Then came Dr. Tsai Ing-wen’s cabinet. I was asked if I can just take Minister Jaclyn Tsai’s office, which is literally this office. Then I just became the Digital Minister doing exactly the same thing as I’ve done since the Sunflower Occupy, which is to enable listening at scale for ...

I was then recruited by then Minister without Portfolio in charge of digital economy and law, Minister Jaclyn Tsai as her understudy/reverse mentor. I worked for what was then for one and a half years, something like that.

At the end of that year, the ministries decided to hire in each ministerial position an understudy or reverse mentor, depending on how you phrase it, to work with existing ministers on how to work with the general public on policy making in the early stage in a deliberative fashion.

After that, at the end of that period in 2014, all the mayors that run with the platform open government, which is also very trendy in the US at that moment, won the mayorship even when they did not prepare for the inauguration speech. People who are against open government ...

This is a public demonstration, but demonstration not as in protest, but as in demo, demo as in showing a new version of governance system that actually can get people’s voice on the street into a coherent consensus.

From there, they can choose one of the 20 or so NGOs who has a public deliberation booth of sorts to talk about that particular aspect and gradually through 22 days, a set of consensus emerge, which is then ratified or accepted by the head of the parliament.

Which aspect did they care about the trade agreement? Maybe they own a company. Maybe they work at a co-op or whatever, and they just enter the trade or the serial number of their company, and they can see immediately how the CSSDA affects them.

I was helping with the communication both for everybody, like tens of millions of people, online and half a million on the street to nevertheless get a idea of what’s being discussed that day.

Instead of treating things like the cross-strait service and trade agreement as something that’s perfectly administration-led and the Parliament has no substantial discussions. The theory was – legitimacy theory of the Occupy – was that the MPs were on strike, because they refused a substantial deliberation of the Beijing trade ...

Sure. We occupied the Parliament in April 2014 for 22 days. After 22 days of Occupy was that the head of the Parliament then agreed to the demand of the Sunflower occupiers, which is to open up policymaking.

Yes.

We’ll keep you posted.

OK.

By late September, do you mean end of September?

My NYC trip will be around #UNGA74.

I will be in New York, that’s for sure.

You know my timeline now. If I do visit DC, I’ll let you know.

That would be awesome, and I’m sure that Kaohsiung City would love that. They’re trying to make cruise industry a booming tourist attraction.

[laughs] That would be fun.

“Geek Cruise Training Framework.”

Yeah. It’s a pretty interesting concept. [laughs]

There used to be companies that does that, like geek cruise, that runs, essentially, open-source conferences on a cruise ship.

Awesome. Never thought the marathon would be across the Pacific. Maybe we can charter a cruise ship. [laughs]

That’s very “Moana”-like.

Exactly, how to read constellations.

OK, that’s very…I have to first learn wayfinding from the Polynesian technique. [laughs]

Across the Pacific?

That’s right.

The news about my participation around this year’s UN GA will be out in the two days. By the time this press release is published, it’s public knowledge.

I would very much like to take you on the offer.

If I’m physically in Taiwan, I would love to participate. I’m just telling you my schedule.

[laughs] That’s fine.

If it’s end of March to beginning of April, I will be in Taiwan for obvious reasons, because of parliamentary inquiry. I’ll have to know this new batch of legislators. It’s very much hopeful that I’ll be in Taiwan, and therefore, able to participate somewhere in Kaohsiung. May or afterwards, ...

If it’s between March and May, I’m happy to participate.

I just mean we might have to talk about how to balance my diplomatic visits and my domestic visits. If it’s after May, obviously I can’t promise anything. [laughs]

Which is why I cannot commit to something that happens in Kaohsiung next year. I really don’t know where I will be visiting.

During the past year, there’s a shift in my role to be much more international and less domestic. Although the term digital minister means that I can work literally anywhere, there seems to be more emphasis, at least toward the end of the year, that you will find me perhaps ...

It’s a habit now that every year during the UN GA that I visit New York and share our work about sustainability development.

It’s hard to commit to anything at that point, right?

[laughs]

Next?

This year?

Roughly?

When would that be?

You mean GCTF?

Indeed.

That’s right, which makes it kind of difficult to frame it…

I guess you don’t have to run with the same partner every year?

That’s exactly right.

They can do both, and they have very good organizing capability internationally, especially in this region. Even if you want to do something at the scope of GEC hackathon, but in the Pacific, I’m sure that Tzu Chi can handle a lot of local infrastructure and logistics, not just exporting ...