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Meet Taipei 2026 Breaks Records, Drawing Leaders from YouTube, Google, and OpenAI to Taiwan
YouTube Co-founder Steve Chen, Google Taiwan's Lee-Feng Chien, and OpenAI's Thomas Jeng to Headline the Forum, as 140+ Startup Teams from 23 Countries Join the Event
The 2026 Meet Taipei Startup Festival, Asia’s largest startup gathering, will take place from November 19 to 21 at the Expo Dome at Taipei Expo Park (Yuanshan). This year’s festival will welcome a record number of international startup exhibitors, with more than 140 teams from 23 countries, including the United States, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The number of international startup exhibitors is up 30% from last year, underscoring Meet Taipei’s role as a platform connecting international startups with Taiwan’s industries and fostering collaboration among entrepreneurs and investors from Taiwan and abroad.
Under the theme “Founders of Tomorrow,” this year’s festival will feature speakers including YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, OpenAI’s Head of Startups, APAC, Thomas Jeng, and former Google Taiwan Managing Director Lee-Feng Chien. Through the Meet Neo Star pitch competition, Meet Startup Showcase, and investor matchmaking sessions, participants will explore entrepreneurial choices and opportunities for international collaboration in the AI era.
Meet Taipei Global Startup Forum Expands to Two Days, Exploring Founders’ Roles and Opportunities in the AI Era
For the first time, the Meet Taipei Global Startup Forum will feature sessions on two days, November 19 and 21. The program will address this year’s theme through two central questions: “When AI Can Do Everything, What Is Left for Founders?” and “Who Will Define Taiwan in the Next Decade?” The November 19 session will examine founders’ capabilities and evolving roles, while the November 21 session will turn to the next generation of entrepreneurs, international capital, and opportunities across Taiwan’s industries. Together, the sessions will offer startups different perspectives on changing markets and their future development.
On Thursday, November 19, Lee-Feng Chien will explore how entrepreneurs’ responsibilities are changing as AI takes on more tasks. Thomas Jeng will share his observations in a talk titled “What Can’t Be Prompted.” As AI reshapes product development and ways of working, founders’ ability to identify needs, assess opportunities, and draw on their own experience to make decisions is becoming increasingly important. Through the speakers’ experiences and perspectives, the forum will explore the significance of these capabilities in the AI era.
On the afternoon of Saturday, November 21, Steve Chen, founder of Silicon Corridor and co-founder of YouTube, will share his perspective on tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, highlighting connections in talent, industry, and capital between Taiwan and Silicon Valley. Fan-Yun Sun, co-founder of Moonlake AI, will give an online presentation on generating interactive 2D or 3D worlds from text descriptions for applications in gaming and robotics training simulations. Moonlake AI has raised more than US$40 million, counts NVIDIA’s venture capital arm among its early investors, and has been selected as one of this year’s Neo Star Top 30 startups.
Xiaoyang Kao of Overview will also present the company’s AI-powered visual inspection systems for production lines in the semiconductor, electronics, and automotive component industries. Overview has begun collaborating with Advantech on its core product. Representatives from U.S. venture capital firms Mucker Capital, Tesoro VC, and Storm Ventures will join discussions on the qualities of next-generation founders and the potential of Taiwan’s startups, offering perspectives for teams seeking overseas expansion and funding.
This year’s forum will also provide AI-powered real-time translation tools, enabling attendees from Taiwan and abroad to follow presentations in their preferred languages. These tools will help participants understand key points, take part in Q&A sessions, and engage in discussions across language barriers.
Meet Neo Star and Meet Startup Showcase Connect Startup Potential with Business Needs
The Meet Neo Star Demo Show Final will take place on the Super Stage on the afternoon of Friday, November 20. The event will bring together the annual Top 30 startups, selected through a two-stage evaluation process from more than 200 startups interviewed by Meet. These teams reflect four major trends in Taiwan’s startup landscape: AI moving deeper into industry applications, startups targeting global markets from day one, the rise of deep tech, and the accelerating commercialization of academic and research technologies.
The selected teams will demonstrate how Taiwan’s startups identify the problems they want to solve and build their competitive strengths. Through the live pitch competition, investors and corporate representatives can take a closer look at the teams’ technologies, business models, and market validation to explore investment and collaboration opportunities.
Meet Startup Showcase will focus on practical business needs. Through short presentations, startups will introduce their technologies and solutions, explaining application scenarios and implementation
Event Details
- Event: 2026 Meet Taipei Startup Festival
- Dates & Hours: November 19 (Thu) – November 21 (Sat), 2026 | 09:00 – 18:00 (Last entry at 17:00)
- Venue: Taipei Expo Park – Yuanshan (No. 1, Yumen St., Zhongshan District, Taipei City)
- Free Registration: https://meetstartup.pse.is/9rgjtu
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