TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- InnoVEX, the
startup focused exhibition of COMPUTEX has ended on May 31 with great fanfare. Having a trend of high
growth in previous years prompted a venue shift to the much larger
TWTC Hall 1 to accommodate more visitors and more exhibitors.
InnoVEX has continued to grow significantly since it began in 2016.
The number of visitors grew from 10,957 in 2016 to 18,251 in 2019;
while the number of exhibitors increased from 217 to 467 over the
course of 4 years.
The 467 startups that exhibited come from 25 countries and
regions: Brazil, Canada, Mainland China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong
Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South
Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the
U.K. and the U.S..
Biotech has gained a stronger presence in InnoVEX 2019 as many
exhibitors were focused on innovative products, solutions, and
applications in biotech. It was also one of the main topics of the
InnoVEX Forum, and 2 of the 7 winners of the InnoVEX Pitch Contest
were also biotech startups.
InnoVEX was also visited by the Founder and Chairman of Foxconn,
Mr. Terry Gou. He stated that
exhibitions are vital to Taiwan as
it can bring a more innovation driven growth to Taiwan. Startups need market and capital
funding platforms, which is why he wanted to help build
Taiwan into an ICT investment
island.
Strong Government Support in InnoVEX
Innovation, new technology, and startups are not only on demand
from the private organizations, but also government. Seeing how
startups can actually benefit everyone involved; including
startups, corporations, and government; it is not a surprise that
InnoVEX was greatly supported by the government; both local and
international. The opening of InnoVEX 2019 was attended by the
Premier of R.O.C (Taiwan),
Minister of Science and Technology, Deputy Minister of Economic
Affairs, and more local government representatives. The
international government representatives that attended were Mayor
of Eindhoven, the Deputy at the French Assemblée Nationale and 23
international trade office representatives.
Many of the exhibitors this year were part of pavilions
coordinated by government bodies, bringing global innovation and
perspective to InnoVEX. For example, the largest pavilion in
InnoVEX 2019 is the Startup Terrace Pavilion, which is a startup
base under the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (SMEA) of
the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). The pavilion brought 153
startups with founders from around the world. Startup Terrace also
sponsored 5 awards for the InnoVEX Pitch Contest worth a total
USD 300,000 in addition to corporate
resources and residency in the Startup Terrace itself.
Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) under the Ministry of Science and
Technology (MOST) also organized a pavilion joined by 79 startups
from multiple industries. In addition, TTA also sponsored the
InnoVEX Pitch Contest Grand Prize Taiwan Tech Award worth
USD 100,000; organized a Forum
Session during the InnoVEX forum on Startup Ecosystem; sponsored
InnoVEX Taiwan Tech @Night Party as well as holding 2 Pitch &
Match sessions in the InnoVEX Pi Stage.
The government organized pavilions in the event are coordinated
by 4 city government in Taiwan and
12 international trade offices, accelerator, and more.
7 Topics of 3 Days in the InnoVEX Forum
As one of the mainstays of InnoVEX, the forum regularly
discusses topics most relevant to the ICT industry and startup
ecosystem with insightful speakers from leading companies and
organizations around the world; including Arm, Qualcomm, IOTA
Foundation, NEM Foundation, and more. Covering the topics of AI,
IoT, Blockchain, Smart Machinery, Biotech, Startup Ecosystem, and
Sportstech, the 3 day forum was held at the Center Stage for
audience from visitors and exhibitors to attend and be inspired
from.
The sportstech forum debuted in InnoVEX 2019 and started with a
keynote session by Mr. Zvika Popper,
the VP of Strategy of HYPE Sports Innovation from Israel. The smart machinery and biotech
sessions were opened by a remark from Dr. Yu-Chin Hsu, Deputy Minister of the MOST and
featured professors from top Taiwanese universities which are
members of the Global Research and Industry Alliance (GLORIA);
sharing their innovative insights on the topics.
For the IoT sessions, speakers from Arm and Qualcomm were
invited to share their insights on the first and second day. The
Ecosystem Manager of Arm, Mr. Alessandro
Grande introduced the Arm Innovative Innovator program which
was created to help the startups capitalize on the opportunity
brought by the exponential growth in IoT. One of the speaker from
Qualcomm, Mr. Sahil Bansal stated in
his keynote that devices are becoming more intelligent and that
intelligence is moving from the servers/ cloud to the devices. As
AI is key to many IoT use cases, on-device computing becomes vital
to reduce latency and improve reliability & security.
One of the speakers from the AI session is Dr. Min Sun, the Chief AI Scientist of Appier. He
remarked in his keynote that currently there are 2 missing pieces
to reaching the next stage of AI: Human centered AI (using AI to
augment human capabilities) and Auto ML. While AI is a powerful
tool, it does not mean that AI has to be applied everywhere.
The blockchain forum focused on the many possible uses of
blockchain as a technology. The co-founder of IOTA Foundation, Mr.
Dominik Schiener stated in his
keynote that while many devices rely on IoT, the technology might
have been built on the wrong premises infrastructure which can turn
IoT into a security threat. He suggested using a distributed ledger
to improve the security of IoT; to create immutable &
verifiable data, digital identity for machines, machine-to-machine
transactions, and autonomous systems.
The startup ecosystem forum sessions are covered multiple
topics, with one of the main topics being Global Entrepreneurship
Insights. One of the speakers is the Managing Director at Alchemist
Accelerator, Mr. Ravi Belani who is
also the chief judge of the InnoVEX 2019 Pitch Contest. In his
keynote speech, he stated that he hoped Taiwan could leapfrog Silicon Valley and
create disruption in unforeseen ways. The difference between a
mediocre and a big company is in the way it is strategized. The
main points are: gross margins, which will have an exponential
effect on the company's cashflow; using new technologies; and
network effects.
