 Good local time everyone. I'm Audrey Tang, power's digital minister in charge of social innovation, open government and youth engagement. It is my great pleasure to attend the 6th Taiwan Indonesia Higher Education Virtual Forum and share with you some thoughts on globalization, on the new normal, and on digital transformation. And first, let's talk about globalization. The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc around the globe in 2020 and 2021. Well, the coronavirus is likely to follow us well into 2022. People around the globe will keep looking to effective ways to cope with the shared challenges that we experience. Although it might seem frightening that borders no longer provide the kind of protection that we need to keep us safe in the physical world, we will see an explosion of opportunities in the digital world, opportunities relating to the formation of a global neighborhood. As the erosion of the traditional concepts of countries, nations and states accelerates in the digital world, the idea of neighborhoods based on shared values is flourishing. We have already seen examples in the past couple years, such as the hashtag Milk Tea Alliance. This is a collaboration of pro-democracy citizens that originated from a meme, depicting many jurisdictions around East Asia, holding up their respective popular drinks, such as Taiwanese bubble tea, in solidarity. Well, 2022 will see continued evolution toward a generation where distance is no longer measured in meters, but rather in terms of the experiences one shares in common with other people and other groups. Global neighborhoods will also bring changes to the ways norms are established. Indeed, we will find ourselves in a world where the establishment of social norms is no longer monopolized by governments or multilateral organizations. Decentralized, non-political, non-state actors will play critical roles in this. Taiwan's digital democracy can be seen as a precursor in this regard. At the country's online platform, join the GOV.tw, anyone can file a petition. There is no need to be affiliated with any particular political party. Twice a month, petitions that gather 5,000 signatures are met with face-to-face collaborative meetings across related ministries to explore ways to incorporate them into policymaking. And in this way, even those who are too young to vote, or the foreign immigrants, non-citizens, they can nevertheless have a way to start a movement and set a social norm. Now technology will be used even more widely to facilitate crowdsourced policymaking. Governance motives, based on what I call people-public-private partnerships, are said to be the key to government transformation. The creation of Taiwan's mask mugs showed people early on in the pandemic when masks were available by scarce in stores. And meanwhile, SMS-based contact tracing and online vaccination appointment systems resulted from collaboration incorporating open data from social sector platforms in our governmental department and private sector companies thrived. So with the rediscovery of those civic infrastructures on the digital realm, I think civic tech will unify opinions that are currently dispersed throughout society and transform them into a motivational force for creative policymaking. And this will be even more important as we understand the need for our social, political and economic strategies to adapt very frequently in response to ever-mutating viruses. An alliance forged between the government, the social sector and the private sector will thus be in place to meet the diverse needs of the population in the shortest possible time. So in 2022 we will see a continued emphasis on swift and safe technologies to bring about such broad participation. And here universities serve not only the basic functions of supporting academic research or talent cultivation, but also enhance this cultural awareness, serve the society to promote cross-sectoral sustainable developments. Indeed in the past four years, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan made tremendous contributions through its higher education cultivation project. While fulfilling social responsibility is one of its four major goals, the core values of the USR projects are the local connections and talent cultivation, which provides university with a citizen-oriented approach and a focus on assisting in solving societal challenges with humanistic concerns. So I'm really glad to see universities in Taiwan actively assisting in urban and rural education development in enhancing regional and local contributions and to innovate in terms of the industrial, cultural and sustainable developments. On topics of shared global urgency, such as climate, pandemic or the infodemic, I'm sure that allies of the same mind will step up and work together to build a resilient global neighborhood. Now let's talk about new normal. In this age of social media and flourishing online technologies, this information can spread like a biological virus, it goes viral. In pluralistic democracies such as Taiwan, this information pose a particularly complex challenge, because anyone armed with a smartphone and basic editing tools can take part in its dissemination, and that truly defines the new normal for many people around the world. Prior to the pandemic, though, Taiwan had already been cited as the country most exposed to disinformation operations, aiming to destabilize our democracy, society and governmental institutions in order, I guess, to impose a certain brand of authoritarianism. For example, during the anti-elab protests in Hong Kong, a trending message in 2019 made its rounds across Taiwan's social media landscape, attempting to portray the Hong Kong protesters as so-called rioters who allegedly repaid some $20 million to murder members of the police. That, of course, was