Taiwanese start-ups can look to their Israeli counterparts for inspiration to gain international significance, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) chairman James Huang (黃志芳) said yesterday at InnoVEX — a special Computex Taipei section devoted to innovation and start-ups.
“Our start-ups have narrow mindsets, they lack a global perspective,” Huang told the Taipei Times, adding that emerging Taiwanese entrepreneurs often design products with only the domestic market in mind, while Israeli start-ups design products for the world.
Local start-ups also often face financial difficulties, he said.
“Taiwan’s VC [venture capital] scale has dramatically shrunk in the past 20 years due to changes in the ecosystem,” Huang said, adding that good start-ups are in desperate need of international funding.
Local start-ups are often short of good marketing strategies, which their Israeli counterparts excel at, he said.
“They know how to tell stories” about their products, he said.
While Israel has the highest number of start-ups per capita in the world, the nation faces challenges transforming into a scale-up nation, said Denes Ban, a managing partner at OurCrowd, during a panel discussion led by Huang.
“There are many similarities between Israel and Taiwan, but our economies are different,” Israeli Representative to Taiwan Asher Yarden said, adding that the manufacturing industry in Israel is not on the same scale as Taiwan’s.
This leads to Israeli start-ups exiting the market prematurely as they sell themselves to bigger companies, Yarden said, citing Mobileye NV’s 2017 sale to Intel Corp.
“Israel is very strong in the ‘R’ part of R&D [research and development], while Taiwan is strong in the ‘D’ part,” Ban said, adding that both nations should leverage their advantages through further exchanges.
“Taiwan and Israel’s business models should be complementary,” Huang said, adding that Taiwan could serve as a manufacturing base for Israeli start-ups, while local start-ups could assimilate business models from their counterparts in the Middle East.
TAITRA this year set up an office in Tel-Aviv to boost business collaborations, he said.
The cultural aspect might also play an important part in the way start-ups from both nations behave, Yarden said.
“We’re not afraid of failure,” he said, adding that Taiwanese start-ups are often less willing to take risks.
The overall business atmosphere in Israel is much less formal and this encourages innovation and exchanges, which are essential to the survival of start-ups, Yarden said.
PROTECTIONISM: China hopes to help domestic chipmakers gain more market share while preparing local tech companies for the possibility of more US sanctions Beijing is stepping up pressure on Chinese companies to buy locally produced artificial intelligence (AI) chips instead of Nvidia Corp products, part of the nation’s effort to expand its semiconductor industry and counter US sanctions. Chinese regulators have been discouraging companies from purchasing Nvidia’s H20 chips, which are used to develop and run AI models, sources familiar with the matter said. The policy has taken the form of guidance rather than an outright ban, as Beijing wants to avoid handicapping its own AI start-ups and escalating tensions with the US, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Her white-gloved, waistcoated uniform impeccable, 22-year-old Hazuki Okuno boards a bullet train replica to rehearse the strict protocols behind the smooth operation of a Japanese institution turning 60 Tuesday. High-speed Shinkansen trains began running between Tokyo and Osaka on Oct. 1, 1964, heralding a new era for rail travel as Japan grew into an economic superpower after World War II. The service remains integral to the nation’s economy and way of life — so keeping it dazzlingly clean, punctual and accident-free is a serious job. At a 10-story, state-of-the-art staff training center, Okuno shouted from the window and signaled to imaginary colleagues, keeping
RSS