Yesterday, STARTBOARD was honored to join the meeting between Startup Terrace and TAcc+ with the Assistant Vice President of Invest India Mr. Antony Aju. In the meeting, we had the opportunity to show Mr. Antony what we have done to help startups not only from India but also from SEA countries, as well as the connections we have built. We also got to learn more about Invest India, the investment climate and prominent initiatives that have been establised to promote India and encourage more oversea businesses to grow in this market. It is undoubted that now India has vast business potential and is attracting lots of investors, developers, manufacturers and many more.
As the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency of India, it is believed that Invest India can play a huge role in linking foreign companies and the local resources, accompany them in the journey of development in India. And STARTBOARD is happy to connect with Invest India and help entrepreneurs on both sides with a more complete network. We look forward to our future cooperation and contribution to the growth of Taiwan – India friendship.
Last week was an amazing week! We met with many amazing people at different amazing events! And one of the events is Make in India – Seminar and Interaction with Investors and Business at Shangri-La Hotel. Here, we have a chance to meet with:
1. Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce, and Industry Ms. Sumita Dawra.
2. TAITRA Chairman Mr. James C.F. Huang
3. India-Taipei Association Figure
4. Invest India Association figure
Other than that, we also met with many government figures, businesses, and investors from India.
Here we discuss the possibility of a Taiwan-India partnership in a few key sectors such as:
1. Food Processing
2. Electric Vehicles
3. Renewable Energy (Solar, PV, Green Energy)
4. Machinery, Tools, and Capital Goods
We discuss the possible sector growth, sub-sectors, recent policies, clusters, export potential, domestic demand, etc.
We are very humbled to be invited and hopefully, we can have future collaboration with you!
Last Friday, we were invited to the Networking Reception of the Friends of Thailand, held by the Thailand Trade and Economic Office – TTEO. At the event, we had the opportunity to meet the diplomats from TTEO as well as honored guests from Taiwanese government agencies and outstanding entrepreneurs from both Taiwan and Thailand. It is a celebration of the friendship between two countries and also a great networking opportunity, strengthening the connections and empowering Taiwanese friends who wish to expand in Thailand. We were also served with a buffet of amazing cultured cuisine and had a great time conversing with everyone!
As an incubator focusing on SEA region, STARTBOARD hopes to assist TTEO and contribute our best to the relationship between two countries. We look forward to more amazing events from TTEO and opportunities to help Thai entrepreneurs in Taiwan.
According to the Ministry of Education, there are around 40,000 students studying abroad in 2019. To compare with that in 2015, the number has increased 8% in these 5 years. Traveling alone overseas itself is not easy let alone studying in a foreign country for a period of time. WillStudy has an insight into some of the problems we might encounter when applying for schools and after studying abroad. Today, WillStudy has successfully helped 2000+ students with the title of the best startup by U-Start, Ministry of Education in 2019.
Good Helper For Studying Abroad
Bill, the founder of WillStudy, found that the information is inadequate for Taiwan students when they prepare for applying to study abroad. Difficulties might be encountered both before and during application preparation, and the services of consultants are unable to meet the specific needs of each student. They anticipate that they could share what they have and what they experienced. Hence, they established WillStudy in 2019, committed to create a domestic study abroad ecosystem. It provides information integration before going abroad, resource matching in preparation, and assistance in arriving in the country you study abroad. WillStudy look forward to becoming a platform which can allow Taiwanese students to get more contact and information to study abroad.
The Experiences of Predecessors
The official website of WillStudy contains different types of columns, including life of studying abroad, sharing of people with experience abroad, interviews with overseas career figures, and travel selections, the content of each article can bring great help to students planning to go abroad. In addition, WillStudy established one-on-one alumni consultation platform for studying abroad, which includes more than 280+ consultants, students can consult for different discipline clusters, degrees, and industries. With personal experience of specially assigned person, they can much deeply realize how to prepare and what to encounter when they study abroad.
Talents Are Studying Abroad
In this era, the ways of apply for schools overseas have changed drastically. Instead of facing consultants in an agency, WillStudy has opened our eyes with the new method of online consulting and other self-help access to another dimension of studying abroad. STARTBOARD, also known as a company that helps companies expand their business overseas, is very glad to see more Taiwanese talents going abroad. STARTBOARD definitely has foreseen a bright future with the trend of studying abroad.
