 How are you today? Pretty good. It's my first meeting in the morning. I'm really glad to have you here and also talk to you through the internet. In the morning? Not at all. I mean, it's 10 a.m. so not too bad. The most democratic country in the world, I mean, in East Asia, it meant that 11 in the world according to the economists, the annual democracy index 2020, and it was quite impressive how other civil liberties have been vexed by a global due to the pandemic, but Taiwan has managed to make a big event. So we're curious to know how Taiwan has managed and how you as the Minister has managed to bring such a big event in the country. Yeah, the key is to trust the citizens. Instead of innovating for the people, we're innovating with the people. So, for example, in Taiwan, when we rationale the mask and when we do the contact tracing, when we distribute the vaccines in Taiwan, all those different technologies were co-invented. Many civic technologists in the social sector came up with very good idea, like visualizing the mass supplies, like using a SMS instead of an app for contact tracing in Taiwan. So we call this reverse procurement, where the specification, the idea, the norms are created by the people and the stages implements it. In that Korea benchmark, some of the strategies that Taiwan took during the COVID and how you have managed to bring about the applications from the real-time stocks of the mask and other issues. Is there any other strategy that Taiwan benchmarked up Korea? Well, I think we certainly learned both ways. I've talked to the teenage civic technologist in Seoul, I believe, who implemented the mask rationing alongside the Taiwan team. So that was really good. And I also learned that Korea, very early on, had this idea of a vaccine availability map where people can register for the kind of leftover residual vaccines, as well as offering real-time booking updated information for everyone, or at least in the metropolitan areas. And that's also something that we learned later on around July last year. In fact, due to the Omicron variant, it has been making a big difference. A lot of local media outlets have been comparing how South Korea and Taiwan have been handling. But in fact, it has diverged in a different direction that we now have a lot of confirmed cases while Taiwan is still managing quite well realistically. So what do you think what's the difference between South Korea and Taiwan? Well, so I wouldn't speak so soon, right? It is true that we're still at yesterday was 15 local confirmed Omicron cases. But Omicron has a way to grow exponentially. So while we can say so far, it's probably thanks to the very quick contact tracing that led us to follow very closely the speed of the virus. It may or may not continue to hold this way. So I wouldn't say that we have diverged. And I wouldn't say we're post-pandemic with postpone the pandemic a little bit. It's interesting to see how you bring the reverse procurement, how you invite the civic participation. And I noticed that there's several different platforms like Zero, showing different information from the government. And also you also have the platform called JOIN. If you don't mind, could you briefly introduce what this platform is and how you invite the social discussion and participation? Certainly. So JOIN is a public infrastructure maintained by the government that is a one-stop shop for e-petition, for participatory budgeting, for the regulatory pre-announcements and many other participatory forums. Because it's managed by the government, it enjoys very high accessibility. I think more than 30 million visits, which in Taiwan with 23 million is a lot. And so people generally trust that if they reach 5,000 signatures, for example, for the petitions, then a minister will come out and respond point by point. If it's interagency, twice a month, my office hosts interagency meetings that also meets with the members of the public that to co-create solutions to the issues raised by the petitioner and so on. So it's public infrastructure. Now GOV0 or G0V is civic infrastructure maintained by the social sector. So just like JOIN, the GOV, the TW is a website maintained by the government. JOIN, the G0V, the TW is maintained by the social sector. So just changing O to a zero in the digital services. And you get into kind of the shadow governments that's maintained with open source, free software principles, and they fork, that is to say, make alternate versions of government digital service. We talk about mask visualization, contact tracing and so on, and offer it for free so that the state can also amplify that through reverse procurement. So GOV0 is a little bit more like research, and JOIN is a little bit more like development. So you mentioned about how people can collect the signatures in order to make the park into real life. Actually, in South Korea, we do have some similar platform where people can write their petition regarding social issues, but they need to collect more than 200,000 signatures within 30 days. So we have not managed to bring about a more sustainable plan or make it into a real policy that will actually satisfy a lot of people. So what's the least difference? What are the key factors that's really vital in order to make these policies or proposals from the public to be implemented in real life? So just to ask a clarifying