 Hello. Is this the right Audrey Tang? It is the correct Audrey Tang. That's my Skype ID, by the way. But there are thousands of Audrey Tongs just so you know and I had one is it one is in Mandarin characters, and I don't read I just had no idea it was right. There's there's three three Joes as well. So So good morning. Yeah, you're very popular Good morning. Hi. Yeah, well, this is like 9 30 p.m. But good local time I'm inside pay I'm inside pay Right, so we're like 12 hours apart Okay, good evening. No, it's fine. So yeah, and that's actually the same Situation as the most vest because I'll be Teleparticipating also No, I'm not How come? How come? Well, first of all as a cabinet minister, it requires months of preparation and convincing the minister of foreign affairs And Mozilla people thought telepresenting is okay because I did the same thing in Barcelona a while ago and it seems to work pretty well Good. Well in Florence, but yeah soon in Barcelona too. Yeah Good All right. So hold on one second. I just want to grab the answers to the questions unless you want to why don't you just walk Me through them actually tell me Sure, right. So, uh, I assume that you mean the presentation training inventory thing Okay, sure. Um, yeah, so my first sentence of my presentation. I actually have a a script that I use in new york And this is going to be a bridged version of it. So the first sentence During get talk is quote greetings from the future. I'm literally in the future eight hours to be exact Which is the case for london. Otherwise, it's 12 So the format is a pre-recorded 10 minutes video. So it's not in person. Actually, I need to record a 10 minute video They play it and followed by 10 minutes q&a through a crowdsourced question uh format Right, why do you want to talk? Why do you want to start your presentation about time? The future right because uh, the title of my talk is uh, the future of democracy And the story that I'm going to tell is about um, some very experimental Way that in Taiwan we're doing democratic deliberations. So that's the reason Okay, good Right. So uh question two what props or visuals do you use to convey your message? So um for the presentation, I plan on only appearing in the first few seconds And then followed by uh, the presentation itself, which is mostly in emoji Have you seen the presentation? No, okay. Well, uh, I'll just very quickly show it to you. Uh, it's like this Can you see my share screen now? Yes, okay, great. So, um, the idea is that I will just speak for a few Sentences and saying uh for people who want to ask me questions and so on. Uh, they can do so on this Slido foreign they can use their phones to go to slido.com and enter Tuesday state, which is 10 29 and then after 10 minutes of talk, I will start answering questions And the format usually looks like this Where we have a lot of people asking questions and liking each other's questions And I will in the second half of the talk highlight one of the questions very quickly answer it And then archive it away and then highlight another. That's the basic format All right, and then so back to the presentation. Um, so, um, yeah the the beginning I'll talk about Three stories actually the first story is about how we occupy the parliament for 22 days and and how Civic technology helped facilitating half a million protesters to peaceful consensus And the second story is going to be about the same technology used to solve the uber regulation issue in 2015 through co-creating regulations And then, uh, it's going to go into some details of the focused Method about how we get people's facts and then people's feelings about those facts Their ideas about those feelings the best idea is the best one that reflects people's feelings and sign them into law And so we use artificial intelligence machine learning and so on to get thousands of people's opinions on uber And translated that into a set of regulations that everybody can live with And so that's how we solve the uber problem and how I became the digital minister The third story is about how I practice radical transparency as an anarchist digital minister since 2016 by Transparenly answering all journalists questions everything's on the record even vr 360 record And how we use free software exclusively in our team to boost our creativity and have one person from every ministry to participate in this cross-ministerial way and to have e petitions and And this is this letter of participation starting from voting collectivism To sharing of open data of real-time feedback forums and discussions all the way to deliberations So that's the the basic three story that i'm going to tell And back to the inventory. Um, how do you prepare for presentations? Do script draft? notes notes I'm not sure was it notes notes, but um, yeah, um, and then uh, what's the Uh, winging it so for pre-recorded videos such as this one I rehearse several times convert recording to transcripts Editor transcripts into speakers notes rehearse again and rinse and repeat So quite a few times like five times at least So what consistent feedback have you received on my presentations? Um, well, I actually learned a lot from the materials You'll send me especially about how I can slow down to emphasize some points because I do have a habit of talking Actually faster than my current speed during talks So, um, I think I would need to slow down a little bit and condense the material But the consistent feedback have so far been just inspiring enlightening and or mind blowing and so on And what could you ask for right so we can today? Maybe you want to work on a little vocal modulation? Yeah, yes Yeah, that that would be awesome and so The difficulty conveying the passion I find public presentation very natural As well as the idea that bring forward the feelings I think I always convey the The feelings first and then the ideas following the feelings especially are very well rehearsed transcripts like this one And a do sometimes mentally to leave the room when facing a group of people not when public speaking But oftentimes during parties. I hope that's okay And um, what statistics do you employ? I check the transcript. There's no statistics. Um used in my transcript Even better Right. So what are the questions you're dropping asked? This is actually a very very good question and and I thought about it a lot But I can't really think of anything. So maybe you can also help me there And so what skills are in my interest? radical radical transparency There's very little you've read being at maybe your age. I don't know I'm 36 Yeah So so I don't think you have a whole lot of uh, things to worry about there, but go on Right. So so the last question what skills am I interested in inquiring or behavior? I would like to change So actually we're we're working with uh when I'm a and a very restricted medium because it's uh, literally just a video Right that that I have uh for 10 minutes to deliver on the other hand, uh, of course it enables a lot of visual gimmicks that um We may or may not use uh because it's not in person, right? I can levitate or whatever. Actually, I tried that once So but but I think uh, the easiest thing is just to keep to the visual slides and have the voice Um carry all the tonality and passion and whatever and only have my face appear During the the very beginning and during the transition between the video and the q&a. Um that that's my Idea when when does Audrey tell her story? Where do I get to know how this all began for you and why this matters to you and where you came from and how You got into this because I think that's quite important sure, um, well, um, you you want me to tell a three minutes version now or paste you a link or something No, no, I want to know what you're going to do in the present It doesn't look like your presentation had much about you in it Um, and I think we need to have a little about you When do you when do you intend to am I correct first of all of the video or is it is there a whole part that's about you? well, um, see, um, I I'm I'm one of the actually the first person to offer Uh technology help to the occupy the day before the occupy. So it is a intrinsically a very personal story um And uh, the uber case i'm the facilitator and also the co-chair for the whole thing So again, it's it's my story and of course the third story is about my work as digital minister So, um, I just don't want to be seen as taking all the credit from the occupiers, but it is very personal I'm not no, I'm not interested in giving in make having you take all the credit, but I would like to know how you At 36 has gotten to this place. Like what's your what's your story? Basically? Who are you? Okay, everybody to know that, you know, maybe maybe you're very famous to this crowd But I have not seen I don't think people know each other No, no, no, I I don't think so either right so uh very quickly Um No, take your time. I want to hear it. Okay Okay, I'm 36. Um, I dropped off junior high school after going through 10 different schools uh counting from kindergarten And uh after I dropped out I founded a internet search engine company with a few friends Got invested very from I'm from Taiwan. I'm I'm like always in taiwan And I went to Germany for a year, but otherwise haven't uh stayed for More than six months anywhere else. Um, so, um, yeah, I'm in taiwan and uh part of the the initial dot com Rush back in 1996, which is when I quit junior high school. Um, also, I think that's because the There's this Tim Bernsley who invented this word web thing And I found out everything that I can find online is 10 years ahead of what the textbooks have to teach me So, um, I just told my principles, you know, I'm going to learn from the internet instead. So, um, that's You quit junior high school. Yeah, that's right. That's when I was 15 Okay And what did you do after that after you finished school after you quit school? Um, I co-founded a a pretty large, uh, internet company Okay, um and um sold off the stocks when I was 18 or something Let the the pearl community for a while on the the pearl is a computer language one of the earlier scripting languages and it was in a state of stagnation and its creator larry wall decided to make a new version of pearl called pearl six and it was widely considering possible to To implement to do and I just came out of nowhere and implemented it That was in 2005 so between 2000 and 2005 I'm mostly doing free software advocacy and free speech and all sort of other activism things while running a social enterprise Uh, I'll call our internet. So that was all in Taiwan. Why is this may I have to interrupt you for a second? Why is You haven't told me the motivation. Why is free software and free speech important to you? What where did this come from right because because I was able to quit school Because of things like the Gutenberg project. It's like wikipedia before wikipedia, right? There's yeah, there's people who digitize all those books. So, um, I basically got all my education from projects like project wooden Gutenberg So I would like to give back. That's my motivation because otherwise it wouldn't be possible um, and also I think my outlook on history or human nature is Very much biased to our optimism because project Gutenberg only Contains at a time works before the first world war because everything afterwards is still in copyright So, um, I read the classics before the world wars. So I think that really biased my education Why does that lead you to optimism? Hmm because well before the first world war most of the