While it is relatively harder to travel domestically during the pandemic, some startup companies have come up with the solution for us to enjoy traveling even more than before. At meet Taipei 2022, TT trips (橘子貓) and JaFun showed us how to travel at ease and even have an access to the latest international goods by just clicking on your computers.
Customized Your Trip With Chartered Tour Service In Taiwan and Southeast Asian Countries
Established in 2016, TT trips started as a chartered tour company, and today branching out to other services including sailing, hiking and yoga classes. TT trips provides customized services for family trips, company trips or friend groups, allowing travelers to tour in their unique ways. Moreover, one of the main obstacles when traveling internationally- transportation now can be taken care of by TT trips. The chartered car service is also available in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan.
Alternative Yoga Classes In The Mountains
In order to relax more thoroughly, those yoga classes aren’t indoor in aerobics classroom as we are used to, instead, they are in the mountains. Besides yoga classes, the trip provides several dishes, a night in the mountains, night sky viewing and endless chatting with friends.
Japanese Snacks Online Shopping
JaFun, an online website in cooperation with Japanese business groups, allows us to shop Japanese snacks within just a second. According to the Tourism Bureau of Japan, Taiwanese tourists consume goods of 56.4 billion NTD and 4.7 billion of which are shopped online. This leads to the establishment of JaFun. JaFun has an online platform that customers can shop on, apply for tax-free procedure and shipping service to airports or hotels. The website provides information such as the best-selling goods, KOL recommendations and what’s hot in Japan.
In Cooperation With Other Online Travel Platform
Due to the pandemic, more and more online travel agencies are eager to expand their business by working with JaFun. To be more specific, Internet of Things(IOT), biometrics and online payment are some key factors in terms of making profit for online travel agencies. And JaFun has proficiency and experience in making those modern technology happen.
The Rise of Alternative Travel
Since 2022/6/10, Japan has opened their border. The country rated Taiwan as blue which refers to low risk of COVID and that Taiwanese tourists don’t need to go through PCR test nor quarantine. This news caught STARTBOARD’s attention and it is promising to see some progress in terms of international travel and shopping. Although the need for international flights has shrunken 48% in the past few years, STARTBOARD still see the potential in domestic traveling in Taiwan. Therefore, STARTBOARD is confident in supporting travel related startups despite the situation of this global pandemic.
In the era of information explosion, the data is all there as long as you type keywords on search engine. However, it is challenging to collect needed information rapidly and correctly. The emergence of matching platform is like serving as a bridge between Bole and Maxima. It not only makes demand sides find the most suitable talent in the fastest situation, but also allows supply sides to have a platform to show themselves.
The Value of Every Citizens of The Planet Deserves To Be Seen
ArtzyPlanet, which gathers creators in the field of design, music, and film, is a co-creation media community founded in 2019. The platform is capable of meeting both the “displaying and exchanging works” on the supply side and “search for suitable talent” on the demand side at the same time. As of 2020, it had accumulated more than 6,000 creators. ArtzyPlanet lets members put their work on the platform, build their own portfolios, and connect with others to get inspired. Moreover, because talents in three fields are putting together, it can efficiently assist in matching suitable talents for entrepreneur or company to decrease the costs of labor and time.
ArtzyPlanet establishes “Planet Lab”, which has a variety of materials that creators can download safely. On the works left by the predecessors, a new creation is mixed and matched through their own skillful hands. In addition, it establishes “Planet Exhibition Hall”, which held competitions or solicitations for papers in cooperation with enterprises from time to time. Not only do help company to find creative works, but also inspire creators and break through themselves.
Create Your Own Family Gym
AcXport is a professional app and a sporty platform with a wealth of sports. Serving as a bridge between coach and consumers, it can help you to find suitable and professional sport service and coach after you choose the sport you want to train. Moreover, the platform not only teaches sports, but also promotes sports. Their official website provides different subject of articles, such as recommended sport places, personal interview of coach, health management, and so on.
In recent years, there are more restrictions on going out to exercise or going to the gym because of the impact of COVID-19. However, the service of AcXport is committed to transfer multi-sport experiences to entertainment that is easy for the public to start. Not only do allow you to find the fittest sport method to you by easy way, but also create your own gym without expensive expense.
