Thanks for answering them. Cheers.

Bye.

Take care.

That’s much appreciated.

We appreciate it.

We really appreciate it.

That’s probably good. Thank you so much.

That’s so good. Can we just save 15 seconds of silence? Then, we’re done.

Yeah, I think we’re good. Just one last question.

I see.

That’s right.

Many people in Taiwan – a lot of students were involved in this particular movement – were unhappy about that lack of transparency. Is that fair?

So was it essentially a trade deal behind…A not-very-transparent trade deal was under negotiation with Beijing.

“Taiwan can help,” yeah. Is there anything on this particular topic, Sarah, that you want to chip in on?

It’s probably an unanswerable question, but it does seem to be true that the experience of Taiwan and that knowledge is being picked up by other countries.

This facilitates part of that, I guess, developer community, g0v and others, contributing because that trustworthiness has built over time. Do you see Taiwan as more engaged with developer communities than other countries?

You talked a bit about trust. It’s both the government trusting the people and the people trusting the government. It seems to be almost like the oil that the machinery, this technology needs is trust. Trust not to misuse the data, trust that people are doing what they’re meant to ...

I want to hear a little bit about contact tracing, lessons from the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and where that technology can help with some of those problems.

That would be a good cover image for this episode, potentially.

Very convincing.

[laughs] I have to see it. I want to move on to, also, you talked a bit about contact tracing. Can you describe a little bit of the lessons from the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how digital technology learned some of those lessons and helped build a better contact tracing system?

It’s true, although there are the cat partisans.

A Shiba Inu?

That’s fascinating. It’s obvious that you have thought about this ahead of time in a very deep way, but I imagine a lot of politicians around the world may not have thought about viral social media in quite the same way. It must be quite important in a moment of ...

I’ve learned something. That’s great. [laughs]

What is the Mandarin word for stockpile/buttocks?

PSA over. [laughs]

Tell me about some of the other ways that technology was used to fight the coronavirus. I’ve read that Taiwan fought misinformation online in quite an interesting way.

Fork the government. That’s right. Make sure we get the “R.”

I heard in the middle of that, your talking, we could almost fork the government. Is that a phrase?

How do we get to a stage where we see technology as a way to improve government services, and both politicians and the public are working in tandem to do that?

One thing about using technology to improve government services, a lot of people in the US and Europe, we’ve gotten a bit jaded that technology can help anything at all, in the sense where big, big tech is a dirty word to a lot of people now. Seeing disinformation spread ...

New Zealand is very close to the Taiwan model, and I know is inspired by Taiwan in a lot of ways. I do find the use of technology does seem to be one step ahead or one step deeper in Taiwan. Would you say that’s fair?

That’s true. I’m from New Zealand myself. I’ve been watching the live streams from my apartment in Queens, New York, even though there’s no real need for me to keep up to date with every single new case. I completely understand what you’re talking about.

It depends whether you’re talking about its location or not.

I’m going to repeat that story about 91 percent of people supporting the location tracking. That going up to 94 after the nuts and bolts were explained on television. Can you see any Western country getting that kind of public license to do similar things?

Anyone can fork.

Everything you’re talking about is quite impressive. It’s not necessarily that these programs, software, or technologies are more advanced, but the Taiwanese government is harnessing the enthusiasm and the public spiritedness of people throughout the country to help fight the coronavirus. Is that fair?

That’s really interesting. What about the very narrow topic of the location tracing? Was there any input around the developer/hacker community there?

Was there anything involving the hacker/developer community, open source? In general, this digital quarantine, the digital fence, in that realm, was there any input from the wider developer community?

Maybe the national parks. Everyone likes the national parks, right?

I’d be surprised if there was any policy that had 94 percent agreement in the US.

Has this been controversial? Are some people out there in Taiwan arguing that this tracking of cell phone locations is too much?

25 feet or a block.

[laughs]

For our radio listeners.

Yes, you need to see it.

Can you describe what you’re holding up?

You saw the media, then you were on the Slack channel, and then you reached out to him.

Did you know Howard before the mask availability…