► Beseye operations director Anjer Kuo

• WEP entrepreneur accelerator participant

♦ Beseye Cloud Security has replaced facial recognition, which can impinge on people’s privacy, with its exclusive Skeleton-Print™ technology. In addition to serving the security industry, Beseye also counts Japan’s second largest steel company as a client. When workers do something dangerous, the Internet of Things triggers preventive safety mechanisms to keep workers from getting injured.

Finding work–life balance

Soon after the company Beseye Cloud Security was founded, its CEO, Shaq Tu, looked for a chief operating officer with financial expertise. Anjer Kuo, who had experi­ence with a startup, a business hotel, a department store, and a digital money transfer firm, immediately caught Tu’s attention. “She not only has expertise, but she is also a member of the international Girls in Tech organization and was one of the cofounders of Girls in Venture, a child organization of Girls in Tech Taiwan. She has a truly impressive CV.”

Kuo was looking for resources for new startups, and she discovered the Women Entrepreneurship Program and subsequently enrolled. Looking back, she judges that the biggest thing she got out of the accelerator program was “finding a better work–life balance.” Kuo used to be a workaholic who wouldn’t take holidays off. In the WEP program she saw how other women in the program juggled family and work. Although she herself wasn’t yet married, she learned how to manage her schedule more efficiently and gained a new understanding about time: “I used to think that every second counts and would feel guilty if I wasn’t doing something productive. But now I’ve learned to slow down and not be so stressed.”

“Big sister” Catherine Peng, who is the CEO of the logistics systems firm Toplogis, was Kuo’s instructor at WEP. Peng told Kuo, “If you want to become a good executive, then you’ve really got to live a little more.” She encouraged Kuo to bring to life “those plans stuck floating in your mind.” By putting those plans into practice, she discovered that switching between different ways of doing things is better for stimulating the creativity needed to do the work.

Personal and corporate breakthroughs

The WEP accelerator holds a Demo Day every year, giving enrollees a chance to introduce their companies in English to invited domestic venture capitalists, thus fostering opportunities for cooperation. Kuo had been scared of public speaking, but she found the courage to challenge herself for this event.

A few days later she got calls from several venture capitalists, expressing interest in learning more about Beseye or even in moving toward cooperating. It surprised her and bolstered her confidence: “That convinced me that everything I had been doing was making me more persuasive.”

WEP’s accelerator has also taken a leading role in finding local opportunities for Beseye. The company had long had several Japanese corporate clients, but it had struggled to find opportunities to connect with ­local businesses. Through WEP’s accelerator, Beseye has recently started to hold discussions with China Steel (Taiwan’s biggest steel company) and its subsidiary China Steel Security. Early on Kuo served as a bridge between Besey and the other two firms.

An enrollee in WEP’s accelerator program for a year, Kuo strongly encourages women entrepreneurs to join and meet people with similar values. “It’s relaxing, and it’s also a platform where you can gain a lot of know­ledge.” Kuo also encourages women entrepreneurs to stop feeling guilty about working, and she encourages everyone to find a group of people with similar values, so they can provide mutual support as they move forward in their careers.
 

► Connsanté Biotech cofounder Lori Fu

• Member of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs

♦ Connsanté Biotech provides data for cancer prevention and monitoring by testing the status of the body’s immune and tissue repair systems. Currently, the company is based at National Tsing Hua University’s incubator and labs.

A mission to save life

Ever since Lori Fu was young, she has loved biology, but over the years she has seen family and friends succumb to cancer. Consequently, she conducted cancer research in graduate school. Then, for her post-doc research, at the suggestion of her advisor Yang Shiaw-der she moved toward researching clinical applications. The technologies she developed for detecting the abilities of the immune and tissue-repair systems to fight cancer have garnered more than a dozen patents.

Once she made her decision to start a business based on this technology, Fu didn’t hesitate. She began a search for all manner of entrepreneurship resources and found courses at National Tsing Hua University’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Ministry of Science and Technology’s RAISE program for cultivating doctoral-level talent for key industries in Taiwan, and the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs. “Taiwan has abundant entrepreneurial resources,” she says, smiling. “You can make full use of them if you set your mind to it.”

Early after founding her company, Fu was busy every day promoting the business and working to cut through red tape and clear regulatory hurdles. At one point, due to a communication problem she had as a manager, she felt depressed and under a lot of pressure. Yet, an optimist by nature, she treated her situ­ation as if she were getting through a tough level in a video game. The approach lifted her spirits and helped give her the courage to face challenges.

Entrepreneurship fosters independence

The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) was created by the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in 2019. The American Institute in Taiwan brought it to Taiwan in 2021. In speaking of her motivation for applying to AWE, Fu explains that the biotech industry needs to develop the inter­national market, so its English-language online courses appealed to her. Having long been cloistered in labs, she had enjoyed few opportunities to make use of her English speaking and listening skills. Hence, she saw enrolling in the program as a way to challenge herself.

