It is true, it is true. We’re actually fortunate enough to, I think, just engage the elders, like even in the earlier stages of dementia to just stave it off for longer, just by including them more into, for example, participation.

For amnesia?

My grandpa doesn’t have any short-term memory to write to long-term memory anymore, so every day is a new day for him. [laughs]

My own grandparents, my maternal grandpa is 101 years old now. All four of them are still around. I am very fortunate. I still visit them twice a month. They actually benefit a lot from being able to digitally meet their doctors, and have a lot of just continuous relationship.

The aging population? Actually, that’s one case where digital diagnostics, digital telemedicine, and robotics and AI is already helping a lot. It is not a future sense. It is basically that enables a limited amount of clinicians to keep track of a large amount of the aging population.

We just need to amplify the cultural impact of our indigenous population, which by area, is half of Taiwan, but by population, less than three percent. We really need to amplify their voices.

Yeah, because we do have to have the endorsing ministries in order to, for it to happen. It’s not a purely digital thing, but I think it’s a great idea. Thank you. This ownership as liability thing, I think it actually agrees with most of our indigenous culture in the ...

They just have to say, "OK, which SDGs it’s correspond to?" That’s the only thing that we audit, maybe something like that. I’ll be sure to talk about it in our next social innovation meeting and see what the ministries think of it.

It’s harder to measure, but I think it’s worth pursuing. Maybe just like a partnership award that both of the sides, the mentors and mentees, provide some sort of quantifiable KPIs that they decide by themselves, certainly not the government.

That’s right, in a measurable way.

It’s more difficult to quantify.

It is basically rewarding business development and supply chain integration, which is great, but it’s not mentorship. Maybe we can actually give out special prize for mentorship. Of course, it’s harder to objectively judge whether the mentee actually learned something, you know what I mean?

Currently, I personally give out the Impact Award if they decide to integrate the SDG innovative companies into their supply chain, and they buy over five millions per year. Then I personally go and give an award.

Promote it. That’s right.

Like the TSMC Launch a Campaign and things like that?

It’s harder if you don’t have a financial sector that is clearly separate from the ordinary businesses. We are seeing that from the old bank, also, from other banks. The financial sector are providing some part of that service.

That is because, of course, as financial service, they want to be seen as a reputable financial service for those companies, because they will never compete each other, you see?

The DBS bank provides that, because they select social entrepreneurship as their differentiator in their bank. They offer a lower interest rate for business that are making a good ecological or social impact. They personally do the mentor.

The thing is that we really need to create a powerful incentive for them to do so, because the CSR officers, the BD strategy officers, we see some of the mentorship coming from, for example, the DBS bank.

And acquire you. [laughs]

OK.

Yeah, I just did an online calculation that was my lifestyle. I used 1.5 spheres per year. [laughs] I really should cut down on my air travel, because I’m... [laughs]

It will be measuring something else.

That will be the actual turning point to shift toward a post-GDP assessment.

I see. Making ownership more like a liability.

Yeah, I understand that.

Yeah, to the environment and to the society...

Is an end in itself.

The EPA has done great work on that and so on. Of course, we fight one battle at a time. The thing is just to make it a kind of trend for the consumers.

The thing is twofold. First is to factor out the external costs. The second thing is to actually make it fashionable to just buy upcycled products, to just choose recyclable or glass straws over plastic straws.

Indeed. We do have the basic...

That’s right!

Today, almost one in three knows about social entrepreneurship and one in five knows about SDGs. We’ve made a large progress just getting the message out. Whether they actually convert to triple bottom line is another issue altogether. I think that’s our main challenge.

For the medium and small enterprises, it is an uphill battle. I think what we can rely on is that at the time, just two years ago, only one in five people have heard of social entrepreneurship, and almost nobody has heard of SDGs.

That’s what we’re trying to get by getting people attending the Social Enterprise Summit, the APSIPA, the partnership award, the Taiwan Can Help badge, the social innovation mark. All of it is just to get people to declare their true total value.

They’re all 20 more years focusing on this. They’re all really large. For the MSMEs, they’re like, "Ah, that’s for the large players." They don’t quite see, until, of course, when the next generation takes over the leadership, see the total values.

Exactly. There is a similar one, the Chun-chi, the Spring Pool for glasses. Glasses upcycling, there is also a great story to tell here. Chun-chi and Tzu Chi are like the two upcycling stars of the Taiwan economy.

I think upcycling is something Tzu Chi really understands. If you talk to Tzu Chi, they have actually a profitable company just doing two-time, three-time upcycling.

Right, and like business as usual. Maybe they do do a lot of charity in their spare time when they earn a profit, but they don’t yet turn their head around the idea of the total value that they can actually make a planet and people aware, supply chain, and ...

Most of Taiwan economy, 80 percent or more, is MSME. Many medium and small enterprises are still in the more, do one thing and do it well, profit-oriented...

The publicly-listed the companies in Taiwan do actually provide the most SDG-indexed CSR reports by percentage. I think it’s over 500 reports every year, which is a really large number. The fact is that publicly-listed companies is just a tiny fraction of the Taiwan economy.

It requires a different thinking that is not linear about just making a profit, reducing cost, and things like that. Rather, a longer-term thinking about the total value capture. Of course, we have great friends in KPMG, PWC, and so on that helps us to get this new ESG, like ...

Taiwan traditionally has a very hardware-oriented culture that is focusing on, for example, supply chain management, the semiconductor, and things that are very large volume. Now, we are moving toward the people, the planet more.

I don’t think in Taiwan, we’re that much in need of technology. What we need is essentially a transformation of thinking about not just ICT, but digital. This is the same as everywhere, but particular so in Taiwan.

What Taiwan needs from...?

We’ll do that. We’ll totally do that.

We’re showing that they’re already collaborating.

That’s apply the lesson just from our meeting last time.

That’s right.

Yeah, we have a judge from Hong Kong, and they have no problem at all with this arrangement. I do agree that maybe we just expand the Asia-Pacific reach a little bit more before replicating on that.