On December 2 (local time), the Yunlin County Government delegation, led by Director Li Ming-Yue of the Department of Planning, traveled to Binh Duong, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to attend the 2025 Global Summit Forum organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Government, Becamex, and the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF). The event gathered city representatives and industry pioneers from Vietnam, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, and Turkey. In addition to presentations by the Top7 cities of the year, the summit featured panel discussions for cross-sector, cross-city, and cross-border exchanges on public policy, urban economy, and community engagement.

(July 2, 2025 – New York City) – During the Top7 Conference & Announcement in Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain, the Intelligent Community Forum announced that Yunlin County, Taiwan, has achieved Provisional Certification as an Intelligent Community.

The Yunlin County, Taiwan delegation at the Top7 Conference & Announcement in Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain (June 16, 2025)

Part of the 2025 ICF Delegation meeting with New Taipei City’s Mayor Hou
 

For the past three years, the Intelligent Community Forum has taken a delegation to attend the annual Smart City Summit & Expo and Net Zero City Expo (SCSE) in Taipei. From a small, largely Canadian delegation in the first year, the past two years have attracted significant numbers of international attendees to be part of ICF’s Delegation to the SCSE and associated site visits. This year, thirty-one delegates from Canada, USA, Brazil, Spain, and the Netherlands joined ICF Canada and ICF Taiwan’s organizers to attend the SCSE and undertake visits to meet the mayors of Taoyuan, New Taipei City, and Yunlin County. In each of these gatherings, in addition to the formalities, the mayors explained why their communities have become among the best smart cities and Intelligent Communities in Taiwan. They noted that they are leading in applying digital communications technologies in health, emergency response, education, traffic control, urban planning, and overall quality of life for their citizens. As the delegation learned over the course of their visit to Taiwan – these communities excel in not only digital connectivity and AIoT applications, they also train knowledge workers and the talent to innovate and become global entrepreneurs. And with innovation, they share their prosperity with all of their citizens who have developed a culture of engagement and respect for sustainability, all key factors of smart cities to evolve into true Intelligent Communities.
 

Communities from Brazil, Canada, Taiwan and the United States become finalists for Intelligent Community of the Year to be named at the ICF Global Summit in November in Barcelona

(New York, NY, USA & New Taipei City, Taiwan – June 19, 2024) – In an announcement today at the end of a live conference in New Taipei City, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) named the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2024. The 22nd annual Top7 list includes cities and counties from Brazil, Canada, Taiwan and the United States. One of these seven finalists in the think tank’s annual awards program will be named the Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Summit in November. (www.icfsummit.com)

In alphabetical order, the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2024 are:

• Assaí, Paraná, Brazil
• Coral Gables, Florida, USA
• Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
• Durham Region, Ontario, Canada
• Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
• Hilliard, Ohio, USA
• Yunlin County, Taiwan

Yunlin County, comprised of 19 townships and the county seat of Douliu, occupies the fertile Chianan Plain on the western coast of Taiwan. Its rich farmland and many rivers have made the county an agrarian center, producing crops such as pomelo, tea leaves, suan cai, papaya and melon on 70 percent of the county’s land area. The coast is lined with fishing ports and home to aquaculture and fish processing companies. The third contributor to Yunlin’s economy is its natural beauty, which attracts tourists to its landscape as well as to prominent Mazu temples and the first temple theme park of Taiwan.

Agriculture, fisheries and tourism have great value – but they are not strong foundations for prosperity and growth in the digital century. The county faces a demographic challenge familiar to every farming economy: the out-migration of young talent seeking better opportunities while the existing farming and fishery workforce grows older. Yunlin’s response is a multi-level strategy focusing on workforce and business development to retain its youth and generate greater opportunity for all.

The country brings important assets to this effort. Yunlin is home to four universities, dozens of secondary and hundreds of primary schools and the National Yunlin Special Education School. They provide a path toward making Yunlin a place where innovation thrives, without sacrificing what its residents and visitors value.  

Smart Campuses Prepare Students for High-Tech Work

In recent years, Yunlin County has made significant strides in ensuring robust broadband access across its educational institutions. The county provides all its elementary and middle schools with 100% wireless coverage and has distributed over 30,000 tablets to students. All 187 elementary and middle schools have also introduced smart student ID cards, which allow parents to access the Smart Campus App to stay informed and involved with their children’s education.