thinkers In Europe at least did not anticipate civilization would even go into a downward spiral Keep going right. So, um, I think the The idea is when the internet was first beginning also, um, nobody really thought At least at that time that it will be as centralized as domesticated as today's internet Back at that day, um, I learned from the For example, the first blue ribbon campaign of the electronic frontier foundation and very early consensus making days So before I got my voting right when I was 20, which is the age of consent inside one I already experienced for five years a very different political model Which is what you call the rough consensus model, which is the model of how Well most ill out to the state, but still most of the early internet runs from which is this anarchistic model of rough consensus and running code So I think that's my my tribal culture. That's how I get a culture So I think that's all really fascinating. You're a very interesting person, obviously Um, but that needs to be coherent Uh, let's can I hear that can yeah, let's start like Let's do it simply like from a beginning middle end point of view like here. You are today. We I'm Audrey Tang and I'm doing this Like we can come up with a much more interesting way of doing it But can you please tell me how you got to where you are today? Obviously the story is going to start at about age 15 maybe before Well, yeah, sure. Um, uh, well, I'm Audrey Tang. I'm digital Ask you another favorite. Do you have a your phone near you? Uh, you mean like an iphone like this one I'm sort of that. Yeah, why don't you put on the voice recorder? So we capture what you say if this is useful if you're not don't worry. I'm recording this entire Yeah, right. Uh, okay. Well, but I wouldn't mind another recorder. Anyway, so yeah, uh Don't worry. We all know what's good. What's good with dick? You know that, right? All right, so I'm the mind Anyway, um, I think what's the the So how long do you think the the intro paragraph needs? Oh, I I think this should go just for a minute or two I I don't want I don't want to I I don't want to take away from what you're doing. Obviously And we have to figure out the right place for all of this as well Um, maybe it's just in the beginning when you're talking to the to the crowd really Um, and I you certainly don't need to introduce your name. Everybody knows who you are in terms of that I was there. So just start Somewhere interestingly. Okay. Mm-hmm. Sure um all right so, um Or can I give you you want me to give you a place to start? Sure, uh, when I was when I was 15 okay When I was 15, uh, I dropped out of junior high school to pursue a education exclusively on this new newly invented thing called the world web Um, I told my principal at the time that Everything that I currently are online is like 10 years in the future Compared to the textbooks. So she let me do that Um, and I found that online everything is Voluntarily given There's a lot of free resources and the best thing is that this whole online system this thing we call internet Uh, there's a political system behind it. It's called this rough consensus model Where people follow this anarchistic principles of coming to consensus and implementing things just without a central director Or presidents or voting. So that's the first political system that I know And it's the political system that I'm introducing now to taiwan's national government Whoa, we went from 15 to you're introducing something to the national government. Tell me give me a little more Give me a little more story there. Will you please? Okay? So the first political system you got it. Oh, by the way, your teacher just let you go Oh, yeah Well, they they actually fake my records to the to the ministry of education So I won't get fined by skipping voluntary, uh compulsory education And what your parents think about this? Well, they were initially very skeptical because nobody really knew what where web is right But I managed to to just reason it out and convince them after a couple months What year was it when you were 15? 1996 So maybe that's a better place to start in 1996. I was 15 and I decided I decided I was leaving school Okay, so I told I told the principal. I mean, I think you need to give me a little more detail here It's very interesting that the principal was actually on your side. Mm-hmm. Don't you think? Well, certainly Well, that's very ordinary. That's very unusual in a public public school or private school It's a public school. It's a public school. Okay. That's a very unusual thing. Let's not Let's not forget the fact of drama drama is very compelling To an audience who's listening to a million speakers a day, right? Yep So to give me the drama of your story. Come on. There you are. You're dropping out of school at 15. Okay. They're letting you go. Bye. Bye Mm-hmm Right. So what so there you go. You get introduced to this thing called rough consensus. So what what happens next? So you're 16. I don't want every year, but you know, let's get let's get to some of the The high points that you told me about that you co-founded a company Well, yeah, uh, well Actually 1996 when I come to think about it is also the the year that we in taiwan After 30 years of military dictatorship finally have our first presidential election Hey, that's good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. So it's like, you know, internet and democracy It's not the two things. It's the same thing in taiwan. They happened literally the same year The the year we have war a web. We also have our first presidential election Um, and I think that's why there's a very strong free software community in taiwan because We know that free software the free doesn't stand for free of cost We know that it's freedom is never free of cost freedom of assembly of speech Our parents and grandparents generation fought dearly for it. Um, so that's another arc that we can use That's a great observation All right. So, um, now now Where am I? So, um, when I was well I don't really know how how much detail do I need to tell between Like when I can tell that, you know, when I was 20 I started uh, devoting full time to the open source movement to the free software movement because I Want to give back to the community that uh, taught me, right? So, um, I I helped on this very new project called wikipedia on free net on all those Slash dot all those early community Websites and I think the the main idea is just to create a safe space in which we can all learn from some from each other And even if the experiments fail, we can always go back here. So it's like solidarity um, I think the uh, the other interesting part is In 2001 when I first got the right to vote Um, I went back to the district for a head of district level voting and um, it I wasn't living um in my district at the time and I had to travel for a couple hours to go back to vote and Well, the candidate I voted for ended up winning by one vote and they did a recount and they He still won by one vote and I think that that's really um indoctrinated me that uh In the sense that participation and like every vote counts literally and That the the public sphere is is there for everybody to participate By the way, I also my my dad was also the spokesperson of one of the Presidential candidates back in 1996. So we also did a lot of internet campaigning. I don't know if that counts So, um, I think there's all this idea of uh, internet participation Uh, democracy thing that's co-evolving in a sense in my life Are you are so you said you're an optimist, right? Yeah I think that's also a very nice place to begin Because not many people are today, especially the way as you know, right? Yes Uh, that might be the most interesting place to begin because all of this Is making me feel very optimistic. I mean, I think there's too much detail in what you're saying sure No problem easy to cut out. Okay But you're a you're a rare bird In that way in that you actually think that this this is an optimistic future, you know greetings from the future Not only a few hours ahead, but you know, I'm an optimist about where we're heading. Um, let me let me tell you why Okay, that's a great opening. Yeah, that's sort of the framework. I think yep I think you're you're getting a little caught in the details as you go through this, which is fine You have to unearth it You need think it's important to tell me and you tell me that you started this very large internet company. Is it important? Um No, uh, it was important back in the late 90s Okay, and today just bring me back today. What do you what do you do three things? What are they? Break it down for me and explain it to me slowly, please What do I do? Well, there's three things you said you did Um And all of them have left my mind and I didn't write them down so I can't right so right So there's three stories in my presentation. I think it helps if I actually show my presentation Just a second. Um It's Somewhere Um It's here So yes, um, the first story Is about how we occupied, um, the taiwan parliament for 22 days Who is we? Um, the occupiers A bunch of students This is back to occupy time. Okay. Very good. Okay. This is 2014 Um, I had no idea there was an occupy movement in taiwan. I live in york. Obviously i'm new york centric I'm not sure if anybody in the audience knows this either, you know, the mainstream media does not cover asia very effectively as you well know Right, sure. Yes So you may have to just sort of walk me through a little bit but continue, please okay, um Yeah, um So back in Were you a starter of the occupy movement in taiwan, for example Well, i'm the i'm the first person to offer the students who run to this parliament Internet support. So I think i'm one of the first civic tech supporters We're seen as neutrals In that scheme we provide equal internet access to the medics to the lawyers to protesters on both sides I think we can take some credit for having this to be the occupy. That's completely peaceful. Nobody when dead are missing And the occupiers actually got a consensus From half a million people on the street and actually the head of parliament Consented to death consensus. And so it was a victorious occupy. Tell me what you did you occupied the parliament for how long For 22 days Where you sat in the lobby you sat in the chambers. Yeah, everywhere everywhere. So At the time of the story right, so so back in the time and it was called a sunflower movement The mps at the time refused to deliberate a trade service agreement with beijing Because they think constitutionally beijing is part of taiwan is a domestic agreement So it doesn't need parliamentary debate or something like that In any case it's as if the mps went on strike. So the occupiers far from just protesting Did a demonstration in a demo scene sense meaning that we took the parliament but not instead of Protesting we deliberated the trade service agreement with half a million people on the street and show that how is it possible To do efficient deliberations even with this much people And this is facilitated by professional facilitators and co Coorganized by 20 angios the greens the labors The separatists all the peoples and were supported by the gov zero civic tech community Which i belong to and this is community is very interesting because our call to action is to fork The government and by forking the government it means that we look at all the government websites that we don't like Which all ends in gov.tw And built shadow websites that ends in g0v.tw So we solve the discoverability