The Taichung Shopping Festival APP has won another honor! After winning the first prize of the "Public/Private Partnership Award" in the 2023 WITSA ICT Excellence Award in October of this year, it has once again passed the international reexamine for the "Digital Transformation Award" of the ASOCIO ICT Award, which is renowned as the "Asia Pacific ICT Application Award" in the "Asian Cup for Information and Communication Industry." The 2023 Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization Summit was held in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday (14th). Shi-Ling Ni, the Chief Secretary of the Economic Development Bureau of the Taichung City Government, took the award.

The ASOCIO Conference Chairman, Bai-Yan Shen, affirmed that the Taichung Shopping Festival APP uses employs a novel business model to reinvigorate the post-epidemic economy. The APP proactively adds store information to the government platform for exposure, promotes cross-department cooperation through digital technology, and jointly promotes the development of the Taichung Shopping Festival platform network internally and externally. Using digital technology to establish efficient operation processes creates business opportunities for merchants, increases user experience, and enhances market consumption. It has also successfully revived the depressed economy after the epidemic, which is the key to this award.

The Economic Development Bureau of Taichung City Government stated that the "ASOCIO ICT Award" was established in 1984 by five countries, including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. It has 24 member states and is Asia's most representative international information and communication industry organization. The award aims to highlight exemplary application cases and solutions from diverse countries, promoting technological innovation across the region.

A total of 24 countries participated in this competition, and 52 proposals from 10 countries successfully passed international reexamination. Taiwan won 6 awards, and Taichung City received the "Digital Transformation Award." The judging criteria for the competition include global influence, potential, scalability, innovative features, functionality, and implementation of application solutions. Work together to create a digital economy and innovate the original model with digital services by praising digital solutions and application benchmark cases.　

The Economic Development Bureau indicated that since the Taichung Shopping Festival was held from 2019 to 2022, it has significantly promoted the local economy year by year, and we can see its impact from several vital data. The economic output value brought by last year's activities reached NTD 67.5 billion, and the consumption registration amount leaped from the first year to last year's NTD 35.8 billion, an increase of 14.3 times in four years. Additionally, the number of invoices issued reached 37.28 million last year, representing a fourfold increase. The shopping festival app's downloads have increased by eight times.

The Economic Development Bureau also optimized the system operation during the event, such as logging in to the invoice online and the online prize redemption system, to make it more convenient for the public to participate in the event. People can efficiently operate on the APP platform when redeeming prizes, and there is no need to upload a copy of the invoice after winning. It also integrates multiple invoice registration, merchant promotion information platform, and positioning functions, and the APP system remains stable during periods of high traffic. These applications not only showcase economic achievements but also affirm the success of the Shopping Festival APP in amalgamating strategic cooperation and technological innovation.

As of yesterday, the Economic Development Bureau reported that this year's Taichung Shopping Festival officially commenced on October 26th. As of yesterday, the login amount has exceeded NTD 9.3 billion, and the bureau expects to exceed the first 10 NTD billion shortly. The Economic Development Bureau predicts to draw out one "Million Cash of Extra Bonus" winner on November 20th to celebrate the multi-billion-dollar achievement. Welcome the public to make recent purchases and try to log in to invoices. In addition, to commemorate the Taichung Tong and Shopping Festival, where the app has accumulated over 2 million downloads, the Information Management Center of the city government has also organized a "Good Thing in Pairs" bonus draw. People participating in the shopping festival can draw hotel accommodation vouchers and round-trip economy class tickets for two people in Japan. Please refer to the official website of the Taichung Shopping Festival for activity details (https://fun.taichung.gov.tw/). The bureau looks forward to breaking through its achievements and inviting the country's people to consume and draw big prizes in Taichung.