Karen Yu

Karen Yu is a pioneer of social entrepreneurship and she co-founded the first Fairtrade company, Okogreen coffee, which is listed in Taiwan GISA board. She established the chapter of international Fairtrade Organization in Taiwan and co-worked with global partners to promote fairtrade development worldwide in order to improve producers’ living standard in poor countries.
Yu was elected as a legislator-at-large in 2016. She was passionate about innovation and equality, and pushed the improvement of the startup ecosystem as well as social innovation system by amending laws such as foreign talents recruitment, incentive scheme for foreign capital investment in Taiwan, sandboxes of fintech and unmanned vehicles, angel investment, etc. She also initiated Taiwan-USA talent circulation Alliance and promoted digital economy development between Taiwan and the United State.
Karen took office as the information and technology department director of Taoyuan City Government in 2020 where she led the digital transformation and smart city development. Yu adopted many technology applications to take care of citizens’ life during the pandemic which made Taoyuan City win the first prize in “2022 WITSA Smart Cities Award” on behalf of Taiwan, recognized and praised by global ICT industry, “the Oscars” in the ICT field.

Educational qualifications

• Executive Master of Business Administration Program/ National Taiwan University
• MA Anthropology of Food / School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
• Bachelor of Economics / National Taiwan University (NTU)

Experience

• President / Industrial Technology Investment Corporation(ITIC)
• CEO / Taiwan Industrial Technology Association(TITA)
• Director / Information and Technology Department of Taoyuan City Government
• Legislator
• Visiting Scholar / Stanford University, USA
• Alumni of IVLP / U.S. Department of State
• Chairman / Okogreen Ltd.
• Chairman / Taiwan Fairtrade Association
• Author / “A Revolution at Your Table” ＆ “Tech for Good”