. There is no doubt that all of these experiences will bring success to the entrepreneurial teams.
Intel and Siemens stated that the competition categories of this year's challenge are Interactive Learning, Immersive Collaboration, Smart Mobility, and Smart Home. The categories will bring breakthrough developments for the next generation information technology and industry, and will also have a great impact on the innovation driven market to increase the digitalization and intelligence of various industries. Conferences will also be held on May 8 at Nangang Software Incubator in Taipei, and on May 15 at Digital Art Kaohsiung United Office (DAKUO) in Kaohsiung. Register now to participate! For more information, please visit the event website (http://www.apecaccelerator.org) or call 02-2586-5000 ext. 359 (Mr. Chan) or ext. 398 (Ms. Wu).