Digital Prosperity for Asia: Taiwan Chapter Launch | Amplifying Taiwan’s Digital Opportunity
30 November 2023, at Upgrade Conference Center (Dunnan Hall) / 升級會議中心 -- 敦南館 (Google Maps)
The Coalition for Digital Prosperity for Asia (DPA) is a growing alliance of innovative Asian digital companies promoting the democratization of digital technologies across all sectors. Our mission is to help digital SMEs understand Asia’s government and business landscape and advocate for their opportunities to expand and grow in new markets.
Taiwan is home to one of the world’s most vibrant and internationally impactful digital innovation ecosystems, because of its massive footprint in the realm of hardware production, its large digital-native population, and its highly educated and driven workforce. Taiwanese startups and SMEs are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the newest technological developments and represent 99% of Taiwan’s enterprises.
Recognizing the vibrancy of Taiwan’s startup and SME ecosystem, the DPA is launching its chapter in Taiwan this October. At our launch event, we hope to welcome Taiwanese SMEs and government representatives, to discuss how to ensure that Taiwanese companies can innovate, remain internationally competitive, and expand quickly by reaching new markets.
Timing
Event
1120-1130
DPA Taiwan Chapter Launch
Registration
0900-0930
Opening Remarks & Introduction to the DPA
0930-1000
Panel 1: Reaching Far and Growing Fast: Driving Taiwanese SME Expansion
1000-1040
Panel 2: Riding APAC’s Artificial Intelligence Tsunami
1040-1120
Light Refreshment and Networking Session
1130-1230
Panel 1 : Reaching Far and Growing Fast: Driving Taiwanese SME Expansion
According to a recent survey, Taiwanese small businesses generated more than 10% of their revenue from online sales, demonstrating the vital importance of the digital space for Taiwanese SMEs. Taiwan’s 1.59 million small and medium enterprises are the dynamos powering its remarkable economic growth. In 2021, they drove the growth rate of Taiwanese exports to an amazing 25%, and this year, nearly half of them have forecasted significant growth driven by digitalization. Adopting digital technology has furthermore allowed many Taiwanese companies to penetrate international markets across the world, and especially in the Asia-Pacific region. However, key challenges remain to regional expansion.
In this panel, DPA representatives from different countries including Taiwan will share knowledge on approaches to regional expansion, including how to engage with government regulations, tap new opportunities, and overcome key obstacles.
Panelists
Mr. Lei Shee Chien
Director of Startup and Incubation Division, Small & Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs
Shee Chien Lei currently serves as the Division Director of the Business Startup and Incubation Division, Small and Medium Enterprise and Start-up Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. I have devoted my career to marketing, operations, and technology R&D for small and medium enterprises. Meanwhile, I am also committed to building Taiwan's startup ecosystem to cultivate Taiwan’s next enterprise stars for the future. Therefore, I am familiar with the needs and development status of Taiwan's small and medium enterprises and startups.
Taiwan's small and medium enterprises are the core of Taiwan's industrial development, and the startup ecosystem is gradually growing. Therefore, I created the internationally iconic " Startup Terrace " and " Startup Terrace Kaohsiung" with the support of government policies, fostering collaboration between private resources and investments, combining startup cultivation and guidance, field verification, and market expansion to enhance startups' digital and international operating capabilities, promote co-creation between startups and enterprises, and accelerate the innovational transformation of Taiwan's startups and small and medium enterprises.
Mr. Ramnath Gopalakrishnan
Director & General Manager - APAC, Quickwork
A seasoned engineering professional in the field of technology and management, Ramnath has worked across the globe with stints (?) in India, UK, US, and South Korea. His hands-on roles range from the successful launch of enterprise products, implementation of industrial automation projects, assurance of multi-domain software solutions & regulatory compliance.
Now representing a startup from India, which has built a cloud-based no-code Integration Platform as a Service to democratise automation, his endeavour is to focus & succeed in the APAC region collaborating through tech partnerships, developing integration solutions, and catering to the region's unique in-country business workflow automation requirements.
One of the earliest members of DPA, Quickwork believes it can leverage the unique value offered by the coalition to work along with member startups and governments to enable digital technologies and its integration for business growth and prosperity in our region.
Mr. Benjamin Wong
CEO, Kinobi
Ben is the Co-founder & CEO of Kinobi, a student success management system focused on simplifying workflows for universities.
Prior to this, he was a private equity investment professional that set up the Asia headquarters of the largest global boutique multi-family office, focusing on late-stage tech and real estate investments.
Ben was also appointed as a Singapore Digital Leader under the Infocomm Media Development Authority in Singapore in 2023, and was also awarded the Prestige 40 under 40 in 2021 and Forbes 30 under 30 for Asia for the category of consumer technology in 2022. He is also a founder of Merdeka Collective, an initiative under Tasek Jurong focused on grooming the leaders of tomorrow.
Mr. Charlie Hartono
Country Director, AVPN
Charlie Hartono is a seasoned Social Impact Leader with over 15 years of experience in corporate partnerships, business development, and digital transformation across profit and non-profit sectors. Currently, he is the Country Director of AVPN Indonesia - a leading social investor network in Asia. He began his career at UNICEF in 2010, working in Private Fundraising Partnerships, and later led the launch of U-Report and the Internet of Good Things in Malawi. He continued his non-profit work as Digital, Partnerships, and Innovation Director at World Vision Indonesia. He also has a background in multinational enterprises like Viamo, Mastercard, IBM, and Amway in business development.