a gross misrepresentation of the protesters' mission. However, the intention of the campaign was clear, is to lessen the influence of the anti-elab movement on the Taiwanese presidential election. While the message was actually trending early on Taiwanese social media, because the citizens in Hong Kong would have easily seen through this veil of disinformation. So the message was not meant for a Hong Kong audience, but for a Taiwanese audience. According to Taiwan Fact Check Center, this piece of disinformation was traced back to a Weibo account named Chang Anjian. They had created the original fabrication by misusing a rioter's photo. Attempting to paint the image is a depiction of teenage protesters engaging in some violent activity simply over the purchase of some iPhones. And then the second level remixed us, then built on the image by creating more supporting narratives. In Taiwan, we take a notice and public notice approach, so citizens who share the initial message soon discovered the origin of the fabrication through fact-checking labels. And this successful attempt did counter that wave of viral disinformation by building immunity's vaccination of the mind. Taiwan faces such disinformation campaigns on a daily, indeed hourly basis. And this trend had been further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic as part of our new normal now. And indeed, as the pandemic swept across the globe, anxiety has stoked the flames of disinformation. And we have seen the challenges posed by pandemic-related disinformation ultimately leading to the so-called infodemic as the World Health Organization causes. Again, in Taiwan, instead of using any top-down centralized initiatives to fight the ongoing infodemic, we employ a decentralized, citizen-centered approach. During the pandemic, we adopted what I call the fast, fair, and fun approach and a humor-over-rumor tactic to combat coronavirus disinformation, which gives the public ample room to laugh at non-factual information. A fun example is that in Taiwan, we have a very cute dog, a Shiba Inu, the name is Zongchai, who translates all of the information published by the daily press conference of the Central Epidemic Monsanto or CECC. For example, for physical distancing, we have a picture that said, if you're outdoor, please keep two cute dogs away, and if you're indoors, keep three dogs away from one another. Or the very cute dog put a hand to its mouth and say, wear a mask to protect your own face against your own unwashed hands. And so, I believe such viral humor, not only to disseminate science, but also to neutralize and disarm disinformation is fighting fire with fire as it were. And the logic behind the strategy is very simple. Any approach that begins with governmental censorship face extensive resistance, because in a pluralistic democracy, any communication from a state that looks like a takedown or a censorship is simply a political non-starter. And therefore, we need to think of innovative ways to outrun and outpace the conspiracy theorists and disinformation campaigns. Most disinformation is motivated by outrage, which is one of the most viral emotions. But outrage often leads to revenge, to discrimination, to the beginning of hate speech, rendering people's capacity for empathy null and void. And when people start sharing stories with mindless abandon, then we have the real problem of an infodemic on our hands. So because of this, as I mentioned, we need to vaccinate ourselves against this virus of the mind. We now realize that humor has a very high R value and has the capacity to spread even more dramatically than outrage, as proven quite effectively in Taiwan. So far, we have succeeded in containing the infodemic without censorship and without any top-down takedowns. And personally, I believe a single piece of disinformation cannot get everybody enraged if people are competent in critical and creative thinking. It is just like biodiversity. It's harder to find a biological virus that can take hold if there is ample biodiversity in the ecosystem. And the same idea holds for democracy. So in Taiwan, in both basic and higher education, we'll put an emphasis on media competence, metisuya, instead of just media literacy or metisidu. This is a conscious choice, because imaginary literacy or shidu assumes that you're a reader or a viewer, a consumer of information, whereas competence or suya means you're a producer, a co-creator, a steward of information, data, and media. And the government of Taiwan has incorporated media competence into the basic training modules, not just for educators, but also for governmental and personnel in public service in a variety of ways. For example, the Ministry of Education established a media competence education promotion committee, which convenes once every four months to review and formulate such policies. And we are putting efforts in building related core competencies among students. For example, the middle school students can and do fact check the three presidential candidates during their platform and debate. This has been included in various capstone projects, trainings, workshops and seminars for educational and governmental personnel. Instead of a standard answer-based education system, we are now looking to incorporate more life-long lessons in media production, in newsroom operations, such that the citizens can see themselves as contributors, not just consumers, to journalism, compared to censorship and takedowns, I believe, that this is a longer-lasting solution or vaccine to the ongoing disinformation crisis. Taiwan's resolve to combat the new normal of online disinformation stems from our grounding as one of Asia's most open societies. In addition, I would also say that Taiwan takes freedom of speech extremely seriously, regarding it as a right that cannot