Taipei Smart City PMO — A Living-Lab Matchmaker for Urban Tech Pilots

Established in 2016 by Taipei's Department of Information Technology and operated by the Taipei Computer Association, the Smart City Project Management Office (TPMO) runs on an annual budget of about NT$30 million (US$1.07 million) with around 20 staff. Rather than issuing traditional tenders, companies pitch ideas directly to the TPMO, which matches them with relevant city bureaus — coordinating more than 30 civil departments and agencies — for real-world pilots under the city's '1+7' framework.

In its first year alone, the TPMO conducted nearly 600 public-private matchmaking meetings, interviewed around 200 companies, and completed over 60 matchmaking cases. Over its first three years to 2019, it fielded more than 100 pilot proposals, of which roughly one-third advanced to proof-of-concept — with fewer still converting into lasting programmes. Cumulatively, more than 200 smart-city projects have produced tangible results, split between roughly 30 top-down initiatives and 170 bottom-up proposals, 32% of the latter originating from start-ups.

A flagship example is WeMo, an electric scooter-sharing service the TPMO helped liaise with the Department of Transportation to bring to market. Another is a UAV-based communication link developed with the Taipei City Fire Department for disaster response. The model has been recognised internationally, winning gold in the 'Cooperative City' category at the WeGO (World e-Governments Organization) awards, and is catalogued by the EBRD's Green Cities programme as a transferable policy tool for other municipalities.

The office itself acknowledges the conversion rate from pitch to lasting project remains modest, and describes existing public-procurement regulation as a continuing constraint on deeper public-private collaboration; its long-term goal of becoming a partly self-financing entity has not yet been realised.

Read the full analysis: https://opencommons.org/Taipei_Smart_City_Living_Lab