That’s incredible. There’s so many thoughts I have. I guess your participation officers, they have to have a thick skin, because they’re going to hear it. They’re on the frontlines, right?

Wow. That’s the worst. [laughs]

[laughs] .

How do you encourage people who are dissuaded by government, especially given Taiwan’s history, to reengage with government and know that their voices actually matter?

I wanted to talk about how the digital social innovation is ushering in these innovative ways citizens can participate in government and decision-making. I can imagine that some people are just like, “I don’t care. You guys are corrupt. I’m done. See you later.”

Hopefully, after a post-COVID world, people will realize the importance of technology.

It’s amazing how what you’re doing in Taiwan isn’t more widely known. I think in Canada especially, there’s this young millennial generation here that’s just, we’re chomping at the bit for, why is it that we have to line up for driver’s licenses outside, when passport photos and things like ...

It’s like figuring out what the will of the people are, while going through the digital social innovation that’s ushered in. This is all, in a way, it’s brand new territory for Taiwan, for sure, but also for other countries.

That’s exactly it, and that’s really interesting. It’s amazing. It’s like not experimenting, because that sounds derogatory.

[laughs] That’s awesome. That’s pretty cool.

The debate should be more on the theoretical, philosophical discussions. When it comes to mask distribution, there’s nothing the opposition could possibly say to that.

The civic engagement, especially at the local level, you can’t debate the numbers, and you can’t debate the need. If you get to the will of the people, which it sounds like Taiwan is getting to much more closely than many countries, and you get to the need, then what’s ...

Having the flex of accepting cash payments, making sure that the numbers are not entered by a person, but it’s a machine-to-machine. I think these are all very, very real. I wonder if, in a way, this is like the precursor to the destruction of a partisan political system, in ...

[laughs] That’s an incredible idea. The question I have as a follow-up to that, because that is incredible just to see the ingenuity behind that thought process, again, dealing with 23 million people.

That’s a big number.

Then I’d like to ask you more openly has there been instances where you’ve thought, “This is definitely the way forward,” and then you saw what the civic society was saying and you were like, “Wow, I’m totally wrong. Do not listen to me. This is what I want. This ...

Can you talk a little bit about, I know you talked a little bit about the need for transparency, but I’d like to talk more about civic participation. What led you to that and getting a rough consensus?

In your TED Talk, you talk about radical transparency, civic participation, and rough consensus. I can only imagine that sometimes those juxtapose with your own opinions on the way forward.

It definitely is. It definitely is. I wanted to talk a little bit about your TED Talk, which I found really inspirational. As I hear you speak, you don’t come across as partisan, political, “This party is wrong. Our party is the best.”

Seven generations is a recurring theme across many cultures across Canada. What’s also interesting about that, and I totally get you about being 35. I just turned 35, and I now see the age groups of 18 to 34, and I’m like, “Oh, I’m not young anymore. I’m part of ...

That’s such an interesting concept, the reverse mentorship, because that ties well into ancient cultures and how businesspeople were trained up to be senators and leaders of their governments in indigenous cultures here in Canada.

There you go. Exactly, yeah, and phone technology, phone battery technology. That would be perfect.

There you go. Hopefully, yeah. That’s hilarious.

Regardless of our own political opinion, that we could enable this technology to understand what people are thinking about the future of our societies.

To your point, it’s like there’s this reticence to recognizing e-sport as a legitimate thing. I think my question would be how does Taiwan move forward, knowing that there needs to be a Digital Minister that has their pulse on how we can enable technology to get to the will ...

I think the millennial generation is very equipped, but I even see my friends falling back a little bit with technology. There sometimes is, and I hate to be this kind of generational gap, but had there been an older minister in charge of the digital ministry, there’s so much ...

Before I get to that, I wanted to chat. I think the reason why we need, or Taiwan needs, a Digital Minister like yourself is because the rate of technology and the rate of its increasing, increases over the past 5 to 10 years, has been so exponential that it ...

I think, here in Canada and the United States, a lot of politicians say that they are encompassing the will of the people, but they’re encompassing certain segments of the population.

That’s the critical point, and that’s something I’m going to get to later when we talk about digital, social, and innovation. I think that’s exactly what government should be is a conduit of the will of the people, generally speaking.

Right, for sure.

Do you see that there’s a lot of uptake for people?

I guess coming out of that, my question would be what have been some of the early results in terms of, I’m sure you can probably sense who’s watching or how many people are downloading some of the meetings that you’re having.

Literally, somebody sitting in the stands sat down and just took these notes of everything that was being said exactly as you just mentioned for radical transparency and for more civic participation.

Basically, it was the House of Commons had all these representatives from various parties. They would debate, and nobody took verbatim notes as to what questions were being asked, what was the response from the government, or other members of opposition.

What you’re doing in recording all your conversations reminds me very closely of what Mr. Hansard did in, I think it was, Great Britain. I’m not sure if you know about the Hansard system.

Can you explain a little bit more about that disconnect? It must have happened over many years where people were like, “You know what, I’m totally checked out with this government completely.”

As you are speaking, it’s like that one critical moment, the straw that broke the camel’s back kind of thing. I could imagine leading up to this point, there was this opaqueness that many in Taiwan felt that government was undertaking public policy direction, and there’s no real understanding as ...

How was Taiwan’s political civic engagement prior to your government and what did you see as some of the major gaps that needed to be fixed?

Before we begin, I wanted to know a little bit about – without getting it too much down the political rabbit hole…

I was telling Joel this over email, I was like, “Oh, my goodness, I have so much ground to cover with Minister Tang in an hour.” I’m going to try my best to be as succinct as possible, and get a really good understanding of what incredible work the government ...

Are you a big coffee person?

If it is the first thing that you’re doing in the morning. [laughs]

…so thank you so much for waking up and doing this podcast first thing in the morning.

Thank you. I know it’s 7:00 AM in Taiwan…

OK. No worries. That’s totally fine, yeah.

Yeah, I can hear you perfectly. Can you hear me?

[laughs] How are you?

Thank you so much, Minister, for doing this podcast. I really do appreciate it.