Taiwan s new Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center in Santa Clara opened today, becoming the first Asian nation with a Silicon Valley launchpad.
Designed to bring the most innovative Taiwanese startups to Silicon Valley, the center is part of a larger initiative to assist promising startups through financial, management and manufacturing assistance.
The center will select startups and partner them with Silicon Valley accelerators, such as Founders Space, Plug and Play, CoinX and Wearable World Labs, as well as capital companies such as WI Harper Group, SVT Angels and H&Q Asia Pacific.
The Taiwanese government also announced three projects to help kick-start these new companies. Startups will receive a $20,000 grant and will be provided consultant, mentoring and other services to help integrate them into Silicon Valley. A science and technology fund is being established to invest in companies in the area in hopes to make Taiwan an important link in the supply chain of innovative industries. Startups will also be assisted by prototyping services to assist with manufacturing.
Taiwan is ninth country to open a facility to assist companies coming from overseas, the others being Germany, France, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
Taiwan s IT Industry is known for strong performance in R&D and patented technology, and according to The Economist Intelligence Unit global study, they rank second out of 66 nations.
Photo: The Taiwanese flag. (.)