problem You just look at the government website change a o to a zero and get to the shadow government which open data and everything This is all presumably a part of your presentation, right? Oh, yeah Okay, so i'm trying to step that i don't want to hear the presentation because i'm sure it's great But i want to hear the store. I'm still trying to finish who you are Okay So there are there are three things you currently do in your life or in your job or in your work One is this occupying movement. What else do you do currently do? well Well, that's that's not how i phrased it I said there's three stories that i that i have in this presentation Occupy is something that already happened, right? So my my full-time job is just taiwan's digital minister member of the cabinet and all that and uh, my main work um is to Lower the fear uncertainty and doubt of the public service On concepts such as civic participation open government radical transparency and all that So the idea is mainstreaming participation Okay, very good. So really you're you you identify first as taiwan's digit for this crowd taiwan's digital minister and what that entails Is that correct? That's correct Perfect that that's what i wanted to that's what i wanted to know the presentation will go into the details of all this But i'm trying to just get to you to you know, here i am i dropped out of school at 15 I did this i did that i did this today i'm taiwan's digital minister the first are you the first digital minister of taiwan? that's right and And you are responsible and that job is responsible for this this and this right right so Oh, yeah, i'm responsible for pushing taiwan's open government agenda for social enterprise and for used affairs Although the last two probably doesn't enter the presentation yeah And how is this a radical position in taiwan? Give me a little i mean a little context here You're you're you're saying all this very matter of factly as if i know a lot of this stuff As if the audience knows a lot of this stuff I think you need to provide a little bit of context or else it's going to just sound quite factual right so um Well, yes, i know taiwan didn't have a digital minister But there is a tradition of having people who worked in international companies to work in the cabinet My predecessor was from ibm asia. Her predecessor was from google so and i worked with apple for six years So so it's kind of a tradition. It's not very out of ordinary here right um So what else um As taiwan's digital minister, well, but i can say that well i'm the first one that introduced this Idea of radical transparency or rough consensus or all distinct that the crowd identifies with because the previous ministers they Come from a very What would say establishment Class and doesn't actually put um, you know radical transparencies to your top agenda while i am so for example I publish publicly All the meetings that i hold even internal meetings All the meetings with journalists and everything And so this is actually very radical because um, nobody to my knowledge in any national movement ever did that So everyone knows that after a meeting with autry Autry will send the digital minister will send a either path link to all the participants and they can all edit for 10 days To take out the words that may sound too bad when it comes to press or whatever But after the 10 days or 10 working days editing It's all published verbatim online. So there's millions of words of hundreds of meetings that i've convened After entering the parliament cabinet a year ago Fantastic, what's the effect of that? So um, the effect is to vote first it made Somewhat surprisingly the public servants very much willing to innovate because the career public servants Have this dilemma if they do something right is always the ministry's credit If if they do something wrong the press has a way to find who actually did the wrong thing and put a blame on the career public servants But uh publishing this transcript reversed flip this situation because Yeah, because Yeah, because this digital ministry is blame seeking and credit avoiding if everything goes right People just check the original transcript and discover who is the Previously anonymous career public servant who came up with this great idea So they get the credit and if uh, this you know Innovative problem goes wrong because nobody did policy making this way. Anyway, autry gets all the blame So under this situation, uh, people are much more innovative than they previously was because you know I'm not claiming the credit and I don't uh issue commands instead. They just brainstorm So that's really so this is another reason you're an optimist. Obviously you can actually And I and it seems like you're actually getting career bureaucrats on your side at the same time Yes, they're not afraid of this which is really interesting, right? You would think You would think most of them would be very afraid So is this a part of the the thing you're going to be showing? Yes So this is the slide actually where I'm showing this thing So I want to be sure that you talk of not only did you do it But what was the result of it? Okay, the result is what's really interesting. The doing is Fairly interesting. I mean, you're obviously very smart and interesting. You're rocking by the way You're rocking back and forth. I don't want you rocking when you're doing your presentation. Okay. Sure, of course Let's just I'll just mentioning that. Um You want a swivel chair or on a rocking chair or in a straight chair? Um to be perfectly transparent I'm on my bed, uh, and the rocking was just me adjusting the position of the pillows and everything I didn't realize you're on your bed. That explains rocking. No problem. Okay, okay But what's really important here is the result of this action. I mean Equally the results of the occupy action, right? Is that you actually went out and And yeah and got it in months met. Yeah, that you actually brought democracy to the street Who knew if I don't know if the people understood what was going on or not But you actually enabled them to understand it and bring it to them. That's right So please always, you know, give me the upshot of this stuff. Okay Tell me some more, please. All right. So, um Yeah, so for example the the occupy the uh idea was that the parliament needs to really treat beijing as just another um diplomatic entity and pass treaties the same way as we pass treaty to for example, new zealand Um, and and that demand got met And so the students retreated peacefully. Um, this radical transparency designed to promote innovation in the bureaucracy Actually worked and it also kept lobbying To a minimum. Uh, it's not that I don't meet with lobbyists. For example, this is they flew from uber Is that all the lobbyist is actually adding to something because they know that everything is under 360 record and uh, so they behave much more civilized and Actually was able to bring several different disagreeing sides such as uber and taxis. Um, to A rough consensus to a agreement because of this style of working um, and This slide is where I appeal to the free software folks In the in the audience saying that um, I was the first thing that I did as digital minister is to recompile the linux kernel Which is operating system to run all those softwares that people love in the free software World and the end result is that because it runs on this what we call the sandstorm platform, which is now certified by our department of cyber security People can very easily add their free software contributions to be Part of the taiwan public service or well, anywhere's public service really and not worry about security Implications because the security is handled by the sandstorm security hardened platform So this is the the software slide that i'm going to talk about Yeah, so, um And uh, then this slide is about how we enlisted all the different ministries all 32 of them to send us one career public servant as participation officer and the end result is that For all the e petitions for all people's petitions above Say 5 000 counter signatures. It's like in in us. You have with the people, right? But after meeting the petition threshold instead of just a written response from a random minister The petitioners encounter signature people like six of them is actually invited to the national government to have a face-to-face deliberation with People from all the relevant ministries and the end result is that I want you to try this again for me, please do it this way Yes Before There was this program. This is how it works. Okay, when we tried the i need the before and after so I can understand it better Again, you know the the intricacies of the taiwanese government Aren't they're well-known neither or not necessarily that interesting what's interesting is how you formed it So give me the before and the after okay, let me hear So, um, yeah, so before I entered the cabinet. We had a e petition platform Just like we the people in the us But it was not very popular It was again like also like what we the people have been described like a ghost town And the reason is that people often get a very formal very bureaucratic written response from one of the ministries While what they're actually petitioning Yes, uh, what they're petitioning is actually very reasonable. It's just because it touches multiple different ministries So they don't get a satisfactory response from the one ministry that was designated to handle it So to solve this issue, uh, when I become digital minister, I, uh, invited at least one senior bureaucrat from every single every ministry in taiwan To form a virtual team called the participation officers and we're on the same slack channel We use all the same internet tools We basically acculturate them into the internet culture of rapid responses and not afraid of facing people So now the after a petition is signed the po's the participation office actually vote on things that they want to Collaborate on and then invite the petitioners on the face-to-face deliberation and we're able to solve some very difficult issues such as how many holidays to have in taiwan between the labor camps and and and the capitalists and for example, how to balance environmental issues of overfishing Versus the livelihood of local fishers and things like that and the lemon cars and everything you can think of Using this way of collaboration to everybody's satisfaction So say a little less. Okay Try that again and give it to me in about that was probably about three minutes. I wasn't timing Okay, let me see if you can condense quickly as you're walking through this. Okay Let me let me see if I can guide you a little bit. Okay Here's how it worked before When I mean I saw this problem and I did this And here's how here's how it's working today. It's not perfect, but it's done this this and this You don't have to over explain it. Let me hear you so, um Before I entered the cabinet, there was this e petition platform in taiwan It's called a ghost town and for a very good reason because people went Finally get 5000 people countersigning it but get a very bureaucratic response of very little actual substantial content And now, um after I become digital minister, it's much better It's not perfect but because we have one person from each ministry forming a virtual team of rapid response participation officers We actually invite the people who Enter the petition to meet with all the national ministry's people face-to-face And resolve some very difficult problems such as environmental issues such as What holidays how many holidays to have in the year and so on to everybody's satisfaction Did that feel better to you? slightly lukewarm Why what was the matter? um, I think if I use the same formula for one two three four For all the four things that I do as a digital ministry. It might be a little bit repetitive Possibly. Yeah. Yes possibly and I don't want you to use the same format I want it to give you the sense of the The storytelling arc of before Here's what we did here was the result. Okay. Well, I think I do think if you use it four times It's going to get repetitive. