After its international initiation ceremony last month in Madrid, the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) began its regional tour in Taipei yesterday. Taiwan is the first and only sponsoring partner in the Asia-Pacific region this year.
“Taiwan possesses many talented high-tech engineers, encompasses a wealth of enterprise resources and harbors the perfect technological environment,” ESNC chairman Thorsten Rudolph said at the ceremony yesterday.
ESNC was started in the Free State of Bavaria in 2004, and in the last few years has matured into a global network for high-tech regions and international technical experts. As of last year, the ESNC community encompassed 16 partner regions with 525 participants.
The Taiwan tour is sponsored by government-funded market researcher Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院).
ITRI president Johnsee Lee (李鍾熙) said that ITRI was very excited about the competition because in recent years Taiwan has advanced rapidly in the field of global positioning system (GPS) technology, its ancillary components and products, as well as GPS global mapping.
Lee said satellite GPS could be Taiwan’s next major industry.
“Last year, Taiwan generated in excess of NT$200 billion [US$5.91 billion] in navigation-related products. Globally, Taiwan produced more than US$30 billion in navigation opportunities,” he said.
The competition is open to individuals as well as corporate and institutional teams regardless of nationality. Regional awards go up to 10,000 euros (US$12,900), while the global premium award or the Galileo Master award is 20,000 euros.
Aside from the monetary incentives, prizewinners get the opportunity to realize their projects, which is the spirit behind ESNC.
Entries in three categories will be accepted from May 1 to July 31, with winners announced on Oct. 21, Rudolph said.
“Safety of life” entries would include navigation innovations in traffic and aerial control, driver navigation and emergency services.
“Mass market” entries include information system services, tracking applications and personal entertainment.
The “professional” category includes innovations in geological information systems, fleet management and utility transport systems.
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