Partnership plays a crucial role in the county’s development, from its universities to programs of national government. Yunlin County’s Smart Education Center, branded as the Starbase of Crescent Harbor, immerses students in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) technologies. Its specialized facilities cover artificial intelligence, the metaverse, 3D design and printing, smart agriculture and STEAM handicrafts. To reinforce these efforts, Yunlin has instituted an Information and Life Technology curriculum for 3rd to 6th graders, standardizing it across all schools beginning in the 2022 academic year. The county has simultaneously focused on more advanced digital training for teachers with a series of workshops, supported by the Office for Digital Learning Promotion, that teach digital learning methodologies. As of 2024, nearly 5,000 teachers across the county had completed one or more of these workshops.

The county government is also collaborating with the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology and National Formosa University to develop better courses for technical professionals and create more industrial-academic internships for students. From 2019 to 2022, local universities hosted corporate training courses for 22 companies with 1,757 attendees. Through internships, university students work with local industries to deploy technologies that improve the companies’ efficiency while bolstering the students’ tech skills.

Agricultural Innovation for a Sustainable Future

While working to develop the future workforce and encourage entrepreneurship, Yunlin is also driving a new vision for the future of hits NT$89 billion (US$2.9bn) agricultural industry.  Through workshops with local industry leaders, farmer groups and community representatives, the county is developing a shared agricultural vision for the future that includes input from all parties.  

Yunlin County established the Climate Change Response Office in 2021 to spearhead these initiatives and align with Taiwan's goal of net zero emissions by 2050. In 2022, the county signed an MOU with Nahua University to provide devices to measure the carbon output of its farms and offer third-party verification and recommendations for local agricultural businesses. The following year, Yunlin partnered with YunTech to establish the Yunlin Zero Waste Transformation Integrated Services Hub, which provides a one-stop platform for businesses to access sustainability assistance and guidance. The platform allows businesses to apply for government subsidies. In 2023 alone, Yunlin County held training sessions for 33 local businesses and helped secure approximately NT$47 million in government subsidies to help them establish greener practices.

On the technology side, Yunlin County has launched a series of projects to help farmers adopt digital management technologies and adapt to a smaller agricultural workforce. As of 2024, the county had completed eight smart automation agricultural projects, including developing Smart Greenhouses outfitted with environmental sensors monitoring temperature, humidity and soil conductivity. Another project established Smart Poultry Houses with two local companies, where IoT platforms monitor conditions for the animals and provide cleaning services, allowing four people to manage up to 50,000 livestock.

Engaging Youth in the Future of Yunlin

Community participation is at the heart of Yunlin County's development philosophy. The Local Revitalization Office, established in 2019, has been instrumental in organizing over 400 consensus meetings with civil society, fostering a collaborative approach to shaping Yunlin's future. The county has focused particularly on increasing youth participation in the community. Yunlin County established the Central Youth Hub in April 2023, which serves as an event venue with public facilities and classrooms for rent. Public- and private-sector partnerships have funded co-working spaces in the Hub to give young entrepreneurs a place to gather and work on their ideas.

The Central Youth Hub hosts many local talent development activities, including Master Trend Lectures, 14 Lessons for Young People, Local Culture Exploration and Investigation and Exchange Life Experience, all of which are aimed at promoting awareness of local issues and taking initiative in the younger generations. The Hub also collaborates with experts from various fields to provide vocational counseling services via phone or in person.

To further facilitate interest in starting businesses in Yunlin County, the government commissioned YunTech to create a Yunlin Youth Entrepreneurship Subsidy and Cultivation project. It provides funding to residents age 20-40 who are starting businesses in the county, which has empowered 22 young individuals to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations across diverse fields and thrive in their hometowns.

In our digital century, it can seem that all the rewards of innovation go to big cities. Yunlin County provides a prime example of how rural regions can innovate across education, technology and community engagement to meet their challenges and chart a course to a prosperous and sustainable future.

Population: 664,963

Website: www.yunlin.gov.tw

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