question, if someone raises a successful petition in 30 days, do they get to meet with the officers from the agencies or the minister? So the government has to respond but not face-to-face? Yeah, not face-to-face. Sometimes it could be, one example was about the vaccine mandatory task. Oh, we had that too. We had that too. I think it's the issue that's happening in Taiwan as well. So it was the head of the CDC, the Secretary of the CDC, answered the question. So we get the response, but we don't really get like a real policy implemented in the same way. I see. I think an innovation that we took very early on since 2016 is a team of participation officers, that is to say people charged with engaging the public in each ministry. And so in 2017, for example, when there was a petition about the hostile experience of tax filing and of quotes, it's facilitated by the POs, the participation officers of different ministries. That is to say, the breakout groups were facilitated, for example, for tax issues, maybe facilitated by the Coastal Guard. But when we talk about the ocean affairs opening up the ocean, maybe it's facilitated by the finance or tax agency participation officers in the breakout group. And the reason why is that the Coastal Guard also files income tax themselves. And the tax agency person maybe also serves or also fishes amateur. So the idea is that those POs take on the side of citizens, listen to the citizens and advocating for them with their public service, public administration training. And so bridges mediate us, such as the POs, I believe is very important because if it's an interagency issue, there's probably room for innovation with the public. But we really need to work on a either face to face or very closely designed online participation forum in order to figure out where the innovation should be. Very interesting how people take different roles and try to understand. I guess the key here is the listening to the other person's petition, I also working across silos, I think that's that's that's the point. Yeah, because the Coastal Guard is not in charge of tax policy. So when they facilitate a conversation about tax, they take the citizen side. I think that is the main difference. When you became the Minister of the Youngness at the age of 35, how challenging was it while you're working with the other members of the Cabinet who must be much older than you? Not at all, because I was a reverse mentor to the previous Cabinet since 2014 when I was 33 years out. I worked for a couple years with then Minister Jacqueline Tsai in her office. And actually it's the same physical office as my office now. So in many senses, I'm just promoted to full time from interns, so to speak. And I don't think age is the difference here. I think the main difference is the experience on teleworking, the experience on crowdfunding and crowdsourcing and so on. I'm very happy to report that regardless of age, many people in Taiwan's Cabinet did have a entrepreneurship background or a science and technology background that allowed them to engage the public in a very open manner. So I guess you also have now your own reverse mentor? That's right. Young people who guide me. Yes, I'm old now. I'm 40 now. Right. So how does it really work when you have certain issues today? Like they have certain inputs? How does this mentorship work? Sure. Yeah. So formally, since 2016, they are advisors to the Cabinet in the Youth Advisor Council. So the 35, I think, counselors, almost all of them younger than 35, form kind of the backbone of the reverse mentoring system. Of course, there's also younger mentors in the ministries level, in the agency levels, in the local governments level and so on. So our youth advisors, they can, for example, host a meeting in any locality. And through me, they get to call the responsible authorities to the same table to listen to the young people. But again, this is not just to provide answers, but to co-create over a course of an entire afternoon or so on the issues that needs innovations. So all this is to amplify their ideas into national level in like just 24 hours or a couple of weeks and so on. So if we see a new way of working together on a smaller locality, we can't adopt it on a national scale in a very quick fashion. So mostly, it's just commissioning meetings, meeting with the Premier on our, by annual, sorry, have a year, every half a year meetings, and also meeting the ministers as well as the agencies to provide new directions, usually right before the budget allocation cycle, so that it could be written into the New Year's directions. Going through the history, and then I tell that you were actually involved with the 2014 Sunflower Movement. And I guess this has been the turning point for their more used participation. And even the economists highlighted that there's more younger generations while participating in social issues and politics. So since you've become the digital minister, has there been more number of young politicians and also more used participation? Yes, definitely. We've seen many people who are interested in civics and politics from a very early age. And indeed, at this very moment, constitutionally, we're talking about changing the voting age, right, to 18 years old. Previously, it was 20 in our constitution. But even as we're having this discussion, many people younger than 