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, but for this one. Yes, I'm feeling better Okay, good. Give me another one Okay, you mean but that's the end of my four slides So do you want me to so as a digital minister? I only have four slides talking about my work as digital ministry Sure. So this is the first one. This is who I am. This is who I am This is the this is the radical transparency thing. Fantastic. The third one is the third one is the participation This is a free software. Yeah, and then and then this is the participation offices. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay Got it. I understand um Yeah, I just want to give you that that that's a very simple storytelling trope Okay For the action the result and the result by the way, it doesn't always have to be positive It's quite interesting when it doesn't work And maybe there's a rub or maybe you do a tweak or maybe something else is happening And this is not perfect. This is you know, whatever whatever it is. Okay. Okay Do me a favor. Let's work on a little vocal modulation. Yes And then we'll put this together. Okay. We'll we'll start putting some of this stuff together But let's talk. Will you bring up that sheet on on um On vocal modulation you have it handy. Yeah, of course just a second The most fast speaking training tips Eliminant verbal mush I think it's called vocal modulation Uh, I don't think I have one called vocal modulation What do you have? You have a zip with a limited verbal mush essential questions leading a panel question to ask yourself Slowly down start strong. Ted talks was watching telling memories for stories and 10 elements Oh, how interesting. I forgot to give you that one. Oh, I know why because vocal modulation is very hard to do on your own Okay Let me find it. Okay Yes, I made a decision to not do that one Mm-hmm. Can I share this on skype? Sure or or email, whatever I'll email it to you probably But show me how to share it on skype. Where do I go? Um, you just drop it on my face Oh, I just drop it into your thing. All right exactly onto your face Well, if it doesn't work, there's a conversation a balloon text balloon button Uh on top of the overlay Uh, and if you click it, that's where you can drop it also Oh, this is assuming you're on mac. I really don't. Oh, here you go You got it and You can you can have it all emailed to you as well if it doesn't You can download it from that. Sure I want you to do it with me. Let me know when it's open. Okay Hmm It's still on the wire I I don't see any files for you at the moment Okay, I'm gonna email it to you Do it the old-fashioned way Get it It's taking its time Very simple docking I'm checking the the spam folder just in case So Just a second How about the skype? Did the skype one open you? Did it download? The skype, I See you typing, uh, and then it doesn't really Go through the shot. This thing didn't go in. No, not at all. Maybe you would like to try. Oh Here it goes. Just did it again. Oh, yay. Yay technology. All right. Here we go About that, huh? Yeah All right, so here's what I want you to do. Mm-hmm. This is very very simple. Okay There's five or six sentences here one word is boldface read each one and Emphasize it with either loudness or strength of voice the word that is in boldface. Okay Mm-hmm. Sure Um, so do I just start? Yes, please Mary had a little lamp Okay, do the next one, please. Mary had a little lamp Do the third one, please. Mary had a little lamp Do the fourth one. Mary had a little lamp And now do the last one. Mary had a little lamp I'm going to do them as well and then you're going to read The part back to me on the right hand side. Okay. Okay Mary had a little lamp Mary not Tom had a lamp Do you hear that? Do you hear that by the way? I need to I need to clock with you. Okay. Mary had a little lamp She had it once but she does not have it now There's a past tense. Mary had a little lamp. She had one not two and not d-lamp Mary had a little lamp The lamp was little not huge Mary had a little lamp A lamp not a sheep Exactly. Okay. So were you able to hear the difference in the sentences when I did that? Yes, excellent This is something you could use to your benefit. Okay Because your speech is very I mean your English is fantastic. You're a great English speaker But you you tend to use a monotone When you speak, okay If you want to engage the audience a little more and draw them in you can you have the choice to emphasize different words Okay So from now on I don't care what words you emphasize, but let's use let's use the next six sentences. Okay I want you to pick a word you emphasize it And I also want you to add a little Microsecond of a pause after that word. Okay. Okay try This was their finest hour Exactly. Now by the way, I want you to try it again But pick the least important word that you think in that we all tend to pick the word that we think is important Now pick a word that you think is not important. Just go This was their finest hour Exactly. So every word is important. If you see what I'm saying, okay Every word depending on the meaning you want If he emphasized to a different effect, let's do the next one If we can stand up to him all you wrote may be free So was it may? Yeah It was a little half-hearted may could you do it with a little more conviction, please? Okay If we can stand up to him all Europe may or may not be free Okay, do the next one, please This is a very American English. Oh, yeah Terrible terrible. I was just wondering what you'd like to maybe come in today That didn't sound quite right No, it doesn't I think you meant that as a question like that's if that's the word you're going to use I was wondering if you'd like to maybe come in today. Sometimes, you know, it's not only doing it loud You can all but soft you could do other things with that Incredible instrument that is your voice, but that's a terrible sentence. Let's use the next one. Okay Okay Let us not Wutherland the valley of despair Exactly. Now that's really a difference for you. Okay When you emphasize words like that, does it sound very unnatural to you? Well, I've never spoken English like this. So English is like my fifth language. So, yeah But it's really really a difference. Yes. So it can you hear the difference? Yes Okay, good. That's all I want to know is if you can hear and feel the difference by the way Okay, when you're talking on a screen also, I can't see myself. Can you see me full full screen? Oh, yeah, I can see you full screen. It's a little lamb. You can use your hands really effectively like who is a little lamb Show me a little lamb. Show me little A little Show me little little little like this little show me less even smaller. I would really little exact like nanometer Yeah, show me big. It's hard to do big on a small screen. Yeah big Uh-huh. Yeah So when you do that, you become much more alive I don't you can't see but i'm doing it for you now. Yeah, okay Right, it's much more compelling than just here's my face on a screen Because this way I just look like one of those bureaucrats Right, but you have this voice and you have this body and I you're very limited By you know, you have this much space And use your body do it. So do the last sentence the very last one Okay Oh, okay We must do this now Exactly now do it really different now. I want you to try something else to puncture We must do this now. Okay That's staccato. Let me hear you. We must do this now I like the way you did it first much more about the way it was much more you Okay, so the point of this is just to get natural Okay, this is not going to happen in a minute. It's not going to happen in a week. It may not happen by mazfest, okay But it's something you can think about when you're presenting all the time. Okay, and you can play with this This is like I mean the content of your cake is there This is the icing that really draws the listener in to pay attention and because you're on a screen It's more challenging, right? It's just harder. So let's play a little with tone in English. Okay The next part now we're going to pick two words. I just picked his sandwich. Okay The ham sandwich you could have make it a pork bun. I don't care. You could do whatever you want with it Okay, I only want you to use those two words and I'm going to call out an emotion And I want you to convey that emotion Okay, this is not what you do naturally in English. Okay I'm going to ask you to really convey emotion through the words just through the tone of your voice Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, I'll just use your words and it's fine. So cheese cheese sandwich cheese sandwich Is it anger? cheese sandwich Anger more angry cheese sandwich Thank you happy cheese sandwich happier cheese sandwich cute Sad can you be sad with cheese sandwich? cheese sandwich Okay, you don't have to cry cheese sandwich The cheese sandwich me How about important? important Yeah cheese sandwich More emphatic please cheese sandwich There you go one more time cheese sandwich exactly so before When ministers would lobby They would just send back a pro forma response that was so boring. No one could even read it Now That their participation officers they see that their words actually have meaning that they're no longer It's no longer a culture of blame But a culture of I can't remember what you said, but it's okay collaboration But anyway, right and it actually matters it actually matters to them now And they find that their engagement they're more popular They're more alive in their job They're rock stars Well, you know for a bureaucrat maybe getting somebody to read their fucking, you know boring transcript is like a rock star, right? It's true. It's true. Yes So give me a quick use some use some vocal modulation Mm-hmm and very some tone and tell me a sentence or two what they did before and what's happening now, okay? Let me hear let me hear Before when people send in those e petitions They get this very blunt like Nothing really matters response from the bureaucrats But now with the participation officers all collaborating across ministries They become alive. All the responses are not just text. They're personal They were invited to Taipei or we fly to those rural islands and meet with those 5000 people's face-to-face on live stream So how unnatural does that feel to you like maximally? Like I've never spoken like this before And I could tell and did it feel convincing. No, not at all Well, you're wrong. Okay. Did it? Yes, it's much more It's more pleasurable to listen to when you're going up and look watch my hand when you're going up and down When you're fluctuating in your voice I mean, I feel like you were overdoing it Which is that's where I want you to begin Okay, overdoing is a very good place to start It's like, you know, when you write something your draft is this long It's this long, right? Yes So that's what I want you to do. I want you to over emphasize as we continue. Okay Just go crazy with it. I'll tell you when it's