【大纪元2014年05月21日讯】【大纪元记者李欧旧金山采访报导】旧金山，初创业主与创投公司的天堂，可以说改变世界的众多智慧都从这里出发。台湾为了保持与世界格局的创新能量接轨，由经济部中小企业处指导的育成中心，两年来和硅谷（硅谷）的加速器交流，为台美初创人士提供茁壮的可能性。
5月14日，由台湾财团法人资讯工业策进会（资策会）主办，经济部中小企业处（中企处）指导的“2014美国双城商机访问团”到达旧金山。15日晚间该团与旧金山当地4家加速器（Accelerator）签署MOU合作备忘录，以期未来台美双边的育成中心与加速器资源共享，协助初创业主。
该团领军的中企处副处长林美雪表示，2012年中企处参考国际加速器做法，成立适合台湾国情环境的“育成加速器”，联合工研院、资策会、中原大学、交通大学等单位，此行会到旧金山是因为硅谷的加速器发展蓬勃，希望两边有更多合作空间。
为了打进国际市场，目前台湾的“育成加速器”希望创新公司也能打进国际，因此推动与硅谷众多加速器的交流，此次签订的MOU就是让这些台湾创业公司能藉由硅谷庞大的世界网络资源，顺利与世界贸易。签署的加速器有：500 Startups、NestGSV、Momentum、玉山创投等4家。
反之，如果硅谷的创业者想要抢攻台湾市场，也可同样借助台湾的加速器来打进市场，形成台美两边互相通气。此外，会中就有6家以从台湾出发，并由育成加速器推荐到硅谷发展的新企业。
Kono即是其中一家，以优化移动设备的阅读为目的。其联合创办人简旭霆（Stanley Chien）说，当初创业是因为在斯坦福大学念书时，有几位同窗都感受到手机阅读的不易，因此有了优化阅读的构想。现在Kono已成立两年和港台多家杂志商合作，提供行动阅读的最佳平台，在安卓上有超过1万次的下载量。
在新创业领域不仅是男性的天下，其中有三家还都是女性创业，MacroData：该公司主要从事资料库分析业务，提供顾客即时的研究成果，帮助快速掌握商业趋势；VESCIR：元盛生医电子现阶段开发出发展出随身光学肤质检测仪，针对医疗美容、化妆品市场具有相当大的应用潜力；Lucent Sky：保障应用程式的安全及效能。专注在把应用程式安全变得简单，易于管理。
15、16日该团还参访硅谷创新单位包括Google Glass、NestGSV、Evernote等10家创新单位。◇
Taiwan – U.S. start-up Accelerator cooperation platform
helping start-ups to build up the capabilities needed to develop overseas markets
Witnessed by representatives of Taiwan’s Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs, and by incubator experts from San Francisco and the Silicon Valley area, on May 15th a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in San Francisco between an alliance of four Taiwanese accelerator operators – the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU), and the Institute for Information Industry (III) – and a group of U.S. accelerators, including Momentum, SWELL, NestGSV and Yushan Ventures. In the future, the signatories to this MoU will be working together to promote the growth of the APEC Accelerator Network and establish a joint incubation platform, thereby helping business start-ups to acquire the capabilities needed to develop overseas markets successfully.
With the aim of helping to strengthen Taiwan’s international outlook and learn about the latest global trends in incubation models, so as to help Taiwan’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to speed up their growth, Ms. Mei-Hsueh Lin, Deputy Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, MOEA, is leading a delegation comprising representatives of Taiwan’s Start-up Taiwan Accelerator alliance, incubator experts and representatives of individual start-ups, to attend the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) 28th International Conference on Business Incubation, which is being held in New Orleans on May 18 – 21, 2014. The theme of this year’s Conference is “Entrepreneurship energizing economies”; it is anticipated that over 600 incubator managers and business development specialists from around the world will be attending the Conference. In addition, in order to strengthen collaboration and links with Silicon Valley, prior to the Conference the Taiwan delegation hosted a Taiwan Business Day in Silicon Valley on May 15. Besides providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the latest innovation trends in Silicon Valley and learn about new paradigms of successful start-up growth, this event also saw the signing of an accelerator MoU that will help Taiwanese start-ups to build links with Silicon Valley’s human talent and to access its funding sources; the MoU will help give Taiwanese firms access to international resources and business matching opportunities. Over 200 industry professionals attended the signing ceremony.
Mario Tapia, the founder of the renowned Silicon Valley accelerator Momentum, noted that Taiwan possessed competitive advantage based on industry clusters and the ability to coordinate business operations flexibly that made it unique in the Asia Pacific region; he pointed out that Taiwan had, for many years now, been an important partner in Silicon Valley’s global supply chain. Mr. Tapia suggested that, building on this solid foundation, the signing of the MoU would help to stimulate continued collaboration and exchange between incubators and accelerators in Taiwan and the U.S., generating new opportunities and growth potential for Taiwanese and U.S. SMEs, and creating a “win-win” situation.
Ms. Mei-Hsueh Lin, Deputy Director General of SMEA, noted that SMEs were the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, and that their outstanding performance and vitality had won widespread recognition. She explained that, in order to speed up the forging of links between Taiwan and other countries, Taiwan was working to build an international emerging industry incubator network. Starting in 2013, and building on ideas borrowed from Silicon Valley, the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration has been actively implementing a “Start-up Taiwan Accelerator” program that involves the creation of an accelerator alliance comprising four Taiwanese accelerators: those of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU), and the Institute for Information Industry (III). Three main mechanisms – expert mentoring and guidance, funding matching, and the development of an international incubator network – will be used to help Taiwan’s SMEs speed up their growth and develop overseas markets.
Last year, Taiwan submitted a proposal for an APEC Accelerator Network Initiative (AAN) to APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). The proposal won wide acceptance among the economic leaders and ministers of APEC’s member economies, and was subsequently formally adopted. As part of the implementation of the AAN, on March 25, 2014 an APEC Accelerator Network Forum was held at the Splendor Hotel in Taichung. The Forum brought together representatives of leading accelerators from throughout the Asia-Pacific region to build consensus regarding resource linkage; Taiwan is continuing to promote accelerator collaboration with Europe, North America, the Asia Pacific region, and emerging markets in other parts of the world. In 2013 these efforts stimulated NT$1.57 billion in additional domestic investment, and NT$830 million in international investment and overseas orders.
The signing of this accelerator MoU between the Taiwanese accelerator alliance and four leading Silicon Valley-based accelerators represents a further step in the building of the APEC Accelerator Network. In the future, the Taiwanese and U.S. partners will be collaborating on the basis of equality and reciprocity; personnel from Taiwanese SMEs will be able to receive mentoring and support in the U.S. from U.S. accelerator specialists, while U.S. SMEs will have access to similar services in Taiwan. The provision of mentoring, funding and networking support by accelerators will help new start-ups develop the business models and capabilities needed to become globally competitive, and will thus help Taiwanese entrepreneurs to successfully develop overseas markets.
