I’ve heard of it. The Institute of Technology, right?

You mean ETH Zurich?

ETH University?

Even our leading design centers, which previously focused only on service, product, and space design, they’re now thinking much larger toward social design. They were actually just here and investigating the various ways they can interweave themselves into the social fabric rather than the other way around, which tend to ...

Pretty well. Like social entrepreneurship, just two years ago, before we started this place, not even one in five people in Taiwan have heard of social entrepreneurship. Now, it’s almost one in three. The recognition, the awareness that social innovation can actually redesign social innovations is very strong.

The social sector always takes control. It’s just we’re trying to make a new format in which, instead of just advocating for the impossible, it inspires everybody to think toward the common values. Hence, the use of SDGs as common index.

Once the social innovators give up the over-idealistic, brainwash-the rest-of-the-population goals, but instead try to propose values that are more nuanced, more eclectic, then we encourage that kind of cross-sectoral pollination by match-making them with the main corporate sustainable strategies and by match-making them with research and academia.

Toward that vision, our idea, very simply put, is that the more and more the social sector can take functions that was previously limited to public sector, for example, air pollution or water pollution management, the more we should change our governance. Instead of asking for representatives and arbitrating between ...

Sure. This place is a national-level social innovation center. The startup hub, it has north, south and mid-Taiwan hubs. This is one of the hubs. In one word, in one sentence, what we’re doing here is we’re making sure that the social sector can grow to be a force of ...

That’s right.

Awesome.

Like UBI and other things can just use this as a kind of ground zero for their ideas to grow. Maybe RxC too?

There’s an incubator, which we have a lot of resident social innovation teams, but the ground floor is a general purpose. Anyone who can identify with any of the 17 global goals get to use the venue for free for activity.

Yes. Not just a startup hub...

This was a headquarter for the Taiwan Air Force.

Pretty good. Last evening was great!

This will be on the record and we can co-edit the transcript.

Of course.

Thank you.

That’s I think one of the main example of humanity is that humanity by default cares about the next generation. AI or machine learning cares about the past because that’s where the data comes from. The human capacity of imagination, even a poetic capability of ensuring these alternate future, I ...

Yes. Basically, we extend the horizon whenever possible. If it’s next quarter, there really is no room for even consent. If it’s for 20 years in the future, both consensus is very easy to build.

That rephrasing is basically saying, "What are we going to make as a society for people who haven’t been born yet? They will be socially included maybe 10 years, 20 years later." If you use that planning horizon for conversation, actually people who seem like fighting against each other can ...

The point that we can make this discussion fruitful instead of violent or divided is that we set the how-might-we question, the centerpiece in the double-diamond design thinking method, as how do we ensure a exclusive and accepting society for children born into such a family?

We had a real case where people who are very much for marriage equality and people who are very much, I don’t know, conservative Catholics going to our collaboration meeting to talk about the issue of whether we want to extend the artificial insemination rights for people who are not ...

First thing what we do in our collaborative meeting is that we try to have the central piece of stakeholder going to the stakeholders that haven’t been born yet. That actually extends everybody’s horizon.

The difference in the planning horizon linked to a kind of incentive to frame these in the short term -- if you’re private sector, sometimes they frame things quarterly. If you’re on that horizon, then these values sometimes just isn’t compatible. It would appear zero sum. If your planning horizon ...

In many other democracies, including Taiwan, the planning horizon is usually four to eight years. However, most "wicked problems" requires structural solutions that takes a decade or two.

A few things. One thing is that I think the divisiveness and the lack of empathy is a direct result of lack of imagination so that it feels like zero sum. It doesn’t have to be zero sum. If people’s planning horizon are at most... Actually, German is exempt from ...

That is to say, anyone working on any of the SDG topics are empowered through the cultural translators to make their case business and make their case social and make their case environmental, so that people can see that after all, we agree on most of the things. That is ...

I think this is essential for the goals of the sustainable development, the global goals, which is about making sure that anybody see any social issue with the lens of a what we call triple bottom line.

But if it’s a horizontal, then everybody can extend the metaphor, the memes and so on, so that it makes the most sense. Like a small-world network theory, the bridge-makers makes the most sense and do a cultural translation of that norm into what their community can embrace and understand.

Once we have that as a organizing principle, its norm-setting power is actually much higher than any hierarchical organization can do. A hierarchic organization, while very efficient at issuing command, is actually very bad at providing the appropriate context to such a command.

In any case, what we are now looking at is basically a not transactional but relational configuration of policy-making. When people participate in the e-petitions, they’re not just there to support the 15-years-old. You are also reaffirming their identification into creating a better Earth for the next generation. It’s a ...

Unless you’re reading "Harry Potter" newspapers, in which case, there’s plenty of social interactions.

People have to consolidate their points to a degree where it become almost devoid of any human touch because there was simply no bandwidth in the newspapers to deliver a two-way interaction.

I think that the human factor stems directly from the representation ability that is done by technologies. That is to say, if we are forced to communicate using low bandwidth, then, of course, there’s a limited number of letters in the printed press.

Making a business case out of this is also very important. Then people can participate in the norm-setting. It’s not the private sector against the public sector anymore. Private sector also sees that’s it’s cool to spread this messages, like sustainable circular economy and things like that.

Line agreed to feature it on LINE TODAY. Mashu makes special television reports, TV series, or even the entire trending on HBO Asia "The World Between Us" TV series just focusing on new challenges and public awareness. It becomes a good business.

Finally, the flagging and clarification is actually amplified by the private sector. Like Line and now Mashu Television both see that the trend in clarifications, just like the Premier’s clarification, it’s by itself a funny fact. It by itself is a good social object to have a conversation.

Our office hour we’re having now is also part of this. Any conversation is not a private conversation. Rather, anyone can Google and they will see my position and status quo on this matter.

This is I think the empowerment that will make disinformation less likely to spread. Then people see that your agenda is not refuted by the government. Rather, the government’s on your side. It’s real time. It’s not every four years.

The EPA actually consented. It creates a social norm. Then now we’re gradually banning plastics of all sorts. That means that people don’t have to go to streets on Fridays [laughs] but can actually work collaboratively with the EPA.

That’s her civics class assignment. [laughs] She just need to apply something to raise the e-petition. But it’s really well arguing this argument.

We see, for example, just this month, Taiwan banned the indoor use in restaurants of plastic straws. Everybody’s now using recyclable straws or glass straws. That was a year and half year ago brought up by the e-petition that went viral. 5,000 people just joined suddenly. The EPA thought you ...

In the 15-years-old, because they cannot vote, not even on referendums, but they actually care the most. They’re on the business end of climate change. [laughs]

This is basically there’s no reply button. [laughs] Anyone can do e-petition. We found that the most active participants are the age group around 15 years old and then 65 years old. These are the two large groups. The similarity is that they care the most about what’s public, less ...

First is that we have a team in each ministry responsible not only for clarification but invite people who hold different positions into collaborative meetings. That is the e-petition of participatory budget’s platform which counts many 5 million people among 23 million in Taiwan. It’s a large, a quarter of ...

Another thing I would like to say is the three proactive actions.

We rely on independent media who operates their analysis in the open on GItHub to analyze the campaign donators roster and, next election for sure, the political advertisement donors’ sponsors roster. This is again a reflective space for people to see what’s actually happening.

Once we have those published, just like the campaign donation record, it doesn’t matter what Facebook agenda is because they’re now required or at least self-regulated so that they publish all this data, including, crucially, the targets selected by precision targeting. Like the profiles, how each advertisement is directed each ...