The Advantages and Position of Matching Platform
The matching platform integrates scattered data, and allows users to get complete information by it and connects with others. Like ArtzyPlanet and AcXport above, they act as a bridge between supply and demand side, integrating huge amounts of data and to output the most effective information to entrepreneurs or consumers. With the expansion of the digital economy era, STARTBOARD, which matchs start-up team and enterprise, believes that the mechanism of this platform economy will become a trend in the future. Whether it is the Yourator talent matching platform or the Airbnb transactional platform, it can not only improve the efficiency of market matching, but also reduce the time cost spent in the past.
In 2022 Taiwan’s startup community is experiencing constant growth. The startup industry in the nation has been successful in luring venture capital firms and international attention in recent years, despite experiencing various obstacles in the past. With increasing government support and help from many laws that foster innovation, Taiwan is on the route to becoming a new startup hub in Asia as technology and electronics startups are growing there. Since we support this positive growth for many young and brilliant people out there, we will do our best to support and provide our services to them that will be the positive disruptor for our future with their robust innovation and creation. Hence we present the 2022 DEMO DAY that was held on July 26 with the purpose to let investors and startups know about the industry and market potential in Taiwan.
As the usual rule, 9 chosen teams, with each team given a 10-minute pitch time.
By 2035, the value of the mobile ecosystem’s goods and services would reach $13.2 trillion, which predicts that 5G will open up the ecosystem to new businesses. Yesterday TMYTEK discussed the uses of 5G technology and its future applications including agriculture, healthcare, the energy sector, smart cities, and driverless vehicles. He added that two key infrastructures, communication, and energy are crucial if digitization is to be realized in the future.
Uniigym developed an interactive sports technology platform using AI technology. This is quite unique since most of the gyms now are using the traditional method with any digital technology even AI. The reason why Uniigym decides to open a branch in Taiwan is that Taiwan tend to be more accepting of new ideas and seek out more practical ways to live, but they still value close relationships with one another. Additionally, Uniigym collaborates with the Taiwan gym and even tries to reach the home gym market, assisting it in reaching the Chinese market.
Sounds Great that create a robust innovation that involved special technology and microchip which able to create a powerful and immersive sound through their conductor special speaker which enables any item to pretty much become a high-quality speaker.
Tidyman is a company that magically changes your room from messy into a tidy, clean, nice-looking room that makes you want to stay in your room all day. Although this project sounds very simple, there are so much value and future growth for this company. In yesterday’s presentation, the founder also explains many aspects of their business, such as their business model, target market, their expectation, and company projection.
Ark Wisdom is the first company in Taiwan that focuses on 3D modeling and is committed to building the museum’s scanned cultural relics that can be seen through mobile phones or tablets. They also aim to create an AI robot that can guide tours in the future so that museums can open 24 hours and be accessed around the globe hence creating a new commercial value.
Pumpkin VR is a company that focuses on virtual reality content development and system integration. They support many of the previous VR games such as QUANTAAR with their system integration and technology.
WillStudy is a company that helps students solve their doubt and stress before studying abroad. They help students by solving and bridging the gap between students and the studying abroad information. They also provide consulting services for students to help them choose their subject and university based on their preference of the student and help them by giving important information related to their studies.
Space Capsule is a robust company that tries to combine textile with technology. By using the non-sensing clothes for motion detection, they can gain data that will benefit medical applications, human behavior, movement, leisure, or even entertainment. Their material can also be used as one of the Metaverse hybrid technology that we can own in real life.
Space Capsule
RobinsTech is a company that uses digital technology to find the right insurance for you. It has the advantages of digital insurance policies, damage prevention, and even quick claims settlement. In this way, the insurance process can be faster and safer for people to use.
🧠 There are many insights from yesterday’s event and contact information were exchanged! we hope we can keep continuing supporting many people that want to start their businesses no matter what stage their businesses are. Our main power and expertise are in company guidance and creation, we also have many connections that can help your business grow & strive even more! We also going to keep continue doing this meaningful and insightful event and we hope to see you guys soon in the future!🔥
👏[Special thanks to supporting us]👏
Startup Terrace- Providing offices, housing, co-working space, an exhibition center, and other state-of-the-art facilities that make it the ideal place for startups to grow and develop.
