Yeah, this was this morning’s conversation. We found a very important word of core competency being translated in both different Mandarin ways in both different fields. You’re bilingual, right?
For example, in the social welfare, it’s translated as 核心知能, “To know and to use capability.” In administration, it’s 核心能耐. Psychology, it’s 勝任能力. In traffic, it’s 適任力. In library science, it’s 素養能力.
Now, in education, now, of course, it was 核心素養. Only in information science, which is my field, it’s translated as 核心競爭力, which is a bad translation. In English, that’s “core competitiveness,” which is not the same with core competency.
Because IT people have, I don’t know, we were much louder, I guess. Somehow, the trendy magazines use the 競爭力 as the Mandarin translation of competency since 1994.
That informed two generations of students, thinking about core competency as about fighting with Europeans. It has immense cultural negative externality. What?
We finally fixed that. Then we really want to go back to the term NAER and say, “It was a mistranslation. That term doesn’t even belong to information science. I don’t know how they find way there.” [laughs]
That loop, I think, need to be closed. If you imagine a better way than the current forum board, which nobody really reads, I think we’re all ears and eyes.
They have a review board powered by professionals, but the NAER actually didn’t develop this system. They just maintain it from, I think, the NDC. At that time, whatever they were called. In any case, they are also very eager to keep the database, but make something, a radically different interface.
They are no longer in control of their current interface. They didn’t commission the current interface.
Yeah, because they’re considered normative for the bilingual websites going forward, whether it’s bilingual or whether it’s a new website. What you’re doing now is actually going to have a rippling effect. Every organization in their canonical translation will refer back to term NAER.
The sooner we make it actually, close the feedback loop…Because if we don’t do that, then we may see 競爭力 everywhere.
It’s not what it means. That’s right.
They were cutting edge in ‘93.
The society changed.
I talked to them before becoming the digital minister. I was just a random advocate. At that point, they actually agreed to export their data, for example, to Wiktionary, which is a good place. People can then discuss and collaborate on it.
The problem is that they can’t really figure out to import back, because Wiktionary, everybody can change. Who will do the quality reviews? What about vandalism? What about people injecting political agenda? What about province of China?
That’s something we can help them figure out. It doesn’t have to be Wiktionary, or we can partner with Wiktionary, but with a review process in-between. One way or another, it needs to be collective intelligence.
That’s right. No, I totally agree. It’s just how to integrate it into the official flow. The best idea is that the official flow, review board members, are themselves are also community participants. Then that makes a lot of sense, because they carry the context back.
The second best, of course, is that they have an import function. “If the social sectors think it’s OK, we’re OK.” The worst case is, as I said, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. “How come we made so many mistakes? We refuse to accept that.”
We really need to shoot for the best case. Maybe it lands to the second best, but let it not fall into the fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which creates a divide between the people. The senior researchers, they’re all very fluent bilingually in ‘93. Society changed. [laughs]
I know. I think Pol.is itself would be actually what I would like you to improve the user experience.
Yeah, because you are going to use that. [laughs]
It’s important, because we are in charge of sending user experience feedbacks as concrete pull requests back to Pol.is Foundation. We made a lot of changes that the Pol.is Foundation did just merge straight in.
Just full disclosure, I’m flying to New York. If the premiere approves, I’m going to join the board of the Pol.is Foundation. When that happens, there will be a lot more international collaboration to make the user experience not only good for Taiwanese people, that are bilingual, or monolingual in one or some sense.
Also, make it so customizable so that even people in trilingual cases, in indigenous cases, and things like that, can flexibly enable these without incurring burden among monolingual consultations. That’s going to be a very important direction, if I successfully get to join the Pol.is Foundation. It’s called Math and Democracy Foundation, but yeah.
I think it will go well. All right.
Thank you so much.
OK. I’ll share your spreadsheets with the…
That’s right.
Yeah, it goes both ways.
Yeah, I went and visited, I think, let’s see, Vancouver and Toronto and also I think Ottawa for two times already. That’s in the past year alone.
I do see that we share many common values in that we seem to not be so acutely aware that we share some very common values. That is the part that I would really like to introduce because in Taiwan, nowadays, like with President Tsai’s agenda of not just marriage equality but also transitional justice but also about all the sort of different reforms, it turns out that our issues, social issues, are very compatible, actually.
We also have mining rights with indigenous lines and how to meaningfully consult with the indigenous nations. It turns out, you’re having the same problem, sorry, same challenge.
A lot of solutions is common between the two societies. We should really build that social relationship aside from the existing trade, economic, and ecological ones.
I’m the digital minister in charge of social innovation, open government, and youth engagement.
As for digital transformation, that is not a job of any single ministry, right?
Hence, my office is one delegate from each ministry. We have 32 vertical ministers, and they can each send one volunteer. Joel here is from MOFA, the foreign service delegate.
One volunteer to my office…Then, my office represents different values because every ministry is, by its nature, a different value. We don’t allow two or more people from one ministry at the same time. I hear the MOVAQ is maybe a dozen people now, right?
Then, we make sure that we work out loud meaning that whatever project they’re working on, they do separate themselves. I don’t score or rank them. I don’t give assignments. If they have incompatible values, for example, the environmental one and the economic one, that’s the common one or the science innovation one with the social justice one, that’s another common one, and then we can figure out ways to openly collaborate.
We do this through e-petition. That’s a common source. Each ministry now also have a team called participation officers in charge of tackling emerging issues. They can also raise issues to my office. That’s the second one. Also, our youth counselors, which are reverse mentors to each minister, they can also suggest one. That’s our three incoming sources.
That’s right. My work is that of, I don’t know, philosophical work. I think everybody’s sides. I visit the rural indigenous areas. I live with people here, and then make their listening scalable and also make sure that the 12 different ministries also listen to them through tele presence while I’m in the indigenous or rural places.
In Taiwan, we say meeting someone face to face builds 30 percent of trust, and so meeting through high-bandwidth tele presence may be 20 percent of trust. The importance here is that it’s entirely horizontal. They don’t need their minister’s approval to figure out solutions together.
Previously, it’s always the minister’s credit but it’s always the public servant’s fault. In a horizontal way, it’s the other way around. It’s readily transparent. It’s always their credit, and if things go wrong, it’s me that gets beaten by the local population because you cannot hit someone across the screen.
That’s the basic idea.
It’s a new position, yeah. We always have horizontal ministers. It’s just a horizontal minister in charge of digital, that’s the new one.
We always have, for example, horizontal ministers in charge of law because each minister may pass their own laws and regulations, but someone needs to keep them coherent.
Right. Basically, the staff, each of them when they join…I think you were a section chief?
Right. I think Ning Yeh was Director-general, and so on. They all have their own network so to speak, yeah.
I’m working with the government. I’m not working for the government. I report to the Internet community.
I’m appointed.