be traded in any shape or in any form. So, even in the face of a global pandemic and infodemic, Taiwan ranked the fifth in the world and first in Asia in the most recent Freedom on the Nets 2021 report published by Freedom House in September. And I believe that the reason behind this achievement is our vibrant online landscape supported by meaningful and affordable internet access and independent judiciary that protects that expression and the administration that has worked to make its system and policy rationale as transparent as possible to our researchers and citizens. So when it comes to disarm disinformation again, we do not believe that a centralized and opaque approach is the reliable answer. To prevent its further dissemination, disinformation is verified and clarified through the people-public-private partnerships. We have established a governmental mechanism that offers immediate and effective clarification and mutual independent third-party fact-checkers and media self-regulation mechanisms to complete the pieces of this puzzle. Another example is the GZeroV or GovZero Civic Technologies community. Its co-facts project invites citizens to engage in open collaboration and work together to identify disinformation developing such as a line chatbot to offer real-time fact-checks. Other mechanisms of the notice and public notice involves consultation by experts such as the Tower Fact-Check Center which is accredited back in 2018 as a third-party fact-checker by the international fact-checking network. In a sense, the new normal of disinformation is just a symptom of a larger disease. It's a result of a lack of trust among the people but also between the governments and our citizens. In Taiwan, we deeply embrace democracy, humanity, openness and freedom of speech. With these core values, we can create a friendly environment for collective and connective intelligence and social innovation. So, as researchers and educators, I believe we need to intensify our efforts in this partnership. Now that we know there is a way to augment the transparency in our communication and give our scientific knowledge a higher basic transmission rate. And now digital transformation. What does digital transformation mean? Well, before the pandemic and the infodemic, many business leaders may answer this question by quoting the Olympic motto, digital transformation is faster, higher and stronger. But now, today, we should say, well, it's faster, higher, stronger together after the International Olympic Committee's decision to include together as an expression of unity. Indeed, the same motto applies to the field of digital transformation. In the past, to strive for faster, higher and stronger tech, many countries did their utmost to offer the most advanced facilities, services to develop the most cutting-edge technologies and to nurture high-tech unicorns. But more and more, countries are discovering that digital governance policies and promotions are like the Olympic spirit. It's not just about nurturing metalists, but also about bringing citizens together. Our president, Dr. Tsai Ing-wen, announced a platform of Digital Nation Smart Island during her election campaign. In 2017, our cabinet launched a Digital Nation and Innovative Economic Development Program. After her successful re-election, the plan was upgraded recently to Smart Taiwan 2030 this year. With the vision of a smart nation of innovation, inclusion and sustainability by 2030. And this vision of Smart Taiwan 2030 reveals a renewed commitment for digital governance policy to be pluralistic and inclusive with sustainable development at its goal. And this means that it is no longer the case that the government is just formulating policies from the top down, dictating new development paths for industries or directing people to new public services. But rather, we must be receptive to building ecosystems of people-public-private partnerships to address problems guided by the needs of our citizens. Well, some people may wonder how to cater to the needs of the members of the public in our diverse and also rapidly evolving society and whether problems may arise as some issues are prioritized over others. But we just need to look back at the history of digital development. We can see that the Internet was not created by a single organization, nor by a single country setting standards. It's actually by the citizens of the Internet of all stripes scattered around the world working together to establish a network that connects people to each other. And on this shared system, the Internet pioneers engaged in an iterative problem-solving process of inventing new protocols according to their own needs before gradually forming the Internet as we now know it. Of course, the Internet is now indispensable for social, economic and political activity in every corner of the world, and it's still in a constant stage of evolution as the needs of the citizens change. And indeed, in the pluralistic society, citizens' needs are ever shifting. And regardless of whether governments are willing to address them well, there will always be people willing to tackle new problems with their own digital social innovations. So a smart national governance policy for digital transformation should not be designed to dominate or prohibit those civic tech attempts, but to find ways to align with them, which I believe is the first aspect of digital governance. It's about alignment. As I mentioned when the pandemic struck last year, masks, the most essential personal protective equipment, were in short supply, and our government had to adopt a real-name registration system for rationing out those masks. And everyone wanted to know where to buy them, and the mask-map applications quickly appeared. Now the government did not discourage such grassroots efforts, but