Department of Economic Development

Partnering with GlobalTown Development and Lion Travel, Taipei Entrepreneurs Hub (TEH) held their second online pitch contest “Ready, Set, Pitch! Net Zero to Hero ESG Challenge” on October 25th. 5 startup teams were selected as finalists and they are: Choose-Eat from Peru, Hepta Protocol from the States, Rootie Robot from Israel, Tsunagaru EduTech from Japan, and TUBUDD from Vietnam. Along with the 5 other selected startups back in the first pitch contest with Cathay Financial Holdings, the 10 startups will fly over to Taiwan to compete with 3  the Taipei startup at  Demo Day on November 18th and a series of events. 

A total of 16 startup teams from across 11 countries applied for the pitch contest. After careful consideration, the judges together - Jeff Tsai, President & General Manager of GlobalTown Development, Eric Chuang, Consultant of GlobalTown Development, Ryan Shen, Chief Investment Officer of Lion Travel, and Daniel Cheng, Managing Director of NextT Accelerator, selected 13 teams to pitch at the online contest.

  In the conclusion of the event, the judges emphasized the importance of explaining market expansion plans during pitches and encouraged the teams to remain passionate and not forget the purpose of starting the initiative. Highlights of the finalists are as follows:

• Choose-Eat -- a multi-personalized menu platform providing a new machine-learning solution in hope of collaborating with corporates in Taiwan. 
• Hepta Protocol -- a community built on blockchain, a place to engage with people with the same mission, and contribute in ways that really help, Hepta aims to become a destination for supporting charitable causes on web3. 
• Rootie Robot -- develops proprietary and advanced AI technologies to reduce pollutant emissions related to the maintenance and property monitoring of outdoor commercial areas.
• Tsunagaru Edutech -- the core product, Manabu, is an interactive corporate training platform that evaluates employees' abilities through a quantifiable system and allows users to enhance their skills with a gamified experience. 
• TUBUDD -- riding with the post-covid tourism trend, TUBUDD developed a local buddy system. Future plans include categorizing local buddies according to fields of profession and standardizing local buddies with training programs to provide better travel experiences to tourists.

The Department of Economic Development at Taipei City Government stated that in order to assist the city's industrial upgrading with key technologies and research and development energy, and to attract international startups to communicate and collaborate with local enterprises, it initiated the “international startup soft landing program”. TEH is the brand community service platform for startups to to soft land in Taipei. Its main purposes are to promote Taipei’s startup environment and resources to the global startup community and to strengthen the connections between international startups and enterprises, investors, government, and other related organizations in Taipei to explore potential collaboration opportunities.

Demo Day will hold on November 18th during Taipei International Startup Week. Taipei is the innovation hub of Taiwan, and we believe that startups from all over the world can take this opportunity to learn about Taipei's entrepreneurial resources and innovation vitality. TEH also hosts mentor office hours for various industries and cross-border communication events. We sincerely welcome global startups to soft land in Taipei through TEH.

For updates and inquiries please refer to Taipei Entrepreneurs Hub’s Facebook page or LinkedIn profile.

Media Contacts:
 LEE TZUNG-CHI
1999 (callers outside of Taipei City: +886-2-27208889) ext. 6682/ +886 958-396182