In order to deal with the issues of unemployment in recent years, the Ministry of Education, in conjunction with the innovation and entrepreneurship policies promulgated by the government, introduced the SOS-IPO Platform under the EC-SOS in 2016 to create industry- and entrepreneur-friendly campuses. This enabled students to take their first entrepreneurial steps through inspiring courses and actual practice, and allowed that entrepreneurial germ planted deep in their hearts to be nurtured by “creative concepts” and “innovative insights”, as well as watered by pools of entrepreneurial resources and counseling, in hopes that it would sprout and grow. Among the 262 submissions during 2018, 60 entrepreneur-teams were hand-picked by this Ministry and given a subsidy of 100k NTD. As for 2019, the Platform will be receiving submissions until the end of February, and is expecting to hand-pick a further 80-100 teams, providing full support to student teams to fulfill their ideals of entrepreneurship.

Many teams have indeed moved from development to actual entrepreneurship, with the help of subsidies and other resources provided by the Platform in 2018. One such example is “Earthgen Tech”, collectively founded by a group of graduate students from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics of National Cheng-Kung University, who have devoted their efforts to the research of aeronautic and astronautic technology for several years. In 2018, they turned their research into reality with the help of this Platform, implementing their research technology in the construction of an agriculture drone which has actually been used on farms in Taiwan.

Another example would be the entrepreneur-team behind “Hsiao Mo Chi” formed by industrial design graduate students from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. The students joined the SOS-IPO under the supervision of their teacher and went through the stages of initial inspiration as well as essential step-by-step discussions with suppliers over the details of their approach. Eventually, through systematic guidance by the Platform, the creators of “Hsiao Mo Chi” came to a better understanding of how to realize their creation, and took a significant and effective step towards entrepreneurship.