At the inaugural meeting of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Policy Board today, Vice Premier Chang San-cheng said the Executive Yuan established the board for the purposes of helping young people realize their dreams and creating opportunities for businesses. Comprising several task forces, the board will integrate programs and create synergies across government agencies, providing personnel training, technological and financial help, and other practical measures to motivate and enable young adults to start their own businesses.
The entrepreneurship environment task force, organized by the National Development Council (NDC), will make it easier for startups to raise and access capital, Executive Yuan Spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun explained. Already, an act governing electronic payment processing services has been passed while a private-equity crowdfunding platform is being set up. To attract more skilled talent, the NDC is pushing to ease requirements on foreign-owned companies that hire foreign executives to work in Taiwan, while relaxing education and experience requirements on foreigners with special skills.
In addition, guidelines and principles are being drafted on telecommuting—or working outside conventional office spaces and hours—an arrangement that has become increasingly popular thanks to advances in online technology and communications equipment. Protective guidelines will cover the definition of working hours and how work attendance is recorded.
The innovation environment task force, also organized by the NDC, invited a well-known Asian startup accelerator company to hold entrepreneurship workshops in Taiwan earlier this year. The NDC also hosted a business innovation forum to discuss challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs and help them transform ideas into business, Sun continued.
In the future, the NDC will spur early-stage investments by attracting more international venture capital firms to Taiwan. It will also select an operations team for a proposed international innovation and entrepreneurship park, while harnessing private professional resources to offer high-quality management services in the park.
The international connections task force, led by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), has plans for renting an office building in Silicon Valley in the U.S. and for teaming up with reputable accelerator companies in the area to set up a Taiwan innovation and entrepreneurship center. The MOST will also establish a rapid prototyping service center in Taiwan as a hub for integrating resources of the public and private sectors.
As for helping Taiwan's systems integrators to offer value-added services in the global innovation market, the MOST has mapped out several strategies. For large systems integrators, the ministry will attract high-potential international cases to Taiwan and assess possibilities for cooperation and investment. For medium and small systems integrators, the ministry will guide them in undertaking rapid prototyping cases from international innovative entrepreneurs, Sun said.