How New Taipei City Does Digital Economic Development

Posted by Robert Bell | August 28th, 2025

My audit of New Taipei City for its Intelligent Community Certification wrapped up with insight into how cities can get the most out of the digital transformation. We visited the Sanchong Education and Activity Center, one of four locations where people of all ages (but mostly seniors) come to learn how to use digital tech. My takeaway: if you are doing digital inclusion, cover the basics– but change things based on what’s popular. The popularity list at Sanchong starts with podcasting and live streaming, followed (of course) by AI. The Center updates its courses and workshops every year to stay current. That’s how they have trained hundreds of thousands of New Taipei citizens.

At the other end of the digital economy, we visited the Digibase, an accelerator for digital startups. I spent time with two founders: Andrew Chen of Fortune AI Technologies and Vivan Ho of iFoodMap. Both young companies have proven business models with customers and contracts. Fortune AI Technologies makes a camera-based AI monitoring platform for swimming pools called Safe Swim, which automatically identifies risky behavior or people in danger. It’s now expanding into monitoring surface water traffic for incursions and potential collisions. Vivian’s iFoodMap is based on years working in her family’s restaurant business. The restaurant industry is still does most of its food ordering by phone, paper and pencil. Her company’s platform links restaurants online with suppliers for ordering, order management and payment. She is established in Taiwan and Japan and looking for new opportunities.