Turning creative ideas into commercial products: TAITRA to serve as a driver

The "2014 Taiwan Creative Invention Business Matchmaking Exhibition" will be held at the Taipei World Trade Center from May 28 to 29, with a pre-event warm-up launched yesterday.

Huang Wenrong, secretary-general of TAITRA, said that more than 150 manufacturers are participating in its first edition, and an estimated 600-plus matchmaking talks are expected.

He pointed out that the government's main goal this year is to boost the economy. Taiwan is facing two major challenges: regional economic integration and industrial structural transformation. To echo the government's determination to support entrepreneurship with funding, TAITRA will use its marketing expertise to build a brand-new matchmaking platform for both creative people and investors, creating more new business opportunities.

Huang Wenrong pointed out that Taiwan is an island of creativity. According to statistics from the National Science Council, among the world's top 3 invention exhibitions, including Geneva in Switzerland, Nuremberg in Germany and Pittsburgh in the United States, Taiwan wins an average of about 220 awards each year. And according to statistics from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, in 2013 Taiwan had an average of 518 patents per million people, the highest in the world, more than the 466 in the United States.

He said that creativity is Taiwan's greatest asset, but the commercialization rate is only 3 per thousand, much lower than the world average of 3%, which shows that many inventions and creative ideas have not won the favor of entrepreneurs, which is quite a pity.

Huang Wenrong said he hopes that through the matchmaking platform, more businesses can find creative inventions worth investing in, creating new momentum for Taiwan's economy.

At the press conference, several gold medal-winning works from well-known overseas invention exhibitions were also displayed, including the "Dandelion Mirror," designed by Chung Hua University, which won the 2013 German Red Dot Communication Design Award and the 2014 iF Communication Design Award.