Audrey Tang

Yeah.

We support People-Public-Private Partnerships. The people part is the social sector or the civic technologist who come up with the idea and pilot, like just voluntarily share it with other people who want to join this new way to visualize face masks inventory or to check in on the venues are using a QR code or pre order their vaccination booking and so on.

They do so without government support or knowledge. They just simply do it. But once they gain a certain amount of popular support, the government noticed that, but because Japan were a liberal and democratic society, the government cannot actually tell them not to do this. [laughs]

Even when those new developments who looks at old government service look bad, we cannot do anything that's authoritarian like telling them to shut down. It's impossible. We have to join them.

The second stage is that we work, engage with the open innovation ecosystem and say, "What do you need? Do you need a map service that costs nothing instead of Google Map," which keeps charging you... reliable data and so on.

I call this reverse procurement is like they are the service delivery. We, the government, are their vendors who we are like, "This system integrators." It's them telling us what to do...because in a traditional government procurement is we are telling the business because we're buying their service. In this case, reverse procurement, is the people, the social sector demanding data out of us. It's the reverse relationship.

Then we tell the private sector, "Hey, we already have this way of mass rationing and pre order mask and so on. Do you want to join?" Then the convenience stores, pharmacies, markets and so on, they join a system already prototyped and amplified by the civic technologist and the public sectors.

That's right. The reverse procurement is not a new idea in a sense code for Japan's contribution both during natural disasters and also during COVID is also like reverse procurement because when they did the Tokyo Metropolis Stop COVID dashboard, it's not a procurement. [laughs] They just did it themselves.

The Tokyo Metropolitan government gave them official address, official website. Quite the same, but the design, the communication and so on is entirely driven by people. Obviously, Japan can do that as well. This requires a shared value. Everyone needs to agree something is important because otherwise the volunteers would not engage this project.

Because the people and Howard Wu asked for help. He was saying I owed Google Map this much dollars. He was saying that because original design for his friends and family, but they're probably around Tainan City. When other cities want to use it, just like cities around Japan, they all want to use the Tokyo Metropolitan dashboard service.

There's no way that the Tokyo Metropolis government can support these many cities. It would rely on the innovations in these cities and technologies in these cities in order to make it work on a national level instead of just on a city level.

Howard Wu posted the things that were blocking him publicly, sharing what's blocking him. I thought many of these they have quality and so on. This is better if the government can support him. I just took his wish list in a sense and talked to the head of the cabinet, the premier. The premier said, "Yeah, it's a really good idea. Go for it."

It was like two hours or something.

I think, the idea is that we're not operating on the traditional procurement schedule which requires public bidding and the entire process. We didn't pay Howard Wu anything and he didn't pay us anything. So, in a sense, we're both volunteering to produce something but we're not in a contractual relationship.

When I convinced the National Health Insurance Administration to provide the data, it's not just for Howard Wu, it's also for many others, actually more than one hundred different developers. It's like a distribution. Again, most of the public procurement law exist to prevent the kind of exclusive access, to prevent the idea of favoring one vendor over the other.

It's a fair process, but by going through open data and open API, we're benefiting everyone and when you're benefiting everyone, paradoxically, you can move faster because you don't need to justify why you're working with this person.

We can say, "No, we just need this kind of service." Anyone performing to this API can provide this service. We're not saying that this is just for map, actually, LINE chatbot appear very quickly, too and it's not procurement on either directions.

By contributing to the Commons, the open innovation models, we remove the roadblocks, preventing corruption and so on. There is no way to corrupt in this open innovation cycle.

The so called smart classroom, of course, is sort of based in Taiwan, but I must also confess that last year we didn't engage smart classroom that much, because we didn't have [laughs] anything significant and then in that situation. Mostly there are for after school communication or the after school collaboration and so on.

Only this year, and only for two months or so, did we actually use these digital classroom tools in a large scale, because the students remain at home or they can actually still visit school and use the digital equipment sphere. But it's not in the same classroom anymore because of the pandemic requirements.