wrong Okay Or when it's really good like I have to tell you I thought that was very good I Me being able to listen attentively. Okay. I'm only here's how I'm working. I have my finger on my pulse. Okay As long as you get my blood going I'm with you. Ah, okay Okay, that's great. That's what I like to do is engage me all the time. Okay Awesome. By the way, I think when you begin your presentation, it would be a good idea to introduce I don't know if you do this in the beginning the comments I think you should invite the participation very early. Do you do that? Yes, that's my first slide actually Okay, very good So I think that let's just use the tone and the emotion And the word emphasis going forward. Okay. Okay Very good so Do you want to walk me through your the presentation now the deck you're going to use you want to do that? Okay, sure Well, it's a 10 minute presentation anyway, so we can do it in 10 minutes I'd like to do it a couple of times. Okay. I'd like to start it off with You know in in 1995 or when I was 16 just start right there or I'm an optimist Okay, not, you know, whatever it is that you want to start with. Let's just pick a place. Okay All right. All right. Sort of like the optimist is your theme Mm-hmm Yes, and the and that's a good theme by the way, and it's something you can come back to You don't have to a hundred times, but it's certainly a way to wrap also gives you a good conclusion Um, and it I believe from what I've seen and heard from you in one hour only That that it really is the underlying story here. Am I correct? Am I correct? No, that's correct So let's start there. Okay. Let's see how that works if it works um The way I you know look here's what I I never told you anything about me, but I'm going to give you a bunch of tools. Mm-hmm as I already have And you're going to take the ones that work for you. Okay. They're super helpful, by the way Yeah, they're the ones that I did receive happy to know that you read them I had no idea if anybody was going to read them or not Okay, but they're they really work best when it's one to one You know, it's hard to read something and get good at it, right? So, you know, is there anything else before we kick into this? Was there anything else that stood out? Was it speaking more slowly or or was there anything else that you thought? Okay, I'd like to work on with this guy Well, um the verbal mush thing. Um, I actually look at my transcript and Saw a lot of actually because that's a verbatim transcript from my recording, right? So the stenographers type what they heard but I I took them all out I think it's really helpful. Um, I had maybe like seven actuallys So that's that's the thing. Uh, and I think the The slow speaking also really helps it's it's In Taiwan for a political Minister in the cabinet We're trained to do the opposite. We saw the verbal acting thing is what the MPs do, right? There's a very clear if you you see a parliamentary inquiry You see one side using all their vocal modulation and the other side being completely plain and I'm on the completely plain side Well, let's fuck with that. Yeah, so so let's fuck with that. Yes. Let's just fuck with that. Miss radical transparency. Okay, okay Um, uh, so listen, don't worry about the filler words. Actually, I'm very sensitive to filler words You actually you don't use actually that much actually. Okay. That's great actually It's a little bit actually but not so much. All right. Okay. I'm and if you're going to slow Here's what I want you to do. Okay Slowing down is very hard to do. We all revert to our natural pace. That's just Okay, the way to do it. I think is a little more efficient is at the end of a powerful sentence or at the end of a paragraph of thinking pause for a second Just pause give it some silence. Okay. It gives the audience Some time to catch up. Mm-hmm. Okay. It breaks your flow a little bit It makes people think you're really thinking about something smart. Hmm Okay, okay So you can use pausing as a way of slowing down And I think you'll actually will slow down actually a little more actually just by adding that actual pause. Okay Mm-hmm. Can you try it with me now? Just read something in front of you. I don't care what it is Put a pause in after a sentence or two. Let me see if I can hear it Okay, um Just read anything. I don't care what it is. Take an emotional state and build a whole conversation around phrase cheese sandwich Imagine you've just seen the most exciting thing You want to share that experience with a friend, but you can only use the words cheese sandwich to convey your feelings and know others Try consoling using this cheese sandwich or congratulating Experiment with as many different ways as you can Does that work? Again, you're probably 30 too much. Okay Okay, but that's really good. You're really doing it. Okay Thank you. I love your participation. You're really going for it. We will hone this in the next hour. Okay? Okay, we'll absolutely get it to a place where it still may feel unnatural But it will sound I think you'll understand the effect of it. Okay. That's great Okay, so start please with the optimist. Give me a maybe a two minute introduction I'm gonna clock it and if it's going too long or if you feel like it's going too long to stop Okay, and we'll start again. We'll get it. We'll get it. We want it to go fast Maybe a minute and a half at the most. Okay. Okay. This sounds great All right, Audrey. Give it a go. Let's see what can I look at you full time? Please? Sure. Sure. Of course I want to watch you here. Okay, because this is the moment when people get to see you, right? This is you're actually live with them at this moment, correct? Yes So, um I want you full screen, please. Okay. I'm closing I got you. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, again Greetings from the future. I'm literally from the future. I'm now eight hours in the future in Taiwan, um No, that's that's not a very good start. Let's start again. Um, okay You know what don't start there. Yeah Start with This idea of optimism. Okay. Okay. Let's do this Try it. Okay. Let's we'll see if it works. We'll know if it works right away. You knew that work. Okay. Let's do enough Okay Well, let's combine those Hello, um, hi everyone. I'm from the future Um, in Taiwan we're literally eight hours in the future But we're also experimenting with a future form of democracy and let me tell you I'm pretty optimistic about it It's working pretty well So how about this or do I do I just focus on myself? I think the future is fine. Greetings from the future. I'm eight hours ahead. It's already tomorrow. Um And in Taiwan, we're doing the future of democracy. Um And you know unlike Most people in the world that I know right now I'm incredibly optimistic. Mm-hmm. That sounds great Go for it. It's yours. Okay um Hi, I'm Audrey. I'm in Taiwan now. We're eight hours literally in the future and Let me do something else. Okay Stop the future forget. Yes. Yes. Let's skip it. I'm erasing it now. Let me hear start with optimism. Okay Okay, I just want to hear how it sounds. Okay. Okay. Keep going start again. Go on I'm an optimist. I've always been an optimist ever since I dropped out of Junior high school when I was 15 That was 1996. We just had our first presidential election in Taiwan We had we suffered for 30 years of martial rule of martial law of dictatorship But democracy was at hunt and with democracy also this fine thing called the world eye web I was able to finish my education pretty much on my own But not really on my own But with a loving community of free software hackers and that shaped my education And that's how I become a optimist because you see in the early internet People had this crazy idea of running the internet as an anarchistic political system Where nobody gets to command anyone to do anything and all the internet protocols Everything that you can see today was invented by those free willing people who doesn't get to vote or command on each other Does that work? Well, what do you think? Well, I think it's pretty convincing to me, but not maybe not to half of the audience I thought it was a much better start. First of all, it felt much more honest. Okay Um and much more real and actually much more serious. Okay. Okay. I mean I I don't again. I don't think talking about time or the weather is a terribly interesting. Okay. That's great. That's great Okay, that's me. It's my opinion. Okay. It's not necessarily what you know, it's good. It's good. What else could I improve? I think I think it's like You know Unlike many people in the world I'm an optimist. Okay and This is a strange thing to be right now, but with me it started in 1995 Okay, that year I dropped out of school. I was 15 at the time My teacher even agreed that it was a good idea that I dropped out of school because I said that I wanted to learn On the web I wanted to use this new thing called the worldwide web Because a lot about it appealed to me. It was anarchistic. It was rebellious No one was in control And I and for some reason whatever it was you wanted to do this. You have to tell me why Okay today I'm the the uh digital minister of Taiwan the first digital minister And I'm still trying to bring some of these radical ideas that I learned in 1995 To my to my work. Okay. They include radical transparency. Blah blah blah blah and blah blah blah blah, okay I'm an optimist because right now it seems to be working How does that sound something like that? Listen, that's all I just made that up based on what you told me How did that sound to you? It's fine. Uh up to the the last sentence Right now it seems to be working seems to be Look warm. Uh, I would either be more cautious or even more energetic but not like in the middle So, um today, uh, I'm Taiwan's first digital minister I'm putting into the practice the same ideas that I was taught in 1996 by the internet community And so far it's transformed our society Fantastic. