Medical and Health Experts Shared Insights in Pandemic Control and Prevention Since the end of 2019, the outbreak of coronavirus has changed the world greatly. Quarantine, social distancing, lockdowns, recessions, and loss of family members caused by the global pandemic affect every aspect of people’s lives. Researchers from epidemic prevention and public health science have been actively engaging in studies searching for effective preventative measures and cures to fight it. Despite the development of new vaccines, the majority of the world is still struggling with recovery. National Taiwan University and the University of Haifa, Israel hosted a virtual co-workshop on COVID-19 and public health and 2nd June. Professors from the medical and health fields were invited to share their research findings and experiences in the fight against COVID-19. The workshop started with an opening speech from Professor Pai-Chi Li, VP of Office of Research and Development, National Taiwan University and Director of National Taiwan University Industry Liaison Office: “Israel and Taiwan both have unique experiences in keeping COVID-19 under control. We are very pleased and honored to work with the University of Haifa on this topic. Although we are facing a setback in Taiwan lately, it only teaches us that there is always more to learn about pandemic control and public health. I hope today’s talks will bring everyone some new thoughts on not just the combat against COVID-19 but also studies about the science of disease control and public health.” “With the threat of COVID-19, everyone is aware of how important the science of pandemic research is. Now is the time to go deeper into science. Both National Taiwan University and the University of Haifa have excellent researchers. I hope this workshop will lead to more collaboration and joint research.” Professor Meir Hemmo, Provost of the University of Haifa said in his welcome remarks. Eight professors from both universities shared their research efforts with online audiences. The topics focused on Israel’s and Taiwan’s successful experiences as well as lessons learned from the year-long combat against COVID-19. It includes the observations, analysis, of the vaccination campaign, the factors of people’s hesitation in getting vaccinated, and the ethics issues of “Green Badge”, “Vaccine Passport” that derived from vaccination. In addition to the talks around vaccines, other topics also included the study of a research network of pandemic prevention, the use of face masks in preventing virus transmission, and the social impact of COVID-19 on people and the community. In his closing remarks, the workshop moderator, also the Director of Center of Industry Academia Cooperation, Prof. Tang-Long Shen said, “Researchers from Israel and Taiwan were brought together by this workshop, with the joint efforts of the University of Haifa, National Taiwan University, NTU Industry Liaison Office and NTU Epidemic Prevention Scientific Research Center. I believe the sharing and discussions during this workshop would bring new thoughts to the combat against COVID-19 and the science of disease control and public health. I also hope it would create more opportunities for academia-industry cooperation. Through the collaboration between academic research and industry’s field experiences, both can benefit and advance from it.” The workshop successfully marked a step in the academic and industrial exchanges between Israel and Taiwan in medical science and public health. Participants' enthusiastic participation and discussions were also expected to further strengthen the future cooperation. Pic 1: (Left) Prof. Tang-Long Shen, Director of NTU Center of Industry Academia Cooperation; (Right) Professor Pai-Chi Li, Director of NTU Industry Liaison Office Pic 2: Workshop speakers and staff  

The 2020 NCKU Dream-Come-True Carnival Startup Week was held at the NCKU Future Venue and the square in front of the Venue on November 6th and 7th.  The two-day event focused on technology matchmaking and the entrepreneurship ecosystem.  Representatives from various enterprises were invited to attend the industry-academia forum to kick off the event, and founders of startups shared their experience learned in their entrepreneurship journey.  The event had 80 technology and startup teams from NCKU to showcase the results and progress of their research and development efforts.   Deputy Minister Dar-Bin Shieh and Department Director Chun-Yi Tu of the Ministry of Science and Technology, special committee member Chien-Te Wu of the Economic Development Bureau of Tainan City Government, Principal Jenny Su of NCKU, Director Woei-Jer Chuang of the Innovation Headquarters and also the assistant principal of NCKU, Secretary-General Clark Su of Taiwan Angel Club and several enterprise representatives and valued guests attended the event.   Deputy Minister Dar-Bin Shieh of the MOST pointed out: "The spirit of innovation is an important driving force for the development of economy, technology, and society.  Its cultivation can further commercialize technologies and transform them into startups.  For the overall economy, innovation can promote socioeconomic metabolism.  For individuals, entrepreneurship is an opportunity for self-realization, and is also a stage for exerting one's true potential."   The NCKU Dream-Come-True Carnival Startup Week this year is the first large event held by the NCKU Innovation Headquarters since its official launch in August.  In addition to the announcement of results from startup teams conducted on the Demo Day, there is a display of technologies and matchmaking forums and presentation sessions over two days to showcase the results and progress of the technological research and development efforts of NCKU and startup teams.   