LOTES- LOTES has been designing and manufacturing precision #electronic interconnect components and hardware, supplying quality products at competitive prices to the worldwide industry which creates and develops state-of-the-art electronic products, instruments, and systems.
XRSpace Founder & Yushan Home Director – Mr. Peter ChouLOTES
Thank you to all the participants and attendees, we hope through this event you get valuable insight, connection, and even funding! Cheers!
Graduated from electro-optical engineering, Uniform Lin, however, wasn’t a fan of becoming an engineer. He was perplexed about his future but also ambitious to somehow transform Taiwan. Luckily, Lin met professor Chun-Shan Chen, who was the Chair of Graduate Institute of Intellectual Property at Taipei Tech. At the time, Chen was planning to set up an association to assist Taiwanese manufacturers in becoming global brand enterprises.
This idea undoubtedly matched Lin’s aim, so he decided to join the project. Chen said to him,“Let’s change Taiwan bit by bit.” Thus, Global Brands Management Association (GBMA) was established in 2014.
STARTBOARD hired foreign students as their brand ambassadors.
Looking into what a company needs for transformation was a part of Lin’s job, and he found that companies have to understand the local culture, industrial ecosystem, consumption habits, and sometimes the language of another country in order to go abroad. That is, someone who is familiar with the country, or even better, from the country, is a must for the company.
The potential of Southeast Asian students in Taiwan
Lin then discovered the solution lies in a fact that has long been underestimated – there are a great number of Southeast Asian students in Taiwan. If these foreign talents are able to work at those Taiwanese companies during their stay, there’d be a great opportunity for them to help the company to expand to their home countries.
Uniform Lin, the founder and CEO of STARTBOARD
Accordingly, the project Global Young Leaders for Global Markets and CSR (GGC) was launched and executed by Lin at the end of 2014 to help foreign students, especially students from Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) and Indian, to find internships and jobs in Taiwan. It was successfully joined by more than 10 top universities, enterprises such as MediaTek and PwC, and hundreds of foreign students each year.
During his years at GBMA, Lin has met people around the world and developed his own connections.“I followed professor Chen to visit a lot of big shots. I learned a lot and was grateful for having the chance to participate in those meetings,”said Lin. Yet, the professor encouraged Lin to leave GBMA to explore something different. Thus, Lin went to work at one of the largest and most respected law firms, Formosa Transnational, and became a graduate student of Graduate Institute of Intellectual Property at Taipei Tech in order to acquire further knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRKBgt6kA5A
What push foreign talents to leave when they actually want to stay in Taiwan
Meanwhile, an Indian friend of Lin’s finished his Ph.D in computer science at National Chiao Tung University with a full scholarship for six years, and he wanted to start his own business in Taiwan. He came to Lin and asked for help as he was facing various obstacles to set up a company in Taiwan as a foreigner.
Unfortunately, Lin didn’t have enough experience and resources to solve his problem at the time.“The law regarding foreign entrepreneurs wasn’t mature enough at the time,”explained Lin. Thus, even though his Indian friend wanted to stay and founded a company here, he still left.“Taiwan spent years cultivating a professional, however, we lost him in the end.”
Lin noticed that his Indian friend wasn’t the only case. In fact, a lot of Southeast Asian students have been facing the same situation. Therefore, in 2017, combined with the experience Lin has gained at GBMA and his background in law, STARTBOARD was born to help flourish Taiwan’s talents pool.
Talents from Indian and Thai are getting ready to set up their own company with the help of STARTBOARD.
From an incubator to the professional of Southeast Asian-related business
From industry mentors and partners, government resources, networking events to legal consulting and counseling, STARTBOARD is committed to providing a one-stop service for people from ASEAN and India that are interested in establishing companies in Taiwan. In addition, due to the approval of the National Development Council and Immigration agency, STARTBOARD is able to endorse foreign entrepreneurs for their visa.
Furthermore, Lin didn’t forget his ideal and strength of assisting Taiwanese companies to go abroad as he did at GBMA. For example, many banks are planning to open branches in Southeast Asia, so they came to STARTBOARD in search of Southeast Asian graduates in Taiwan.
