The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) today (24th) hosted the "Civic Tech Taiwan - Digital Credential Scenario Innovation Challenge." Centered on the "Digital Identity Wallet," the event combined the spirit of Civic Tech to encourage public engagement in realizing the digital transformation. This competition attracted a total of 24 teams, composed of over 50 designers, students, and members of the public. Following technical guidance and rigorous evaluations, six teams each from the Open Society and Student Divisions stood out, showcasing the capacity to integrate civic society innovation with public digital services.

MODA stated that this competition focused on principles such as open standards, open-source spirit, and civic collaboration to explore the application potential of the "Digital Identity Wallet." The participating teams utilized technologies like international standards (W3C Verifiable Credentials), distributed storage, and biometrics. By leveraging open data and public API applications, they successfully created innovative solutions emphasizing data autonomy, enhanced privacy, and trust-driven design. This competition put into practice the concept of "starting from the public, achieving common good through technology," showcasing just how powerfully Civic Tech can innovate public services.

Throughout the competition, a mentorship team composed of experts from industry, academia, research institutions, and the startup ecosystem provided technical guidance and project mentoring under a dedicated mentor system during the implementation phase, helping participants translate their creative ideas into practical applications. The panel of judges comprised members from startup consulting, incubation centers, venture capital, and the Civic Tech community. Beyond technical innovation, the judging criteria heavily emphasized social impact and user orientation.

MODA emphasized that this competition is not merely a technological challenge, but a true realization of the Civic Tech spirit; moreover, through open collaboration and cross-domain co-creation, the competition aims to steadily establish the vital role of civic society in public digital services. In the future, MODA will continue to promote public code platforms and digital infrastructure, ensuring that technology genuinely responds to the needs of the public and drives a new era of smart governance with the participation of all citizens.

The winning entries from this competition will be open-sourced on the "Public Code Platform" (https://code.gov.tw/), freely available for all sectors to build upon and reuse, thereby jointly promoting the sustainable development of Taiwan's open-source ecosystem. Winning teams can refer to the website for details: https://civictech.moda.gov.tw/.