Chair Professor Woei-Jer Chuang, director of the Innovation Headquarters and also the assistant principal of NCKU, said that in the past the NCKU Startup Week was mainly to promote the startups developed by both professors and students.  The Startup Week this time, hopes to create more collaboration opportunities with enterprises in addition to promoting startups.  Many alumni are also invited to the homecoming event held during the university anniversary to make NCKU's efforts in technology and startups known to every corner of Taiwan. 　 Chair Professor Woei-Jer Chuang said that back in the day, Taiwan's education system did not emphasize encouraging professors and students to explore opportunities in startups. The newly consolidated Innovation Headquarters will focus on this initiative, which is also the direction that NCKU should take in the future.   The previous Startup Week events at NCKU all presented results in conjunction with the Dream-Come-True program at school.  The program has been in operation for three years and helped eight teams establish their startups.  This year, the program has nurtured three teams to form their startups.  For example, the Sumoga team, which develops games on environmental education, has completed the first stage of game development with the grant from the Dream-Come-True program and connected with the U-Start Plan for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Ministry of Education to establish its gaming software company, Educality. The founder of Sumoga is Juliana Kriskova from Slovakia.  She said that back then, she formed the team of Sumoga based on being a sustainable movement game, which aimed to develop interactive games on environmental education to convey environmental protection.  The games target school-age children from 9 to 12 years old, and the company seeks to incorporate the games into schools' teaching systems. She said that the team could complete the first stage of game development with the grant from the Dream-Come-True program at NCKU before getting connected with the U-Start Plan for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Ministry of Education to establish its gaming software company, Educality.  This is also the first time in three years since the establishment of the Dream-Come-True program that a team is headed by a foreign student who later on establishes a startup at NCKU. On the first day of the Dream-Come-True Carnival Startup Week, Assistant General Manager Sunny Li of the ASE Technology, Director Chih-Wei Chang of the R&D center of CPDC and Assistant General Manager Yong-Qing Shen of Nan Pao Resins Chemical were invited to the industry-academia forum to share their opinions on the topic of "Key Success Factors to Industry-Academia Collaboration."  The event venue also featured technologies showcased by teams and a matchmaking forum with industry practitioners, and more than 40 technology teams from NCKU participated attended the event.   The Demo Day event on the next day focused on the activities of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Southern Taiwan.  Entrepreneurs such as Ronald Yu of Autopass, Roy Chang of uMeal and others shared their journey of entrepreneurship at the event.  About 50 startups, either still in-campus or are spinoffs of NCKU, also organized an exhibition featuring fun activities to interact with the guests and other teams at the site.

In order to provide business matchmaking opportunities despite the many challenges due to COVID-19, on April 8th, GLORIA Project Office invited startups to participated “Let’s talk Business One-on-one Matchmaking” to explore new frontiers without the limitation of space and time. The Matchmaking event partnered with 10 VC/CVC and hospital institutions to provide potential investment, proof of concept, and strategic partner opportunities. The event focused on the following themes, Smart Agriculture, Fintech and Healthcare, and successfully attracted 9 university startups over 5 universities including National Taiwan University, Taipei Medical University, Taipei University of Science and Technology, National Chengchi University, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, and completed a total of 12 One-on-one Matchmaking sessions online. The Matchmaking has ended with partner investors and university startups expressing positive feedback through means of integrating related communities via effective channels virtually. Many investors and university startups have made future arrangements todiscuss further collaboration. The Project office will continue to organize events online and offline to bridge academia and industry, and stimulate international collaboration. Photo description: Parelle matchmaking sessions taking place online

With the support of the project, the platform for scientific research achievements in industrialization held by Ministry of Science and Technology, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) established five college consortium. Today (January 27, 2021), NTHU signed a letter of intent with National Chengchi University (NCCU) , Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU) , Feng Chia University (FCU) , and Tamkang University (TKU) . By integrating five colleges’ complementary specialization fields, forming a key technical team, and promoting industry demand-oriented industry-academia cooperation, domestic enterprises and academia can jointly invest in forward-looking technology research and development; promote different forms of thematic industry-academia cooperation to facilitate scientific research achievements in industrialization and further expand substantive exchanges of research and teaching between universities. Principal He Chen of our school said that many Chinese auspicious words begin with "five," for example, the five blessings will have descended upon the house and the family will be prosperous for five generations right on end. The plum blossoms