instead we released addresses of pharmacy-selling masks and the real-time inventory, the number of masks they had in stock through open data, keeping the apps up to date every 30 seconds. And in less than a week, more than 100 different applications for mask availability were developed by citizens from all walks of life, with a wide range of configurations for use, for example a chatbot on the messaging app line, for example voice assistants for the people with seeing difficulties. In other words, an alliance was forged between aligned parties, government-specific technologists, and the pharmacists in the private sector. It allowed us to meet the diverse needs of the largest possible swath of the population in the shortest possible time. And this year, when Taiwan was hit by the wave of infections in May, the Central Epidemic Monsanto issued a nationwide Level 3 alert. And this alert required contact information to be supplied when entering and leaving public venues to facilitate quick contact tracing and exposure notifications should not be needed. However, the long queues for registration with pen and pencil or paper at each shop can be both time-consuming and also counterproductive in terms of virus prevention. Measures as their weight increases while these will make the exposure time in public longer, so people began discussing solutions. Many businesses introduced their own innovations for registration, and from these discussions and the apps developed by the private sector, the government was able to tell what was working and what was not. And the social sector, GovZero, again, contributed an SMS-based check-in system in the shortest possible time in just three days. Now, the 1922 toll-free SMS system was not mandated by the central government. Purely through voluntary adoption, it soon became part of people's lives. GovZero's innovative design proved invaluable. Simply scan the QR code using the built-in camera in your smartphone, there's no app download required, and send a toll-free text message to 1922. Not only is this convenient, but it also addresses many of the concerns of the public. What if my phone doesn't have internet access? Well, a SMS will suffice. What if I don't have a mobile phone? Well, other people can check in on your behalf, and you can still choose to write your contact information down on paper. And with the SMS system, there's a huge amount of data, a quarter billion so far, being transmitted. Well, it is stored within the telecom company providing the phone service. It's not transmitted to any central database. And it can only be accessed by contact tracers. Anyone can request a full reverse audit of accesses to their own records, and the information is deleted after 28 days. So all these privacy and cybersecurity considerations are reflected in the second aspect of digital transformation, accountability. Accountability to its people's minds at ease, as it inspires confidence that digital services will do what they say they will in ways that do not compromise the rise of the citizens. And that is precisely why personal data protection and cybersecurity are becoming increasingly important in digital transformation. And moreover, accountability proactively can ensure that improvements are made on a rolling basis as new challenges arise. For example, a judge found that evidence in a criminal investigation included some wiretap data from the 192 to SMS system, and questioned its legality. Of course, he didn't sign the search warrants. And following such discussions, the Ministry of Justice concluded that SMS check-ins does not constitute a communication and should not be accessed as per the Communication Security and Surveillance Act. So our mobile network operators and judicial authorities have now been preparing measures to rule out 192 SMS from law enforcement or surveillance. So following this interpretation, specific measures have been taken by the telecom companies to preclude communication surveillance system from accessing any related data to contact tracing. So as a part of digital transformation strategy, I believe this sort of accountability is both, of course, to allay concerns and provide peace of mind, but it's also active in a sense that it makes the results of people or public-private partnerships an accountable reality. For example, our presidential hackathon, which is entering its fourth year, also serves as an opportunity for the public sector to give an account, to include the social and private sectors to work together and come up with innovative ways to use data across sectors so that we can solve the social and environmental problems together. Although this annual event of presidential hackathon does not offer price money, the systems designed by winning teams are a short government promotion. The team members are invited to be part of our government initiatives and the assistance from the government is offered to find opportunities also for commercial application. And as Taiwan's digital minister, what digital transformation means foremost to me is stimulation of social innovation by increasing the connections between people through technology. In other words, the emphasis is on alignment and accountability, where good ideas are taken seriously and partners can be sought out to work together, establishing a virtual cycle that leads to innovative, inclusive, and sustainable digital development. To put it in another way, only when citizens from different sectors, fields, and roles join forces can our digital development be faster, faster, higher, and stronger together. To conclude, I would like to share with you my own job description about digital transformation when I joined the cabinet in 2016 as Taiwan's first digital minister. 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 for listening. Live long and prosper.