Because of that, the use really increased and the digital collaboration and so on, become a common sense now for the junior high school level teachers, but last year it wasn't like that. [laughs]

Coming September, I think people will return to school. We envisage a hybrid format, where that teachers can allocate some remote collaborative learning with other schools together.

Or even with senior high schools or universities together using digital tools. If something only involves a single class, I think they still use face to face modality.

I think it depends on how the teacher runs the classroom. The idea of digital textbook is not about taking a book in paper and turning it into digital, but rather, it's about getting students the ability to make something during classroom.

It's about a switch from the lecturing format to a problem solving format in the class, itself. So, for the teachers that are willing for the students to post questions, to jam on the Jamboard during the classroom, the digital classroom is very good.

But, if the teacher is still more comfortable with the lecture format, then many may see that digital classroom as taking the power away from them. It all depends on the teacher.

The idea is that we also rise to each individual school and teacher to choose which classes are good to use such modalities and which classes, badminton or something. [laughs] Of course, not all sport classes take place in VR. It's up for the individual teacher to make such a decision.

We provide the necessary infrastructures, so, all the schools have very good high bandwidth. They have sufficient electricity and air conditioning.

But, even for the most populated in tablet areas, like the Taipei Municipal City, I don't think there's a top down mandate that says these classes can only be taught using digital textbooks. It's there. It's a tool. The teacher and the class together make use of the tool in the way they deem appropriate.

Yeah, they're already here. For example, it's the government's job to provide a...I'm using an analogy and metaphor. We, of course, should provide metro service, bus service, high speed rails, or whatever. It's our job, but we do not say for you to commute from Taipei to Taoyuan, you must take the metro.

For people who want to take the metro, it's our job to make sure it's reliable, affordable.

There are people who do not take the metro and drive their own car for one reason or another, and it's our job then to make the roads well paved and things like that for the car to go to the destination. We don't think that forcing everyone on the public bus or on the metro is a good idea.

We have free access. You have free access to the online course, and you have free access to Internet service.

Yes, of course.

Yes. I think the point here is that people should make the decisions freely, but the government's role is to provide appropriate resourcing infrastructure to make such choices possible.

In terms of connectivity, electricity, tablet access, and computer access, yes.

Well, the pro, that the good part is that we're all neighbors now. We're in different time zones, but if we care about the same thing, I can see you very clearly. I can see you smile and nod. If we only have a telephone, then I don't see you nodding.

I can share the website addresses to you, so the digital society will definitely come next. The people who are otherwise separated in space or in time together, this is its benefit.

On the other hand, if people who are previously uncomfortable with some other cultures, some other ideas, or some ethic, traditions, and so on, but suddenly connect very closely together, there are also discomforts.

People, previously see the news channels, and maybe they see something that makes their life harder because they wasn't aware that something bad is going on, but the traditional news channels are gate kept by professional journalists, who make sure that they only report a well sourced, fact checked material.

The journalism tradition is that, if things go wrong or if your report is a mistake, we admit it immediately and so on. It has the rigor. That's the journalism.

In the digital world, everyone can share news, but not everyone is a journalist. [laughs] If someone become aware that on SNS what they share was wrong, maybe they make more of this information to justify their action, which is something a journalist would never do.

When they have a lot of followers on SNS, more than large newspapers or large news channels, then this creates a problem because people will tend to believe this sensational polarized take on things.

Bringing people together could also be a problem if people do not have the competence in media like the journalists do.

Yes, both of them are journalists.

Yeah, the rigor, the training of journalism.

My main suggestion is to focus on competence, on making something, not on literacy, on receiving something, because in the digital world, the more you make, the more you share. The more you engage, the more you understand the possibilities, the potentials.

The more you receive, the more you watch, and so on, then the more you get into the idea that the Internet is just like this, or it's just like that, but the Internet is a place with infinite possibilities, waiting for you to make it. The more you make, the more the future will appear here, through you.

Yes, of course.

Yeah, digital agency. Yes.