in Dr. Mei Memorial Garden are mostly five petals. Connecting five schools will surely achieve great results. Professor Ming-Hua Hsieh from the Department of Risk Management and Insurance (NCCU) said that, the industry-academia cooperation between NCCU and the financial industry has been established for several years, so they can provide experience in financial business management cooperation. He also said that NTHU has strong R&D development and hoped that joining the consortium can promote technological exchanges and enhance the technological R&D capacity of NCCU. Ben-Chang Hsieh, Vice President of FJU , described himself as the force of industry-academia cooperation. By learning from the model consortiums, FJU can strengthen its industry-academia and international linkage energy and give feedback to the platform. Bing-Jean Lee, President of FCU , stated that FCU is dedicated to strategic core industries, for instance, national defense and the people's livelihood. They can become a niche point to introduce technical resources for college consortium and to connect local enterprises, which can prosper the industrial capacity of the central region. Chii-Dong Ho, Vice President of TKU , uses 270,000 TKU alumni as one of the strong backup of the consortium platform, connects abundant industry contacts and skills, transforms them into substantial industry-academia cooperation, and leads the industry. Tsing Hua Five College Consortium will devote itself to strategic service projects, for example, the creation of industry-academia cases, the maintenance and promotion of technology transfer patents, the cultivation of high-level talents, and the fundraising of start-up teams, so as to increase the benefits of industry-academia services for five colleges and to establish a network and system. The community then can share resources and make the best use of the material to link with the world and finally reach the goal of sustainable operation. ▲The Five College Consortium led by NTHU was established under the support of the MOST Program on Platforms Platform for Industrialization of Scientific Research Achievements. On 27th, NTHU signed a letter of intent with National Chengchi University, Fu Jen Catholic University, Feng Chia University and Tamkang University ▲Photo after signing ceremony of the Five College Consortium

In order to understand the trends and differences in financial technology between Taiwan and the world, as well as the perspectives and strategies of financial companies, and to propose corresponding solutions for industry development, National Chengchi University (NCCU) and Deloitte jointly published the "2021 Trends and Future Prospects of Taiwan FinTech Report" on April 20, in which experts from the financial industry were invited to discuss and share their experiences.   The FinTech Research Center at NCCU has been dedicated to trend analysis in financial technology over the years. NCCU has published, in collaboration with Deloitte, the "2021 Trends and Future Prospects of Taiwan FinTech Report", the first report of its kind in Taiwan. To secure a deeper understanding of the current situation and the issues in Taiwan's financial technology, NCCU and Deloitte conducted in-depth interviews with 10 financial institutions, compiled information on the industry's level of preparation in FinTech and the potential challenges, and provided industry transformation strategy and policy advices, by referring to the international development experience in FinTech worldwide. Professor Wang Lee-ling, Director of the FinTech Research Center at NCCU, pointed out that when it comes to the application of important financial technologies, Taiwan’s current focus is on AI, the Cloud, identity verification, etc. Open banking and data sharing can be beneficial to financial institutions’ potential for cross-company and cross-industry development. Therefore, the industry is hopeful for a major breakthrough in terms of regulation for data sharing, Cloud services and Regtech. In addition, this Report also provided 10 recommendations for Taiwan's future regulation development, in accordance to future trends, these recommendations include, creating a data empowerment mechanism to facilitate data sharing, establishing data exchange centers and “de-identification” standards for personal data, enhancing data governance to promote a cross-industry data sharing platform, establishing a dedicated API management unit and TSP mechanism for open banking, taking inspiration from international legislation and prescribe new regulations for Big Data and AI in order to facilitate innovation, encouraging the industry to embrace new techniques and create new value, implementing new technologies to improve Regtech compliance, accelerating the robustness of support measures for Cloud environments, expanding the financial industry's application scope for pilot programs so as to boost FinTech innovations, and creating a prosperous academia-industry collaboration platform to cultivate FinTech talent. It is expected that all sectors will work together to drive innovation under the FSC's policies, and create a new ecosystem for Taiwan's FinTech.   The development of Taiwan's FinTech will face more digital transformation challenges in the post-pandemic era, according to Director Wang Lee-ling, and driven by the FSC's policies, Taiwan's FinTech is expected to continue its growth. Currently, there is a supply deficiency in skilled labor as the demand for FinTech personnel in Taiwan increased rapidly. Chengchi University expects that by actively promoting innovative R&D and educational platforms together with Deloitte, combining industry experience with top class academic research, new FinTech industrial values and employment opportunities are created to cultivate international competitive financial services and innovative talent for Taiwan.