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you have to tell you have to tell me what's true. Okay And I love that because it's You've not taken the credit for it, right? Like I always think the speaker should be as humble as possible. Yes Right And that instead of saying it's working great and all my ideas are fantastic. You said instead it's transforming the society Yeah That's perfect. Mm-hmm Right and doesn't that give you a good bridge? It am I now engaged? I want to hear a look. Oh my god. How's that happening? Right, but that creates a additional problem because now Do I just go into the story or do I say but by the way if you want to ask me questions You go to this website Yeah, before I get into the story I want to invite your participation Okay, you know in the idea of radical transparency feeling, you know going with the idea of radical I want you To ask me anything you want. I'm gonna as you go through. Okay on this site is a here's the format You just plug it in. I'll come back to when I'm done If it's important Scream, are you gonna be able to see the questions as they roll in? Yeah. Yeah in real time I mean, are you able to really you want to stop when these are coming in or do you want to pick them up at the What's more comfortable for you? Well, um so far because People take time to type in those questions So, um, I found that it's easiest if I just record the whole 10 minutes saying and Answer on the second part, but if there's a really good question. I can of course interrupt anytime myself I don't know how you I mean you can either say look I'll I have something at the end And or something catches my eye. I'll interrupt myself and go forward Oh, that sounds good or or I or I can just you know, not say how it will be handle, but just saying, you know But just just before getting into the story. I like to invite you Yeah, to to to ask me anything. This is called ask Audrey anything And just go to slide of the come on your phone or any internet connecting device and enter today's date Which is 1029 and enter your question anonymously or like others people's questions And now back to the story Is that something like that? Okay. Well, that's that's a okay bridge I think that's a good bridge. I really do. Hey, by the way, what's the title of your presentation? um Stories from the future of democracy Okay, I love it the mazfest folks. They like to know what the titles are ahead of um Okay, good. So let me so what let's keep going. Okay now again You're going to speak a little more slowly or add a pause. You're going to use voice for vocal inflection They emotion where possible You can over you can overdo it. It's absolutely fine. Let's go. So here's let me see. Oh, can I use the bathroom for one minute? Yeah, sure. Sure. Go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you. What five languages do you speak by the way? uh taiwanese holoc and then taiwanese And then uh, germany, uh, german and then a little bit of french, which I have completely forgotten now in english That's the sequence. I think I forgot french completely when I learned english anyway, so um Unlike many people So do I just start saying unlike many people? Let's start with your yeah start with you I don't you want to pop your deck up or do you not want to or just I watch you Well, you want to start you want to start from the top? Let's do it. Yeah, sure Yep Unlike many people I am an optimist today And I've always been an optimist, but especially When I dropped out of high junior high school back in 1996 when I was 15 years old I discovered this infinite worldwide web On which there's no it's it's run down sentences again Unlike many people Today unlike many people today. Let me let me give you something. Yes say um, this when you say uh When you introduce i'm an optimist you should say this strange condition began when I was 15 years old. Thank you. That's great strange condition This strange condition. That's great. Okay So I say it like I'm an autist right this strange condition. Okay, so, okay um Unlike many people today. I'm an optimist The strange condition began when I was 15 years old There was 1996 When a royal web was first invented I discovered this shiny new thing And saw that the future of human knowledge is on it compared to the pale text books And I taught my teachers that I want to quit school and start my education on the royal web Surprisingly the teachers all agree with it And so, um, I started founding a startup working on web technologies and I get to learn this fabulous community Who all run with this crazy idea of this anarchistic? No one was in control political system that powers the internet till today So today i'm taiwan's first digital minister I'm putting into practice the same rough consensus civic participation radical transparency ideas that I learned when I was 15 years old And surprisingly it's working and it's transforming our society So in the spirit of participation I would like to ask you to put your phone and enter slido.com And ask me questions ask me anything by entering 1029 that's today's date on the browser And I will answer them after this 10 minute talk In 2014 there was the first demo scene of the radical participation idea We occupied the parliament for 22 days At the time the MPs in taiwan were refusing to deliberate a trade service agreement with beijing And because MPs were on strike we got into the parliament at night and demonstrated How to deliberate a trade service agreement with everybody It's called how long did that go for was that for 24 days or 22 22 days over for 22 days We demonstrated how you negotiate trade. Yes, okay very good. Okay, and um 22 days we demonstrated how to Discuss a how to deliberate a trade service agreement with the whole society There was over 20 NGOs participating the greens the labors the separatists everybody But the key point here is that we supported this whole deliberation with a radically transparent Broadcasting live streaming logistics system, which we exported to hong kong for the umbrella revolution by the way And it's powered by this community called gov zero Gov zero is a community with the call to fork the government We take the government websites, which all ends in gov.tw and make better open alternatives And ends in g0v.tw So if there's any website that anyone in taiwan doesn't like They can just create a fork of the version and abandon the copyright So the Come so the country in the next procurement cycle can just include and merge back these ideas So when the state when the parliament doesn't deliberate this kind of thing instead of protesting against it We thought maybe we can do it better And so there were thousands of civic hackers at the time working on the street just to Make facilitation possible and make everyone who care about trade service agreement put their input Over the phone over the web over anywhere or just walking to one of the booths we set up And I think this is not a coincidence that we have so many free software civic hackers Because as I said back in 1996 when world was first invented it's also our first presidential election There was 30 years of martial law and we are the first generation that has both democracy and the internet So free software to us never means free of cost Because our parents generation paid dearly for the freedom of assembly of the freedom of speech And so this is why we were able to run this occupied completely peacefully and agree on a set of consensus That the head of the parliament eventually agreed to so it was ended peacefully And the whole society learns that there is a way for people to deliberate at scale And so after the Occupy There's many cities adopting the same methods and the national government has a changed leadership the new prime minister said, you know crowdsourcing Civic hacking everything is just going to be the national agenda And so we civic hackers were recruited to solve one of the most Interesting policy problems at a year, which is the uber problem. And this is not Are you so wait, are you telling me that the Occupy movement Caused the government to rethink what it was doing? Yes, and a change of leadership and all of the the major cities mayorships So that was actually very major, right? It's a revolution, but Okay, yeah, you you need to you need to say that in your transition, okay this this you know This caused a revolution, although a peaceful revolution. This was a radical Transformation that and the election of 9th of 2015 whenever it was To the end of 2014, but yes, yeah, here's what happened Okay, they did that they did this. Okay. Now we're going into uber. Okay. Okay. So, um, yeah So let me just fill it up. Um, so at the election at the end of 2014 many occupiers Just find themselves mayors when they didn't Expect it. It turns out there's a radical shift in the society people start demanding for open government And and everyone who campaigned for open government magically became mayors much to their surprise And so because of this the prime minister resigned and the new prime minister in engineer said, okay from now on Crowdsourcing open data is just going to be the national direction. Does that work better? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I don't think it's magical though. You use the word magical. I don't think okay, okay So, um, yeah, so let's go do uber Um, so at the time There's this very interesting. Yeah before we do uber. Yes. So that was how that was how This Changed the government. Okay What is the story of uber? What are you telling me how this opened the doors to what negotiation you tell me? What what are we talking about with uber? Yes, so at a time, um, so instead of going to the presentation, um, I'm explaining it now Um, yeah at a time uber was operating illegally in many different jurisdictions and causing a lot of protest and Taxi drivers surrounding Ministries everywhere and so on and there's very little a sovereign state can do about it For example, the paris city. They seized the uber's office and confiscated all their equipment But it's just an app. It just kept running. So, um, it is actually a very challenging problem for any national problem government to solve and so, um, so that's that's the lead Actually, it can also go into the presentation. So, yeah So, yes Okay, keep going. Let me hear keep going. Okay Right. So, um, yeah, as I mentioned, um, there's very little actually what a sovereign state can do about uber because it's an app and To me, it's a meme a meme Is a called sharing economy by the way at the time It the meme essentially means that algorithms dispatch cars better than loss. So we don't have to obey loss Um, and this meme is very powerful It's like a a flu of the mind a virus of the mind If you catch a uber and you catch this meme Chances are that you will spread it to other drivers and other passengers And if a driver suddenly discovers after a couple weeks, this is actually not working What they've already passed it on. So just like any other epidemic, um, it really made, um, a a pandemonium is a Not a very good word or well a pandemonium Of the of the taxi drivers industry in taiwan and everywhere in the world and the taxi drivers Surrounded the ministry of transport demanding Negotiation, but the thing is this you can't negotiate with a virus of the mind It's in a different category. You can't negotiate with flu either Right. Um, the the idea is that if this idea gets caught, um, like a meme spreads to the sufficient people It will just keep uber running. So to solve this problem We thought about the way we did during the occupy is through deliberation Because we think deliberation is an inoculation Of the mind it inoculates after sitting down and listening to everybody's sides about everyone's ideas and coming to terms with a consensus It inoculates people against future prs Inoculates people against future, um, incitements, uh from uber or from any other Agency, so I think we think it's essential that we get All the stakeholders and get them to sit down and agree on a set of consensus And we do this through the focus conversation method The focus conversation method means that we first collect everybody's facts And then we collect everybody's feelings about the same set of facts There's the same set of fact. I may feel happy. You may feel angry and it's all okay After we get everybody's feelings represented Then we ask for people's ideas we brainstorm and the best idea are the ideas that address the most people's feelings And then we ratify the ideas. We translate them into legalese and sign them into law What prevented the before I would say before before the focus conversation method Usually the government the private sector and individual academics use an expert language to talk about policy While not letting the people on the street know what they are talking about But that doesn't prevent people from on the street from talking about it it's just they develop a different set of language and Actually disagree on the same set of basic facts And without the same set of the basic facts people become unable to empathize with each other's feelings and ideas in this environment grows into something very dangerous They