Biotech Gains Prominence in the InnoVEX Pitch Contest
As one of the main industries of the exhibitors, biotech and its
related industries also gained prominence in this year's InnoVEX
Pitch Contest. Out of the 143 startups that registered
for a total of USD
420,000 prize pool, 4 out of 10 finalists and 2 of the 7 winners
were in biotech. The chief judge, Mr. Ravi
Belani, commented that the
main metrics the judges were looking for were that the startups
should be going after something critical, that they are doing
something novel or completely new, and that they have a high
potential to be a real platform that is bigger than just their
current product.
Fulfilling these 3 categories were the main criteria to be a
winner in the pitch contest and given the quality of the joining
startups; the score difference between the startups were very
close. The winner of the InnoVEX Pitch Contest Grand Prize Taiwan
Tech Award (USD 100,000) is Medfluid,
a Taiwanese health & biotech startup which uses microfluidics
to deliver precise antibiotics prescription. In addition to winning
the Grand Prize, they were also one of the winners of the Startup
Terrace Award (USD 60,000).
The Taiwania Capital Innovation Award (USD 10,000) focused on startups in IoT or
biomedical. The winner of this award was MTAMTech; a Taiwanese
biotech startup that aims to resolve issues with the ineffective
treatment of cancer patients through personalization of treatment.
For the Qualcomm Innovation Award (USD
10,000); the winner was Ganzin Technology, a Taiwanese
startup that created an AR/VR eye tracking module.
The winners of the Startup Terrace Award (USD 60,000) each include:
- PurCity, a Danish startup that develops self-cleaning and
highly-efficient air purification system
- MIFLY, a Taiwanese startup in AR/VR with image recognition and
tracking technology as the core of their technology
- Onesoftdigm (OSD), a South Korean startup that creates a
portable device that measures body compositions through
Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)
- MedFluid, a Taiwanese health & biotech startup which uses
microfluidics to deliver precise antibiotics prescription
The Startup Terrace JIC Award (USD
60,000) which was sponsored by Startup Terrace and AWS Joint
Innovation Center (JIC) awards the winner with cash, free
residency, and corporate resources was awarded to OmniEyes, a
Taiwanese startup that collects and digitizes live street videos
and processes them with AI.
Pitch and Match in the Pi Stage
Over the 3 days of InnoVEX, the Pi Stage hosted pitching,
matchmaking, and demo events for exhibiting startups. A dedicated
demo session to showcase innovations from around the world was held
on the third day of InnoVEX, the Global Demo Day; during which
startups from France, Canada, Philippines, and Poland showcased their solutions and products
to the potential investors or partners in the audience.
As partners, Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) held 2 pitch & match
events together with Asia-Pacific Accelerator Network (AAN) and
Taiwan Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC). In total
there were 240 matchmaking sessions with 45 attending VCs from
Belgium, Israel, India, Japan,
Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S.. The InnoVEX Matchmaking Powered by
TTA x TIEC focused on startup-VC matchmaking while InnoVEX
Matchmaking Powered by TTA x AAN focused on matching startups with
accelerators.
A dedicated pitch event for Travel Tech was held on the third
day of InnoVEX. Titled the Tourism Tech & Innovation Award, the
event was coordinated by the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of
Transportation and Communication (MOTC); the final pitch round was
held on May 31 in the InnoVEX Pi
Stage. The event awarded 3 startups that were considered to have
enhanced Taiwan's tourism industry
by combining it with the ICT industry the best. The winning
startups were: Funliday, a travel planning app; Velodash+ Travel, a
cycling platform; and iMarts, a platform to confirm the
authenticity of products.
Overflowing with Visitors in the InnoVEX Night
Held on May 30, the InnoVEX Taiwan
Tech @Night saw numerous visitors from exhibitors, VCs, media,
government bodies, and more. Sponsored by the Ministry of Science
and Technology (MOST), Qualcomm, and Canadian Trade Office in
Taipei (CTOT); the event was held
in Umami. The event was joined by over 200 people, flooding the
venue with visitors eager to network and enjoy the night for a
wonderful 3 hour networking event.
InnoVEX will Return in June
2020
As the organizer, Taipei Computer Association (TCA) stated that
with continuous growth over the years, InnoVEX hosted 467 startups
from 25 countries and regions and 18,251 global visitors. During
the 3 days, exhibitors commented on the growth of visitors and the
how more prospective deals sprung up during the exhibition. The
invited media and judges; as well as VCs were impressed by the
exhibitors and exhibition itself; already planning their return to
InnoVEX in 2020. Everyone; both newcomers and returners are welcome
in InnoVEX 2020 which will be held in June. TCA will announce more
details in Q3 2019 on official website:
https://innovex.computex.biz.
Videos of InnoVEX 2019 stage events are available in the
official YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbCU71Iqdejjb2HEZkrRqQ
About the organizer: Taipei Computer Association
Taipei Computer Association (TCA), the co-organizer of COMPUTEX
and InnoVEX was established in 1974; and is the leading industrial
organization in Taiwan. Its 4,000
members engages various fields such as software, hardware,
semiconductors and components, manufacture, sales, network
communication service, etc., thereby generating over 80% of the
total production value of Taiwan's
Information Communication Technology (ICT).
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/innovex-2019-expands-as-demand-for-innovation-grows-300866215.html
SOURCE Taipei Computer Association (TCA)