2016 APEC SME O2O International Training Camp Successfully Concludes

The Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs held the "APEC SME O2O International Training Camp" in Taipei, China over two consecutive days on June 1-2. With the advent of the digital economy and the Internet of Things era, helping Asia-Pacific SMEs apply the new O2O (Online-to-Offline) business model to participate in the new blue ocean of the regional and global digital economy, while strengthening SMEs' Digital Competitiveness & Resilience, has become a key direction for APEC and our country in promoting SME growth and internationalization in the future.

Deputy Director-General Lin Mei-hsueh of the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration stated that the digital economy is the current trend of economic development in APEC and globally. The digitalization of global trade and financial technology brings unprecedented opportunities and challenges to SMEs and startups. The O2O model can serve as the most promising springboard under the digital economy, while SMEs and startups are also the cornerstone of economies within the APEC region, bringing employment and technological innovation. It is hoped that the new O2O business model can accelerate their growth and flourishing.

The "APEC SME O2O International Training Camp" event was held on June 1 at the Taipei World Trade Center Hall 3, and in cooperation with COMPUTEX, led more than 40 international trainees from 7 APEC economies to observe and participate in the Asia Pacific Accelerator Forum and business matching exchange meetings. The event invited heavyweight speakers from Microsoft, Cisco, Acer, DMM.make, Inforcomm, HKSTP, InnoSpace and many others to share professional and unique insights on innovation and entrepreneurship topics, enriching the participating teams' new perspectives. In the afternoon, a Pitching Contest was held, allowing trainees to observe and learn from other top teams, letting participants see our country's technological and innovation and entrepreneurship energy.

The June 2 international training camp activities allowed international trainees to actually participate in training to enhance O2O digital competitiveness and resilience. The focus of this training camp was to strengthen trainees' understanding of e-commerce operational models and consolidate awareness of digital resilience. In addition to representatives from well-known enterprises such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, ITRI, Trend Micro, Belfor and the internationally renowned hotel group Shangri-La serving as speakers to share their experience, Team Building courses were also arranged. Through interactive games, trainees quickly learned how to build cooperative rapport and leverage team organization synergy.