grow into ideologies Once people are infected with ideologies, they become blind to new facts They become blind to each other's feelings and this is what we set out to solve So when planning the uber deliberation, not only the government publish all their relevant transport data as open data We also ask the private sector and the civil society to contribute to this pool of facts And then we use machine learning. That's artificial intelligence this year We use AI to help facilitating people's feelings. What you're seeing here is my avatar Sitting among my twitter friends and facebook friends, and we all have something to say about uber The thing is when you enter this polis website, it shows one sentiment I'll translate this to english by the way Uh, which you can agree or disagree and as you agree or disagree Your position moves on this two-dimensional map that represents all the possible different sides that people are taking toward uber And the interesting thing is it lowers people's antagonism is that the english word It doesn't yeah antagonists against each other because you see all the these people on different sides are your facebook and twitter friends You just didn't talk about this over dinner And second it shows that over three weeks of time people can actually converge to the center At the beginning the people were all on the side But because we say we only give biting power Of anything that people can propose that convince a super majority. That's 80 percent of people People compete to bring better ideas that resonate not only with like-minded people but across the aisle So by the end of three weeks, we have seven ideas that very strongly Resonated with everybody such as insurance such as tax paying registration and so on and we just translated that into law And yes, can I can I ask you a question? Yes, you go back two slides, please. Yes slide No, no, no, no go forward one No, go forward the other one Yes So you said that this after three weeks it actually moved people's positions, right Is there a slide that shows how the aggregate looked before and after? Oh, yeah, I can I can produce that Yeah, I'd really like to see that it would be very helpful like like visually aggregating to the yes I'm assuming I don't know what I'm looking at here. And maybe I need two more slides Like here's where we were when we began Is where we are where we were after the deliberation. It's very interesting very interesting I think that would help really articulate it in the mind of the viewer Okay, that's great. Yeah Um, okay, so Yeah, after three weeks This is a great example by the way I like this example so much more than the doc gov example. This is very clear We'll talk about it. Keep going. Please keep going. This is very good. Well, I can take the dev zero pot art out I don't want you to take it out. I keep going. All right, so, um Right, so after we get everybody's feelings and a set of seven feelings that resonates with practically everybody They may be taxi drivers. They may be uber drivers. Everybody agrees on those things It's now much easier for the government to meet with all the stakeholders and check with them one by one Here is the consensus of the people. Do you agree? And if you do agree, how do we translate that into law? So after the live consultation, which is live streamed and people had input just as you are doing now through their mobile phones We ratified a set of regulations and uber cannot help You know, but Well, cannot help It's actually the uber was a part of the ratification. They agree. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes Okay, so they couldn't but agree Yeah, so yeah, so they They couldn't well couldn't help but agree. Well, anyway, so yeah, uber help but agree They could not help but agree. Basically, there was, you know, yeah Right. So so they're they're bound to the worst. They said during the live consultation and they agreed So when we ratified, um, this in august 2016 Everybody know that it's coming. Everybody anticipated it and uber now operates legally in Taipei But so did the taxi companies who are now or adopting the same models that uber is using for dispatching its cars So that's the second story Um, I'll just pause a little bit here Um, I remember you saying but there's a rub. Do I literally say but there's a rub Well, a rub is um, there's a downside. Okay. Okay. That's what you want to say that. Okay. Go on Right. So but but it's not it's it's not all Okay, so ratification uh at the end and everybody work. Okay, however, um, right There's a rub. Why but there's a rub. See how it works. Let's start But there's a rub this process is very expensive um We put maybe a dozen full-time us and a lot of mediators volunteers also Who um run this process over the preparation with three months or so and it was experimental, of course people all wanted To see whether the techniques we had in occupy can work for a national deliberation It did work, but it was very expensive and as a consequence the public servants the bureaucrats are somewhat turned Do I say turned off? Do I say shy away? Do I say afraid become kind of afraid if uh, if if all the policymaking needs to be how expensive was it? um, it's maybe 20 full-time staff on the government side for three months 20 volunteers on the civil society side for three months So it's very involved So but what I want to say it's expensive I guess I want to say it's expensive, but what's the cost of not doing it? How expensive is it to not come to? How expensive is it to not come to agreement if you're hiring lawyers? I mean, is it really expensive compared to lawyers and lawsuits and endless? I don't know. I'm just asking right right. So so maybe I shouldn't say expensive I would say it demanded a lot of commitment Or something like that. What were they complaining about money or were they complaining about time? They're they're complaining about time Like like they had to put put down other things that they are doing Yeah, so it is it's it's time-consuming. Definitely. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's super time-consuming. Yeah Okay Super consuming go for it. Okay. So it's super time-consuming right, okay on and we thought but there's We thought but there's a lot of different ways that we can improve on this to scale this process of listening and automate a lot of this stuff that we had real human beings doing like collecting people's ideas and Responding to them and so on all these could presumably be automated by machine intelligence And so this is this is why I was hired right after the ratification as the digital minister of taiwan And we started this public digital innovation space pdis It's like the gds or usds in the us or Well, maybe it's not so good to make comparison like this. Anyway, so we started pdis. It's a it's not a bad thing to do By the way, I mean Wherever you can help me understand what it is right So it's like the government digital service in the uk or the us digital service in the us Is a digital service of the national level and we have designers. We have programmers We have a lot of young people working to automate away a lot of those chores That the public servants are doing in order to make participation possible But I think even more interesting than the technological contributions we're doing is the culture that we're bringing So I'm a radically transparent Digital minister and by that I mean that all the journalists or the lobbyists to everybody get to ask me questions But only publicly I get I get questions from a private email I will reply and say if it's okay to give my answers publicly and if not Well, I just give them links to what my previous statements are So because of this culture of radical transparency To my knowledge, I'm the only one in the world in the national government doing this It's not just to the lobbyists and journalists, but also for internal meetings For all the hundreds of internal meetings that I have since I was the digital minister Everything was transcribed. There was a written record for every everything Everybody said during meetings and we send them to participants After afterwards to check for 10 days and publish And the effect of this is very surprising The bureaucrats actually become very inauditive and Risk-taking they propose some very good ideas under this condition But that's because Previously before I introduced this kind of radical transparency They would get a blame if things go wrong and the minister would get a credit if things go right But now with this completely accountable Record if things go right Well, they get the credit because their name is on the transcript And because this is an experimental method, if things go wrong, well, it's all the digital minister's fault So under this condition, they become very inauditive and open to a lot of Interesting ideas And one of the idea is adopting this thoroughly free software platform called sandstorm as our public service internal platform We use the same tools like etherpad like trello like slack like, you know, how the free software Community is organizing our self these days. We also use it in the public service Previously the roadblock was the cyber security issue But we were able to find this community platform called sandstorm that solves the cyber security problem It gets audited by our cyber security department So that all the free software that runs on top of it doesn't suffer from cyber security attacks and issues So we were able to adopt a lot of free software working methods just by adopting this sandstorm Free software platform Can I ask you can I interrupt you for sure? Ignorance, what's the virtue of using free software? Is it simply to save money or is there a larger philosophical issue that you're that you're concerned with? Well, it there is of course saving money because for the 60,000 public servants to pay for a per se license is impossible Yeah, yeah. Yep. Okay. Yeah Yeah, and and there there's also because it's first free software We're not dependent on any vendors So if any public servant doesn't like the system we're using and they can code They just contribute and make the system a little bit better So they need just I think you need to explain that. Okay. Yes. First of all that there's 60 000 members and 60 000 licenses No one was going to pay for that. That's right So that was a roadblock that we just overcame with this Second is if you don't like the software and you can code change it or find some 12-year-old who can change it for you, right? Something like that. That's exactly right Yeah, and so I think it's important to say that Yes, um, yeah, and we have a lot of Interesting system proposed by young public servants like the a system to order lunch together or to plan travels together Or whatever right it's just really soft one of the chores It's a great thing that actually brings people together. Mm-hmm. Yeah So so now we have a free software community inside the national government um, and the Well, how do I bridge into this? Well, and also we had an e petition platform Um as a way to for people to participate It was like the we the people platform in the us Um, but it really didn't receive much attention before I was the digital minister Because people would get this those very blank very bureaucratic Answers that doesn't really solve their problems, but just explains the problems And the reason why is that often when people propose something it touches many different ministries And so the one ministry designated to answer for it can only answer for the little part that it has