Taiwan also saw the first trials of an autonomous bus in Taipei

This week we provide another wrap of the goings-on in Taiwan’s startup ecosystem courtesy of Inside Taiwan. As per usual, the links will send readers to a Chinese-language website.

Taiwan Science Minister wants country to make AI push

The Taiwan Minister of Science and Technology, Chen Liangji, said Taiwan needs to promote its Artificial Intelligence industry. The first step is the launch of an innovation research centre which he hopes will attract 3,000 AI experts over the coming years. He also want set up a high-speed cloud hosting technology infrastructure.

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The idea is to kickstart a 4-year plan that will help Taiwan catch up with the international community.

An unmanned bus is hitting the streets of Taiwan

As part of the country’s Smart City drive, Taipei Mayor Ke Wenzhe introduced a trial of an autonomous bus. The name of the programme is the “Taipei City Smart City Industrial Field Experimental Trial Program” and is not restricted to just transportation. Programmes include medical care, electricity innovation, digital finance and public housing.

In the future, the initiative will gradually expand the scope of the trial run with the final plan to use unmanned bus in the park commute, straight lane and other parts.

Google announces programme to help 2,500 SMEs go digital

On Monday, Google announced the launch of its Go Global programme to help 2,500 SMEs be digitally ready by 2019. The idea behind the programme is to help Taiwanese companies look globally by promoting marketing tools and international marketing courses.

First prize up to TWD20 million (US$660,000) in an AI “Chinese voice” Challenge

Sponsored by NVIDIA, Microsoft and ASUS, the Ministry of Science and Technology held an AI “Formosa Speech Grand Challenge”. It wanted to encourage people to challenge the bottleneck of technology. The theme of the competition was building technology that could listen, and respond to, Chinese languages.

foodpanda celebrates fifth anniversary in Taiwan

While the rise of UberEATS, Deliveroo and local players makes the food delivery industry feel like a burgeoning market, foodpanda has been around in Asia for awhile.

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In Taiwan, it just celebrated its 5-year anniversary, harkening back to the years before the startup economy took-off in this region.

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