Mr. Jong-Chin Shen, Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs (MOEA), pointed out that data play a vital role in the new era of IoT and digital economy. With more government data available to the private sector, a huge number of commercial applications and business opportunities can be expected. The Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) has promoted Open Data applications in the industry via various means, including subsidizing R&D projects and innovation competitions since the end of 2013, and has seen great achievements: a total of 234 applications developed by 57 companies and 143 start-up teams, and used by 7.68 million people. Much creativity is shown in the very diverse services in agriculture, transportation, logistics, education, real estate, and tourism.
The IDB brought in 6 Asian countries to create the Asia Open Data Partnership (AODP) in 2015 as one of its efforts to enhance international cooperation. Through international summits and annual Hackathons, member countries could share the latest developments in the industry. This year’s summit - The International Data Economy Summit just ended on September 15 with13 institutions/organizations from 9 different countries, taking the partnership on Open Data in Asia one step further.
Looking ahead, the IDB will proactively help the industry, local governments, and academia/research institutions to develop new services based on local data in the hope to construct a local Open Data ecosystem. This way, more solutions will be launched from the joint efforts between the government and industry while local companies and civil society groups can partner with the AODP members to establish a comprehensive Open Data platform in Asia. With digital economy taking shape in Asia, a new wave of opportunities for innovation and transformation is coming soon.