Apart from his professional roles, Charlie is the Founder of NZID.org, a platform bridging New Zealand and Indonesia. On a voluntary basis, he serves as a Strategic Partnerships Advisor for the Indonesian Ministry of Education and is a Founding member of the Coalition for Digital Prosperity for Asia (DPA). He holds a Master's degree in International Business and a Bachelor's in Economics. Charlie resides in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Panel 2 : Riding APAC’s Artificial Intelligence Tsunami
The Asia Pacific region is home to an unrivalled innovation ecosystem and is at the heart of emerging technology entrepreneurship across the world. As the nexus of key technology supply chains, SMEs in Singapore, Taiwan and across APAC are strategically positioned to take full advantage of new and growing technology use cases. Recent evolutions in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are now presenting APAC SMEs with the opportunity to take a regional lead in the race to develop new use cases and expand into new markets. Remaining informed about trends in the wider region, and in government regulation, will be key to equipping these digital companies to succeed.
This panel will showcase use cases for AI among SMEs from Taiwan and Singapore, and allow government regulators from Singapore and Taiwan to discuss how they have created enabling environments for AI innovation.
Panelists
H.E. Chiueh Herming
Deputy Minister, Ministry of Digital Affairs
CEO, Asia Silicon Valley Development Agency, National Development Council
Assoc. Prof. Kang Meng Chow
Meng-Chow is a practicing professional for over 30 years in various cyber security roles across different industries, including the Singapore government, major multi-national financial institutions, and global security and technology providers. He has held various standards chair and co-chair positions in Singapore, ISO, and ITU-T, and founded the RAISE Forum in 2004. He was Board Director for ISC2 in 2015-2017. He published a book, "Responsive Security" in 2013, and has been an Adjunct Associate Professor with NTU, a member of MAS CSAP, and a Govtech Smart Nation Fellow.
Mr. Koo Seng Meng
Senior Deputy Director, AI Innovation, AI Singapore
Sengmeng leads the AI Talent and Certification team, scaling AI literacy and AI proficiency programmes and initiatives to grow generational AI capability for Singapore from elementary school students to working professionals.
Prior to AISG, Sengmeng has more than 15 years of experience in the info-communications and media industry. He joined the Singapore Public Service in 2012 where his team shaped the billion-dollar Asia Pacific games sector, catalysed the growth of homegrown companies such as Garena (now SEA Limited), and lead NVIDIA to set up its global network of AI Technology Centers, headquartered in Singapore.
Sengmeng contributes regularly to professional bodies including PDPC Regulators Roundtable, Singapore Computer Society, ISO and IEEE. He is currently a member of IEE Standards Review Committee (RevCom). He co-founded the AI Professionals Association in 2020 to create the Chartered AI Engineer profession and grow a global body of professionally qualified AI engineers.
Dr. Tay Joc Cing
VP (Engineering), Gogolook
Dr. Tay Joc Cing is an ICF certified coach (ACC) and an ELI master practitioner (IPEC), with 24+ years of professional experience in the technology space. He started his career as a software engineer after graduating with honours and then a doctorate in artificial intelligence from Nanyang Technological University in the late 90s, went on to do field applications engineering and consultancy around APAC before being invited back to teach Algorithms at the university. During this period, he earned awards and prizes for teaching and research, became the Subdean and obtained a Tan Chin Tuan Fellowship for work with University College London and University of Amsterdam. His research in computational epidemiology led him subsequently to found ROSS Scientific (Singapore and Netherlands) for the next two years, with a vision to help hospitals develop intervention measures to reduce the spread of nosocomial infections. After this, he ventured into the Adtech space, growing the Singapore divisions of ScanScout and then Tremor Video towards IPO (on NASDAQ), earning an MBA (with academic excellence) from NUS along the way. This success brought him to other local and international companies needing similar help in scaling and growing their engineering management teams and culture, such as PocketMath and Appier (Taiwan). Upon returning to Singapore, he founded Bamboo Green Consultancy to further his passion in helping startups grow. In this capacity, he has worked with founders and senior leaders in startups through fractional roles, consultancy and individual/group coaching. You can also find his published contributions in the computational sciences here and his work on change management here. During his free time, he teaches Advanced Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence as a Kaplan affiliate lecturer at Murdoch University. He is an AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate, and a Senior member of the IEEE. He has recently joined Gogolook as their VP of Engineering, and is based in Taiwan.
Ms. Tan Jing Yi
COO, Accredify
As Chief Operating Officer at Accredify, Jing Yi leads the Corporate Services team to ensure operational excellence at Accredify. Being a founding member of Accredify, Jing Yi has worn multiple hats to accelerate Accredify’s hyper-growth. Her responsibilities included leading the onboarding and support of over 400 clients in three months and managing key client accounts to secure Accredify’s position as the region's leading verifiable technology solutions provider. Leading the HR team, Jing Yi has also grown the Accredify team by 10x over the last three years.
With an interest in both business and technology, Jing Yi has worked as a Business Analyst at Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, developing business requirements and bridging the business and technology teams. Jing Yi later joined Aste Global Pte Ltd, a marine supplies company with offices across Asia and Europe, as Chief of Staff. At Aste Global, she redesigned and implemented technology solutions and standard operating procedures across all branches to improve productivity and ensure conformity to company policy and local regulations.
Jing Yi graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Science in Business Analytics (Honours).