18 are already, I would say, dominate by providing a significant fraction of the joint platform petitions. Some of the most popular petitions were by people who just turned 17, for example, the one about banning plastic straws in bubble tea takeouts with this sea turtle choked by straws. The picture, which went viral, is a meme. It gathered 5,000 signatures in a very short time. And when I ask Wang Xuanru, the petitioner, why should she provide such a very interesting petition in her school time? And she said it's our civics class assignment, right? The teacher just assigned raising a petition as a civics class assignment. And I think it's really great that Commissioner Wang now is part of our national action plan steering committee for open government, even though she's just 19 at the moment. So I think in Korea as well as in Taiwan, we have this seniority culture, but we can't flip this around if a person that is not yet 20 years old nevertheless holds the cabinet advisor or a steering committee commissioner title. Then we also yield to that title, and they can participate in much more peer-to-peer fashion. It's interesting, actually, because I also read the interment, we, as South Koreans, in the legacy of the Confucianism, we have to respect the elder, and we always have to listen to them. But because of that, there's clash between the generation. And it's very difficult to converge or reach a consensus between different generations. And now we will be heading into presidential elections in a long time. And the casting borders are, in fact, those young generation in 20s and 30s. And there has been a lot of focus on those young generations, how we can reach out to them, and how we can promote more youth participation and how they can be more involved in a political inclusion issue. So what kind of advice would you give to South Korea? Well, learn from the citizens. And basically, the idea of reverse mentorship means that younger people as mentors are your teachers. A key pillar of Confucianism is to respect heaven, the royalty, the parents, and the teachers. So the younger people are our teachers, and they can, too, be one of the peers in the pillars of the culture. I guess, as you were growing up, I bet there was certain times when you had to make certain protests or clash between your parents or your grandparents. I read your book, and it was quite interesting to see how you managed. And also the schooling is different to the norms. So what were the major challenges, and how do you hope to implement what you have learned to your country and also to other world? Yeah. So the main challenge at a time when I dropped out of middle school when I was 15 years old was that it was illegal. That was the main challenge. It's mandatory education. But it's overking thanks to the head of the school who read my correspondence with international researchers and said, okay, tomorrow you don't have to go to my school anymore. She said, and helped me to convince my parents and so on that it's much better if I can start, first, my research and the entrepreneurship careers earlier than the most. But later on, of course, we've written that into the experimental education acts of Taiwan. And also because I also participated in the basic education curriculum to take some of the lessons that we've learned about autonomy, about interaction based on common good principles into our basic education so that if I'm entering the middle school again, I now have much more room within the institution. So I don't have to break the law. Actually, the alternative experimental education is part of the institution now with up to 10% of students enjoying this more research, right, breaking out of curriculum, but feeding back what work and didn't to the basic education within the curriculum. So I would say that Taiwan is well on our way into reforming toward the kind of education of autonomous learning that I have enjoyed myself since I quit middle school. And around the world, I think people are also seeing because of pandemic and shared emergencies that we are now having a global neighborhood where people are feeling closer across time zones to people experiencing similar experiences as compared to people living in the same schools or in the same community. So I think a lot of those communities are being formed around pandemic related issues across the internet and that will probably continue as we take on climate action and many other planetary challenges. If you are to some of maybe just three factors, that would be the key to the successful digital democracy, including all people and also the minority, what would they be? It's pinned, I think, on my Twitter. It's my job description. And distilled to three, I think it's fast, fair and fun. And these three are not fungible. So all the innovations need to be at once fast, fair and fun. Instead of saying we're chasing the speed of technology in an unfair fashion to leave someone behind, or if we want to make a campaign that goes viral, lots of fun. But again, it doesn't address any quality, they would not work. It needs to be incremental Pareto improvements so that it's at least a little bit more fun, a little bit more fair and a little bit faster compared to the business as usual. Well, thank you so much Minister Tan for your time. Thank you. Thank you. It's a great interview. Live long and prosper.