Taipei, 11 March - The European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) today hosted a field of distinguished Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts at its GNSS.asia Taiwan Industry Collaboration Seminar. The seminar, attended by 150 representatives from Taiwanese and European government and companies, brought together technical experts and policy makers from the EU and Taiwan to share information on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) application trends and best practices as well as to discuss potential business opportunities and EU-Taiwan partnership in ICT fields.

Giuseppe Izzo, Chairman of the ECCT, Viktoria Lovenberg, Deputy Head of the European Economic and Trade Office (EETO), Chan Wen-hsin (詹文鑫顧問), Adviser to the Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MoEA) delivered opening remarks at the seminar by welcoming greater information exchanges and future cooperation between Europe and Taiwan.

Angela Hsiao, GNSS.asia Taiwan leader began the seminar presentations by introducing the European Commission-funded project dubbed "GNSS.asia". She declared that the objective of the seminar is to bring together the main stakeholders to spur EU-Taiwan research and industrial partnerships on GNSS applications and receivers. GNSS.asia, which began at the start of 2012 and runs for 30 months, follows twin paths of business link-ups and political cooperation.

Experts from the European GNSS Agency (GSA), Taiwanese industrial research institutions, as well as major European and Taiwanese companies and innovative GNSS companies hosted presentations on the latest trends in the global GNSS market, best practices and potential business opportunities in the GNSS downstream sector between Europe and Taiwan. Three main themes presented in the seminar were: GNSS receiver & sensor fusion, telematics & car communication, and LBS & the Internet of Things.

GSA's Market Development Project Officer, Justyna Redelkiewicz Musial, gave an update on the current status of the European Galileo programme and GNSS programmes, an overview of the global GNSS market, as well as the funding opportunities in Horizon 2020. She stated that with the launching of six to eight satellites by 2015, the Galileo Satellite System will have its initial operational capability and start early services by 2015. She concluded her presentation by encouraging more EU-Taiwan cooperation in the Horizon 2020 Galileo-related projects.

In Session I: GNSS receivers and sensor fusion, Edoardo Merli, Marketing & Application Director of Automotive Product Group, Greater China and South Asia Region at ST Microelectronics presented ST's new technologies in telematics, positioning and infotainment by introducing how solutions and applications will evolve and change.

Paul Chou, Secretary General of Taiwan Telematics Industry Association (TTIA) introduced TTIA and announced the establishment of the Global Network Satellite System Promotion Alliance (GNSSPA) working group. GNSSPA will promote automotive satellite applications in Taiwan (for civil business operations only), and cooperate with related associations worldwide.

Peter Lemmens, General Maganer of imec Taiwan presented future trends of GNSS receivers and sensor fusion. He concluded that small fixed frequency (FF) will increase mobility and accuracy, ultra-low power will lead to greater autonomy, reconfigurable technologies will enable new functionality and spectra, and new materials will be applied for sensing the environment.

Leopold Beer, Regional President, Asia Pacific for Bosch Sensortec presented technologies from intertial to contextual sensing by focusing on state-of-the-art MEMS solutions, two main sensor clusters employed for indoor tracking, and requirements for enabling the next generation of wearable devices. He highlighted that MEMS sensors are a key enabler for wearables and the Internet of Things (IoTs).

In Sessions II, three innovative GNSS companies: Taoglas (Ireland), GeoThings (Taiwan), and Iguassu (Czech Republic) presented their innovative products and solutions in GNSS applications.

In Session III: Telematics & car communication, Michael Li, Deputy Division Director at Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan presented connected vehicles development and deployment status in Europe, and its development of cooperative Intelligence Transportation System (ITS). Francis Fang, Connected Services Manager, Asia Pacific from Ford Motor Company presented Ford's best practices in "AppLink", car connectivity and infotainment. Jeff Chen, Chief Technology Officer at Advantech Corporation Limited focused on the intelligent transportation which provides valuable and seamless services.

In Session IV: LBS and the Internet of Things (IoTs), Liu Jin-king, CEO of LiDAR Technology introduced LiDAR's innovative application "Airborne". Max Lai, GNSS Fellow for TomTom International BV, focused on the new technology of Geofence, a low power implementation in LBS. Eddie Lai, Director of the Sensor Network and Smart Grid Center at the Institute for Information Industry (III), presented Internet of Things and best practices at III. Zhenjun Zhu, Senior Director of Emerging Technologies and Commercialization at Alcatel-Lucent, focused on service innovations leveraging 4G/LTE and Location-Based technologies. Vincent Kuan, Geonaute Product Engineer of Decathlon presented the company's GNSS products used in sport applications.

During the panel discussion that followed the presentations, TH Shee, Co-founder of Fertta Communications led the discussion among the panelists and participants on industrial cooperation between Europe and Taiwan in the GNSS downstream sector. He concluded the session by finalizing several propositions on establishing links between Taiwanese partners and European companies.

About the GNSS.asia
The ECCT has been granted funding by the European Commission as part of a consortium, called GNSS.asia, of five European chambers (from China, South Korea, Japan, India and Taiwan) under the European Business Organisations (EBO) World Wide Network. The global navigation satellite system (GNSS) Asia project falls under the EU's FP7 programme and is linked to promoting technology development related to the Galileo satellite project. The GNSS.asia consortium's objective is to develop potential research and industrial partnerships between EU and Asian organisations, including Taiwan. The ECCT's Technology committee is running the GNSS.asia programme in Taiwan under the leadership of Angela Hsiao, Project Manager of the ECCT's Technology committee.

Galileo is Europe's initiative for a state of the art global navigation satellite system (GNSS). It will provide a highly accurate global positioning service under civilian control and will offer a wide range of applications. A combination of small, low-cost semiconductor products for the GNSS market are enabling the development of new devices, services and markets for products such as laptops, handhelds and other communications devices. TheGNSS.asia project, financed by the European Commission, aims to promote EU-Taiwan industry partnership in the GNSS downstream sector.