 When I took the post of digital minister two years ago as a conservative anarchist I had a compact not a contract but still the administration asked me for a job description So instead of job description, I just wrote them a prayer a poem, which I'm going to read to you now That's kind of my my message about digital technology with an aim for social good and it goes like this When we see internet of things, let's make it an internet of beings When we see virtual reality, let's make it a shared reality When we see machine learning, let's make it collaborative learning When we see user experience, let's make it about human experience And whenever we hear that a singularity is near Let us always remember the plurality is here. Thank you so much This poem is a great summary of your values beliefs and approaches. What is it inspired by? What are the influences that shaped your beliefs? When I wrote the poem I was in New Zealand. I just attended the open source open society conference I benefited from the inspiration from not only like Lumio or the greater Inspiral open collective family, but also from the Maori people their chance their links to the Taiwanese Austronesian people for thousands of years ago who sell the seas and spread his culture of people Intermingling with the spirits of the river of the mountain and things like that it's not just things they see each other as beings and the New technology enables these living beings to speak through these Data and numbers and models But in a way that people can relate and people can empathize with not just each other But with a wider ecosystem of beings that our life is deeply intertwined with and so I think I would say that I'm primarily Inspired by the indigenous nations of Taiwan But then also by any people who sell the seas to navigate their various different cultural landscape and through conflicts, but also resolutions through disputes, but also Reconcilations to shape an innovative culture together in a plurality What is the future that you would like to see? How are you currently working towards the future? Before reaching the far future vision of listening a scale and a plurality based ecological democracy, I Would like to say that we first need to solve for the near term like by year 2030 actually Using the resources on us in a way that is sustainable That we don't burn through more than one us year per us yeah, and this is very important in my main work as the digital minister in charge of social innovation is to make sure everybody knows the idea of the triple bottom line of Sustainability's importance across all the different sectors of partnership of listening what every organization in our society is doing in terms of the SDG Connects and make sure that people can discover each other and work toward common goals and form spontaneous Partnerships to where this I think SDG 17 which is partnership for the goals and especially Reliable data is very important It's only when people live in the same reality can they share authentic feelings and form partnerships What are the issues challenges that you are tackling Well, our main challenge here is that we're a very new democracy Although we have perhaps the most open and innovative Society in all of Asia We are still just 30 years ago the place where we only had the first presidential election everybody has to figure out how to do democracy after three decades of military law and Dictatorship and so this society Paradigm shift takes in the same time as the wide web the internet revolution And so for people younger than me who don't remember the martial law There are the people who think of things Naturally in a collaborative way of open access But then people who are my age or older who are digital and democracy migrants We have to reshape our thinking around how to reconcile a highly hierarchical authoritarian Culture and society and in the language with the new reality that is horizontal that is people powered that is democratic and so Constantly we have to face the challenge of metaphor mismatch Constantly we have to innovate on new thoughts and new ideas that make sense with both people who thought of things in Authoritarian way and also people who think of things in a more collaborative way And this is a reason why social innovation meaning innovating not for the people Which would be bureaucratic or hierarchical, but with the people is important What strategies tools inspirations are you using to explore the future my main theory of change is around three pillars Location independence meaning I can choose when and where to work Voluntary association meaning I don't give nor take orders and Radical transparency meaning that I don't touch state secrets and anything I can see as part of policymaking context I publish fully a transcript or a video to the internet Taken together these tools and strategies Enables people to understand like in a virtual reality. How is it like to be a digital minister? Shu Wei Zhen Wei in Mandarin here means not just digital, but also plural so many digital ministers My office part of the location independence plan is in the social innovation lab as you can see here It is co-created by hundreds of social innovators Indeed the soccer field here was transformed from paintings by people with Down syndrome who turns out to have a special lens to the world And are very artistic By placing 12 different ministries into this workplace It a social infrastructure itself fosters the breaking of silos the creation and co-creation of new thought and when we invite Petitioners who complain about the government structure into this place for co-creation Naturally new thoughts and new ideas emerge So I think a co-creators social infrastructure with cafe with kitchen with a chef That opens until 11 p.m. Every night with me personally listening to people every Wednesday from 10 a.m. To 10 p.m. All those are the social infrastructure and social fabric that makes innovation not just possible But also fun, so optimize for fun. I know that you are an optimist But is there anything you are worried about when you think of the future of democracy? If so, what do you perceive as a threat? I would worry if people stop visiting me and meeting me in my office hour in social innovation lab I would worry if I tour around Taiwan every other Tuesday and the social innovators there refused to talk to one another I would worry if people distrust the internet so much so that they are not Even willing to participate in any communication that involves even end-to-end encryption In short, I would worry if plurality this integrates into small filter bubbles And I think that is our main threat now. It is not a single person It is not an ideology It is just the lack of care and lack of the experience of being deeply listened to and that is a threat to plurality and the current democracy What do you think needs to happen in order to get more diverse groups involved in decision-making processes? How can society benefit from intersectionality? The idea of intersectionality Reminds us that all of us has some part of us that are more vulnerable That suffered from social injustice that are in minority and through these somewhat painful experiences Can we emerge with their authentic voice and listen to people who are maybe suffering for a different reason But feel exactly the same pain and by empowering people who are closest to the pain we reinvent the idea of representation instead of one person to speak to people as if they represent hundreds or thousands of people we allow those authentic voices to represent themself before us and then think Into deeply our own experiences. We become part of the vulnerability Part of the authentic link that ties us together and this far as I know Empowering the people closest to the pain is the best way to safeguard democracy and scalable listening amidst disintegrating pluralities When you think of the long-term future related to society, what topics and challenges do you perceive as the most interesting ones? At the moment I'm most excited about this idea of sandbox Which allows any innovator who think their version of the law or regulation is better than the current one and to the benefit of the whole society to be given a playground a Municipal space a rural space an indigenous space that local people welcome such experiments You can break existing regulations and some laws also for a year And once people have first-hand experience, they're much more likely to involve themselves into social innovation and Make the technology not colonial but also owned by the people through open innovation If it's not a good fit everybody learns from the data-sharing ideas and obey innovation Ethics if it works then the new ethics new norms especially around the parameters of AI and human interaction They can be coded back into the parameters and make the algorithm legal and humane and privacy enhancing by design And that in turn involves our legislators and rule makers, so we don't have to regulate something We don't have a first-hand experience on but can collaborate with social innovators in a way to the benefit of the common good If you got freely choose to tackle one issue, what would you be spending your time working on? Well, I joined the cabinet and work with not for the government by my own choosing So if given the choice again, I will still work on especially target 17 six which is knowledge sharing and cooperation for access to science technology and innovation Because I know only Open innovation can decolonize the technological regimes that people are currently getting used to It's only through open innovation that we can ensure public access to information and protect our fundamental freedoms Not just offline, but also online and in mixed reality And it's only through open innovation. Can we meet target 16 7 which is ensuring responsive inclusive and also Pre-presentational decision-making that is to say government with the people not for the people