Besides, since working at companies with the registered capital under five million doesn’t meet the requirement of applying for the working visa, small-scale companies can contract to STARTBOARD to hire foreign students as employees.
Yet, not only small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), STARTBOARD also provided service for one of the world’s top 100 companies. By organizing an entrepreneur competition in India, STARTBOARD helped the enterprise to explore local talents as they planned to set up their own brand there.
STARTBOARD earn its endorsement from global representatives through trust
With the connections Lin has been building since working at GBMA and his sincere care for foriegn students and talents, he and his team showed the companies and even embassies from ASEAN and India that STARTBOARD is a trustworthy bridge for deeper partnership between the countries.
Mr. Budi Santoso, Representative of the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei, attended STARTBOARD’s Indonesia Theme Night.
STARTBOARD was the only company invited when the Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei held an event, and STARTBOARD has already set up their first oversea branch office in Thailand. In addition, the Representative of Indonesian Economic and Trade Office even attended STARTBOARD’s networking event and offered assistance to Taiwanese manufacturers regarding exporting issues.“It is all built on trust,”said Lin.
The close Southeast Asian community built by STARTBOARD makes itself the largest Southeast Asia startup incubator in Taiwan. However, carrying the mission of blending Taiwan into the international community, Lin hopes STARTBOARD can not only be the first brand of incubator in Southeast Asia, but also play a crucial role as Taiwan’s non-government diplomatic agency.
In 2021, we were honored to be invited to the 5th Taipei Prominent Enterprise competition and won the “Cultivation Contribution Award” among hundreds of enterprises !
The Taipei City Government is committed to building innovative start-up environments for a long time, and Taipei City is currently the Taiwan’s largest accelerator with startups.
Taipei Mayor Ko and Uniform Lin
We, STARTBOARD, have been supporting all foreign talents who plan to start a business in Taipei at first. Until now, we have accelerated more than 40 enterprises from zero to one, including a wide range of industries such as Sportstech, Edutech, influencer marketing, ecommerce, blockchain, and so on. Furthermore, nowadays, we initialized NETA programme to assist Taiwanese enterprises to expand their business into the Southeast Asian market.
Note: NETA is the abbreviation of New southbound Entrepreneur Training Alliance and also the meaning of master or leader(नेता) in Hindi.
You never know which decision you made is correct or not. However, we feel blessed to go with our colleagues from Day 1 until today with our initial mission. We believe that our core value is beneficial to society and the whole startup ecosystem. It is unavoidable to be confronted with ups and downs in the process, but these difficulties indeed form our enterprise, STARTBOARD. said Uniform Lin, CEO of STARTBOARD.
STARTBOARD teammates
In 2021, a total of 16 companies were given awards by the Taipei City Government. We, STARTBOARD, are also honored to be given the Cultivation Contribution Award.
We will continue to support every talent who wants to start their business in Taipei and other cities of Taiwan. Thank you all, we’ll keep dedicating ourselves to the right thing.
5th Taipei Prominent Enterprise competition
Group photo of 16 companies in Taipei Prominent Enterprise competition
Keeping international talents in Taiwan has never been easy. Due to the complicated process of applying for a VISA and other law-related issues. Uniform Lin, the founder and the CEO of STARTBOARD, noticed this situation, striving to help international students stay in Taiwan and start their own business. “The last thing I want to see is Taiwanese universities cultivate these international talents, but they can not stay here in the end,” said Uniform.ASEAN markets have been attractive and potential for Taiwanese startups in these years.
Through STARTBOARD, we help global startups and talent deal with VISA, legal advice, talent matchmaking, etc. To make international talents could find the way to stay in Taiwan, as well as pave the way for Taiwanese startups into global markets. It also acts as a communicative bridge between people of different nations. And this year, there has a new project called NETA – 南向創業家發展聯盟 .
In this project, we have many experts who are Southeast Asian entrepreneurs and have been in Taiwan for more than a decade. So if Taiwanese startups are going to overseas markets, it is very important to understand the local culture first. And these our consultants are perfect to provide some practical details.
Meeting with Invest India
Last Friday, we were invited to the Networking Reception of the Friends of Thailand, held by the 
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