Development of various kinds of physical and digital technology changes
not only the landscape of industrial competition, but also many aspects
of our social and economic life. Those technologies also have great potential
to bring about digital transformation in biomedical and healthcare sectors,
and help us over the challenges derived from ageing society and global
diseases. How to bring in all stakeholders, enable industry to embrace
digital transformation and cooperate across national boundaries has become
one of the government's most important innovation policy agenda in recent
years.
For this reason, under the guidance of Department of Industrial Technology
(DOIT, which is part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs), Taiwan Institute
of Economic Research (TIER), teaming up with Industrial Technology Research
Institute (ITRI), is setting “Digital Innovation for smart health and
wellbeing” as the theme of International Conference on Industrial Technology
Innovation (ICITI) 2020 conference.
TIER has been hosting this annual event since year-2000. With continuous
support from DOIT, this conference has become one of Taiwan’s most important
forums on the topic of innovation. Over the years, this event has also
gained international interests, and has been instrumental in connecting
the dots that led to many important development projects.
Since 2008, DOIT has been encouraging and facilitating domestic companies
and RTOs to build active cooperation with partners in Europe on innovation
and technology development. Companies successfully got involved in the
European Research & Innovation projects, or R&I for short, were
provided with financial support from MOEA. To date, Taiwan has taken part
in 43 such projects. It is worth mentioning that Taiwan has a success
rate of 24.6% compared to 15.4% overall average under the H2020 framework.
Due to Taiwan's prowess in the ICT industry, more than 50% of the research
and innovation projects with Taiwan participation were ICT related. For
example, one of ITRI’s labs initially joined the EU’s 3CCar project to
develop some key components for electric cars. The successful partnership
led to two follow-on projects, i.e. Autodrive and AI4DI. Another example
is HPC, which was a core IC producer in the photonics field. It has taken
part in five EU projects since 2007. Through such experience, HPC has
transformed into a multiple-solution provider in bio-medical, semiconductor
and environment monitoring. As the result, HPC is now a key player in
a niche global market.
Moreover, in 2015, MOEA and DG CONNECT decided to boost international
cooperation on 5G through the process of opening call for proposals. There
were productive exchanges and collaborations in the 1st and 2nd calls
for proposals, and this allowed both sides to take advantage of their
respective strengths in 5G research capability and testbeds/facilities.
Going forward, we hope to maintain a durable partnership with the EU on
ICT related technologies, especially in the areas of B5G/6G, AI, and other
applications. This is also in line with what Taiwan government has been
striving to achieve - the digital transformation of our country’s various
industries.
Since 2017, we have dedicated this conference to being part of our agenda
to pursue higher productivity, stronger growth, and substantially improved
personal wellbeing through digital transformation. There is no doubt that
working with the EU had a positive impact on our pursuit, and the experience
has been mutually beneficial.
Based on this successful experience, we hope today’s event will expand
our collaborative Research and Innovation activities to new application
areas, such as smart health and wellbeing, smart manufacturing, smart
mobility, and circular economy, etc. |