The availability of talent is very simply the single prerequisite for establishing a strong environment of entrepreneurship. A quick look at the stats shows great promise for Taiwan.
The availability of talent is a key view one can take to quickly assess the potential of a market in developing leadership in any field, Finance, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Tech, etc.
A whitepaper towards Hong Kong's Smart City plans, identified a key challenge behind the HK$50 Billion Smart City Blueprint: "Only 14 per cent of Hong Kong residents believe that Hong Kong is successfully developing digital talent who can apply technology and science in practice. While 54 per cent of corporations believe it is important to have staff capable of data analytics skills, 70 per cent of them have difficulty recruiting such staff."
So we took a quick look at the stats around the region.
Taiwan has the highest STEM graduate rate in the region.
Almost 1 in every 3 graduates from bachelors to post docs in Taiwan are STEM majors. This figure exceeds all countries in the region, coming ahead of South Korea and even China. While the population base of South Korea and China results in a STEM talent base significantly larger, Taiwan outpaces bigger economies like Japan and the sum of Hong Kong and Singapore, which have a combined population that's half of Taiwan's total population.
Strong, malleable cost efficient talent pool.
Taiwan also enjoys economic benefits of an affordable supply of talent. Based on recent surveys, Taiwan's tech talents start with a lower base compared to their peers in the region.
Combined with a strong capacity to learn, good command of foreign languages, regional mobility and professionalism, we believe Taiwan is poised to be a hotbed for techno-preneurship within the region.
Tech giants agree.
And apparently Google, Microsoft, IBM and many other tech giants have also identified the trend and have established (or pledged to establish) AI based R&D centers in Taiwan. Other home grown tech giants are also investing heavily into the talent pool to create an active ecosystem of the supply and demand of tech talent and technopreneurship.
Hive Ventures saw this opportunity, and established itself in Taiwan to tap into this valuable resource, and to work shoulder to shoulder with exemplary technopreneurs to take this opportunity to a new level.