Taiwan was the biggest winner with four golds and two merit awards at the Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance Awards held Nov. 18-22 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, underscoring the country’s position as a leading center of technological innovation in the region.
Led by the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, 12 Taiwan teams competed against 180 groups from 12 other members, delivering the nation’s best performance in the contest since it first took part two years ago.
“Taiwan’s innovative capabilities are gaining increasing recognition from the awards’ jury panel,” said C.K. Farn, a professor at National Central University in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City and a judge in the competition. “The country’s brilliant performance this year is testament to its status as a global ICT powerhouse.”
Among Taiwan’s 16 entries, the iStaging cloud service developed by New Taipei City-based Home Staging Inc. won in the Application Tools and Platforms category. The app can be used to create virtual presentations of interior design plans for a private residence on the real estate market.
Taipei City-headquartered StudyFun Technology Inc. claimed the top honor in E-Learning with its StudyFun Smart Classroom, a cloud teaching platform that enables interactive education. The system has thus far been adopted by schools in more than 20 countries and territories.
Hsinchu Science Park-based oTHE Technology Inc. came first in Health and Wellbeing with its open health care app oMass New Age Health, while the CyberTrust Technology Institute under the ROC government-backed Institute for Information Industry was named the overall winner in the Security category.
The submissions from NCU and National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City also garnered significant recognition, earning merit awards in the Tertiary Student Project and Research and Development categories, respectively.
First organized by Malaysia-based APICTA in 2001, the annual competition honors creativity, innovation and excellence among entrepreneurs, individuals, organizations and students in the region.
Widely regarded as the Oscars of the ICT industry, the awards recognize outstanding solutions in 17 categories, which also include communications, industry applications, startups as well as sustainability and environment technology.
