Taipei, Taiwan — Luminaries opened Taiwan and Asia's leading ICT event where proponents are looking in to see the next generation of computing development.
COMPUTEX Taipei 2019 opened on Tuesday with President Tsai Ing-wen praising Taiwan’s ICT industry, noting that the industry totaled US$157 billion in exports per year and served as the engine of Taiwan’s economic growth and a key part of the global supply chain.
Focusing on AI and IoT; blockchain; 5G, innovation; gaming and extended reality (XR), COMPUTEX brings together the entire supply chain and value chain, with buyers and vendors meeting to exchange ideas, discover and advance the latest industry trends, and learn from the successes of their peers.
Tsai was joined at Tuesday’s opening ceremony by Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) Chairman James C.F. Huang.
“Like a huge, digital tsunami, new technologies have transformed our global economy in the past few years. Today, we are living in an era where everything is connected and constantly learning from each other. In order to survive and thrive in this new digital landscape, every industry has to be a digital industry, and every company, no matter what fields you are in, has to be a tech company,” Huang said.
“In that sense, COMPUTEX is not just a show that serves only the global ICT industry. COMPUTEX is here to serve everybody, in every company, in every industry… COMPUTEX will have something to offer you that will give you a digital edge, connect you with new ideas, new technologies and new business," he added.
The TAITRA Chairman collaborated with fellow speaker and Taipei Computer Association Chairman T.H. Tung as primary organizers of this year’s event from May 28 to June 1, which has brought more than 1,680 exhibitors to more than 5,500 booths across its multiple venues at the Taiwan International Convention Center and Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.
A total of 13 startups and incubating centers from the Philippines also participated in the event where the world's biggest players, small and medium enterprises, and consumers have converged in the five-day trade show.
This is in connection with the the organizers' desire to promote innovators and startups, as COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2019 also included InnoVEX, a special exhibition featuring 402 startups from 24 countries in which the Filipino companies took part in with the help of the Department of Trade and Industry as well as the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Taipei.
The program closed with a brief awards ceremony for the COMPUTEX d&i awards, with prizes going to Acer for its Smart Parking Meter System, to Augmented Intelligence Inc. for its BodyMap anatomical visualization product, and to BioPro Scientific for its NeuLive brain monitoring system.
Photos by Peter Paul Duran