In this policy suggestion But after I become the digital minister We asked each ministry to send a team at least one person to serve as participation officer We assembled this virtual team of 50 people online using slack using all those online tools and Train them to face the people directly. So now in taiwan when people start to get a petition They know instead of a written, um, nonsensical response from any minister They will actually get to meet with all the relevant ministries Either in taipei where the capital is or we will fly to those rural areas and islands If they're petitioning for a local development So we were able to solve a lot of very Interesting problems like this without the any ministry committing too much people to it So they relieved their fear uncertainty and doubt Since the time when we did the uber deliberation because this time Everything was automated. They only put one or two people forward and they still get a pretty good result So that got a little long to the end. I think this section should be a little shorter And I think the answer is what you're doing is I mean you said it was a Nonsensical response. I don't think that's the right word. I think it's a bland and bureaucratic response that no one No one believes anymore, right? It just feels it just feels dutiful if you know that word. Yeah, okay duty. It's great dutiful is a great word, right? No passion no conviction, right just a dutiful boring Response this actually got people to engage. Mm-hmm. I think that's the point. You're talking about engagement. Is that what you're talking about? That's right. That's right. Get to that Let's get to that. This should be a little shorter. Mm-hmm Keep going, please. Okay, so I just keep go to the other slide Well, I don't know. I interrupted you. I'm sorry, but no, that's fine. It's fine. Yeah Okay, so where are we next? What's the next slide? Uh, well, it's the ending actually it's just another minute after this right, so, um So the idea is that voting and collectivism is every very easy Everybody can do it like four bits every four years, but it's not much bits Or we can do hacktivism and occupy the parliament and exercise agenda setting power and transform the society But we cannot do that for every policy issue So we need to build a ladder between the two polar opposites We need to build a sharing of open data. We need to build uh interactive public q&a forums And that's where we're at at the moment We we bring the technology to people instead of asking disadvantaged people to use technology And we can build a deliberation system that scales to all the local communities, the regional community And the national policymaking community for everything And the best thing is that this process itself is in the commons So you don't have to go through the Taiwanese the process itself is free the the process itself is Is is a free software project so right So um the process itself Is is a free software project So you don't have to go through the Taiwanese government if you want to run it for your local government You can just take our code and process and fork it So anyone anywhere on us can run this idea of Yeah, and of taking something like a non-resolvable singularity And turn it over into what we call a plurality that we'll listen to one side And the then the other side across the time dimension resolving our differences and eventually know what we ask of any specific technology Instead of having the technology dictating what we do And we I think we need to build a unified democracy not hijacked by ideologies We need to build a efficient democracy that responds to the demands of the environment And a pragmatic democracy that would let people take care of each other's feelings We do this just by listening and building technologies that help us listen to each other Thank you for listening beautiful, um You call it a pragmatic. I call I call it empathetic empathetic. It is that's much better This pragmatic is practical, but with the hearts you're thinking empathetic, which is that I can hear you I actually hear you That's a radical idea these days as you know Right. Nobody's listening anymore. Mm-hmm. Right. Yes It's very inspiring. Um, I want to go back to the doc gov part the very first second, please Yes, this is great. This is great. You're really great. Thank you So so just we occupy get that move to the next one, please And this talks about how many sides there is the sunflower movement and we're able to scale the deliberation by deploying Civic technology from the gov zero movement So so this is fork, which means so tell me and just look at me and tell me so, okay So I I I got lost where This is I mean it got very technical. This is going. No, no, no, no, it's okay. Yeah Well, tell me in English. Just tell me simply to me what this means, okay? Okay What's the impact of this? What's the power of this? So the gov zero movement Is this idea that instead of blaming the government for not doing something right? The civil society can do a prototype and do that thing well to show the government how to do it I see. Yeah. Um, and so we did that for many different government websites. Can you give me an example? Sure one one example One example um, or the canonical example is that the annual national budget Is 500 pages long. It's a pdf. Nobody actually read it And the gov zero people the very first project was this budget the gov zero that tw which shows the National budget in a way that everybody understand. Uh, and I can actually Open it. Yeah Chinese, but I hope it works. Yeah, it works. Right. It doesn't matter. So, um Right, so what what this does is that it shows the the national budget according to every different ministries and showing the ones that's Raising year after year in green and decreasing Year after year in red and the bubbles correspond to the size of the budget And if you click on each one, it shows the nitty gritty details and you can also switch to the bird's eye view that lets you Well, it's taking its time. But yes, so you can drill down to each and every budget details And after the gov zero did this And after the occupying after the election The Taipei city government the newly elected mayor a occupier himself Just copy and pasted this whole thing to Taipei's budget program as the participatory budget platform for the Taipei city So, um anyone can just look at any one part of the Taipei city budget on this map and type in any question They want to ask and a career public servant actually comes to the forum and answer for that part of the question So it becomes a direct dialogue platform not through the city council But for the career public servants with the people this is so much clearer to me than what you said before Yeah, please use the example. Okay. Yes Please use that visual. It's it's fantastic. It's clear. It's it's almost fun To turn a budget of that size into something that's Engaging and fun. That's quite and that was that was done by um a bunch of hackers Yeah, just that's the beginning of the gov zero movement and then we start doing that for every other website as well Really great. That's that's a much more powerful example. I think in one of the sheets. I send you It it says that the specific is always more memorable than the abstract, okay You don't have too much abstraction. That was the abstraction that I got really lost on, you know Okay, I don't think you need to exemplify everything, but I think that is a perfect way of going from Words to pictures to clarity. Okay. That's great Anything else I need to improve on Well, I mean, I think you're you're brilliant. What is it that you want to improve on? So you just walked me through it What felt what felt like you want to? Strengthen it. What did you want to strengthen? What did you feel? That you want to change Basically when you're talking was there any place where you thought Not so strong Well, um, as you mentioned, um, the participation office the part I can cut it by half and I'll work on it Uh, and I think the the bridge From the, you know, and now it's transforming our society But before I tell you about it, I'd like to invite your participation That this part didn't feel that natural, but I think I don't know. I mean, I'm telling that's what I would do. Um, I'm maybe there are more elegant ways of doing it But I don't know. I just think people like to be invited to do things. Mm-hmm Yeah, so so yeah, maybe let's just wait. I have one more question. Yes So this is a pretty quick dawn audience pretty smart audience. What do you want from them in the end? I mean, do you want to know people? Do you want to know ideas? Do you want to bring this to other places or is your goal simply to convey information about what's going on? Well, see, I I'm not attending there in person, right? So so the I think I I would like to make connections to people working in this civil society Especially in the local level government local organizers who can much easier Deploy this kind of methodology than national government, which is very difficult Yeah, why don't you end and why don't you end with your request or your call to action? Okay, and End with something, you know, look you started out as an optimist You want maybe you want to spread a little optimism around the world? Okay, and do that Maybe it's helpful to be in touch with people who are doing similar. Yeah, but but I can do that in the q&a I don't have to do it in the first 10 minutes No, not at all. I'm talking about a wrap and end to this presentation. Okay Yes, just something like ask I mean, this is a pretty smart audience of from around the world. So you have a good idea to I think it could be useful if you want To you know, who you who it is you're looking to connect with that's it. Okay. It's a thought. Okay. It's a thought I'll keep it um Keep it in mind. I hope this has been useful to you. Has it been useful to you? Yeah, super useful Um, you good. You have the recording also, right? Yes And I was just about to ask you whether you feel comfortable publishing the transcript the text of what we just talked about 100% Okay, what about the video? Could use did you video me? Yeah, well Depending on like I recorded a whole two hours and what yeah, you're okay with me just publishing the whole thing Of course. I am. I mean, this is about process. I mean, what I do is what I do with everyone I work in you know, this is um This is what I enjoy doing And you were good enough to share your content with me and be open to change your content And I gave you my honest feedback, of course Well, that's great. And then the whole thing will be on youtube then I'll send you a link Please link to me. Yes. I mean my name tag me properly. Yeah, of course Absolutely. I've never had that done before. It's fantastic. Okay right, so um, I'll I think I'll I'll have to work on the vocal modulation a lot more to Just get it just right like not 30% more But because this is pre-recording anyway, so I've got plenty of chance of retakes And and don't be inauthentic. Don't not be yourself. Okay, sure I just want to encourage you that you have an instrument that you can use to to your own effect Okay, you can use it more mindfully to get what you want to bring power to your language Okay, I'll definitely do that a woman You have powerful ideas and I want to express them In English, it's not your first language as powerful as possible Okay I hope someday somewhere in the world. I meet you. Okay. Yeah, same here. Um, it's being a great two hours Thank you so much. Pleasure. Thank you for sharing with me. Okay. Cheers Bye. Bye