In many parts of the world, these are not automatically collected. It’s not a smart city yet, so they harness the power of the mobile network, which many of them still remain operating and the mobile phone still has a little bit of electricity to collectively get an accurate picture ...

Basically, they work with humanitarian NGOs, that’s after an earthquake or after a major natural disaster since maybe over sea over city whatever help, but they want to know which route is still passable, which part really needs their first aid, which part of it still has service and so ...

That’s exactly right.

Then, they also work with municipalities to get this overview of the crowd resource report and send disaster dispatches to the right place. They also work internationally, as well, to train and drills, and so on, to partner with many different humanitarian teams overseas. The thing with that is, of ...

It’s a social enterprise that makes this app that takes a photo of a local issue, like post-disaster, if you need to report something about shelter, about power outage, about water issues, about buildings cracking down, and things like that, you can use this app to report.

G-E-O-T-H-I-N-G-S.

It’s called GeoThings.

They’re also a local startup that is software only, but I think has pretty good visibility and is also one of the cases showcased by the Asia Silicon Valley on InnoVEC.

There’s GeoThings, as in geographical things. It’s a software company that works on disaster relief as well as real-time notification and crowd reporting of incidents like post-earthquake reconstruction and things like that, and that their video I think it’s shown on one of the UN panels.

I don’t have his phone number, but I can give you email and/or Facebook contact.

I know the person because when we ran a multi-stake holder consultation, the co-founders of FindTaxi did come, but I don’t have personal friendship with them, but I think they will talk very meaningfully and is not at all in favor of government at this point about their regulatory hurdles ...

I think so. If you try the app out, you can probably find...

Sure, if they’re rental cars, of course, yeah.

Of course, they need to have licenses and insurance. Now all Uber drivers also need to have professional driver’s license. They were operating illegally at some point before, but that is past now. Uber is now operating legal.

If you’re not planning to get your cases from the street but rather always from telephones or apps, then you don’t have to be painted yellow.

Yes and no. [laughs] Yes, they usually have a yellow taxi, but we also rolled out a regulation that says if a taxi only gets its businesses from apps, then it really doesn’t need to be painted yellow, because yellow is meant for people hailing taxis on the street.

Or, if they are part of a fleet company, they can still sign up.

It’s a rental car, and there’s taxi. It’s two different kinds of cars, but both need to be registered and driven by people with professional driver’s license.

Uber drivers at the moment also need to have a registered rental car. It’s not like private cars are OK for Uber now.

Sure.

That’s right.

It’s not, but then it allows more choice of independent or individual taxi drivers. A taxi driver, part of a co-op or individually, doesn’t really need to join a fleet in Taiwan. Even if they join a fleet, they can also join FindTaxi to get one extra service.

That’s right, and because of the scheduled rides, they can also schedule their own routes.

Uber didn’t work with taxis until right now.

It is just like Uber, which is why I said Uber just rolled out their own version of FindTaxi, called UberTAXI.

Yes, of course, it’s GPS-tracked.

Right.

Yeah, of course. You can also choose among multiple taxi drivers. It’s not that it dispatches a taxi to you without your input. It shows a list of taxi drivers that’s nearby. You can choose from one of them and so on.

Or whatever. The point is that the app itself does not take a cut from your ride.

Yeah, of course.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Something like that. It shows their ratings, their photos, and things like that. They come and pick you up. You can also schedule rides.

No.

If you want a taxi, you open their app. They locate where you are. You enter where you want to go, and the taxi comes to your door. It’s just like any taxi-dispatching app.

Sure. They’re just a car-dispatch app.

They work with individual taxi drivers.

Yeah, the user experience is like Uber. Uber has now rolled out their own version of FindTaxi. They call it UberTAXI.

It is a pure software company.

That would be the test case of the new sandbox-based regulatory framework. I really don’t know at which point down in the future, I hope as soon as possible, that they can reconcile their views with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, but I think because Uber is always a ...

They’re legal at the moment, but their legality is hinged on the fact that they are not charging for their service on a per-ride basis. They’re currently in the talks with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications about a possible operation or business model.

Yeah. They’re currently one of the primary cases of the need of a regulatory overview. They’re a taxi-dispatching company, but they’re also not operators of drivers themselves.

FindTaxi, that’s FindTaxi.io.

You can get a very good story by interviewing FindTaxi.

To get a regulatory approval, things like that?

Sure. Any of the people in the g0v grant is actually a good candidate.

Yeah, exactly right.

NAER, that’s National Academy for Educational Research. That’s the new curriculum link that I pasted here. You can also get their contact information here.

Yeah, if you contact the NAER, which is the place in charge of developing their curriculum, I’m sure they can find you some places where they’re trying these educational methods.

They’re being tried out.