Fu would not only complete all of her coursework, but she also participated in a contest to write a business plan in English and make a speech describing the company’s philosophy and services for a livestream audience. “Ever since then, I’ve become an increasingly fearless speaker,” she says with a laugh.

Apart from improving her foreign language skills, her AWE mentors taught her the importance of framing her business thinking. She used to think only about how to convince a business or organization to take the technologies her company had developed and promote them to consumers. Now, when in talks with a medical organization, she seeks to match her company’s technology to the other party’s diagnostic needs, hoping to find a win-win partnership.

Since becoming an entrepreneur, she has made big changes to her thinking and ways of doing things. Consequently, her former doctoral advisor has happily noted: “With entrepreneurship, you seem to have suddenly grown up.” Becoming an entrepreneur has not only allowed Fu to gradually realize her mission to help people, but it has also let her show another brilliant side of herself.

► Bai-Chung-Ren Foodstuff cofounder Wang Jhen-yi

• WEP entrepreneurial ambassador

♦ Located in Taitung City, Bai-Chung-Ren Foodstuff puts developing its locale at the center of its corporate aims. It has invited women from nearby indigenous communities to work on site, together making the area’s signature abai millet dumplings. And it has signed a contract with local elders to cultivate the Trichodesma calycosum leaves that are used to wrap them.

Finding the locale’s soul

At the time of our interview with Wang Jhen-yi, cofounder of Bai-Chung-Ren Foodstuff in Taitung City, the firm is busy making traditional indigenous-style abai millet dumplings in the run-up to the Dragon Boat Festival. This year a new client, a Chinese frozen foods company, has placed an order for 75 boxes of abai, for a total of 8000 dumplings. “It turns out that the meat fillings of these traditional dumplings aren’t allowed to be shipped into China. So my husband said why don’t we just use plant-based meat instead? We selected veggie meats to approximate chicken and braised pork ­flavors.” Wang’s husband, Xu Zhehuang, typic­ally comes up with the new ideas, and she leads the team to execute them.

Four years ago, on a trip back to Taitung, Wang and her husband saw how their parents were getting up in age, so they decided to return home and keep alive the techniques of producing abai dumplings by hand. Assertive by nature, they didn’t want to define abai as a “tourist snack” and passively wait for customers to enter their shop. Instead, they ventured beyond their home county to look for business. “During our first three years back home, we were actually spending most of our time promoting abai in Taipei, setting up stands in office buildings and showing them at food fairs. We’ve made our sales pitch and described how good and how special they are thousands of times!” After several years of hard work, Wang says her established clients now place orders unprompted. Exhibiting at food expos has also attracted the interest of large domestic and foreign super­market chains, which now comprise their best sales channel.

With a background in social work, she understands indigenous women, knowing that they put their focus on the family and often ignore their own needs. Consequently, she has encouraged tribal women to come work at Bai-Chung-Ren, where they can both make money and expand their social circles. She calls this group of women who make the abai dumplings “Charlie’s Angels.” They have shown a willingness to challenge themselves, and they are of tremendous help, particularly during the peak season.

Getting it just right

Over time, Wang noticed that these women had a change of perspective about money once they were able to trade their labor for salary and purchase consumer products or contribute to the family finances, thus raising their quality of life. “There was a husband who used to arrive at the company’s door and shout: ‘Why are you bringing the tribe’s women here? They should be at home taking care of the children.” But when his wife earned her first paycheck, he shed tears of gratitude, thanking his wife for going out to work.

Bai-Chung-Ren has worked with a domestic travel agency to put the making of abai rice dumplings on tour group itineraries. Consequently, “Charlie’s Angels” have also come to serve as local guides. Sometimes they have even been invited to share their knowledge at colleges and universities. “These mothers used to feel that time moved very slowly at home,” Wang Jhen-yi says, “but since they’ve been working, their days have become busy and full.”

Bai-Chung-Ren has had a positive impact on the local tribal community. When Wang was among the winners in a competition of elite women entrepreneurs, it caught the notice of the Taiwan International Co­opera­tion and Development Fund, which gave Wang the opportunity to share her experiences with Central American indigen­ous peoples. She explained how she inventoried local resources and cooperated with local people while respecting local ways of life.

Through entrepreneurship, Wang Jhen-yi has discovered her own risk-taking character, and her advocacy of women’s rights has only grown deeper. This year she entered the doctoral program in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures in the College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University. She hopes that by publishing her dissertation, everyone will be able to see the value created when indigenous women enter the labor market.

For more pictures, please click《Onwards and Upwards—Taiwan’s Women Entrepreneurs》