 Um, is the sound getting through you? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sorry for the connection issues. I'm slightly late, but I think we have a stable connection now. Yeah. I'm I'm very happy to meet you. I'm sorry it's over GBC instead of in person, but I hope it'll be in person one of these days. Sure thing. Sure thing. Yeah. So how's it going? It's going well. And thank you very much for taking the time. We had actually planned, I'd planned to bring the whole team, the whole Asia team to Taiwan. We were hoping this spring, but maybe we'll just have to wait a little bit and we'll still be able to go because I'm very eager to bring the team to Taiwan. Mm hmm. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Thanks so much for for taking the time. I copied you on a letter that I sent to the president. Yes. About Google's what Google's doing to try to be helpful. And and Anita, who my colleague, actually, I should start with introducing my colleagues. Anita Chen, you can probably see. Hi. Hi. I'm no seed. Well, not really. I think you're the in person. That's right. That's right. We work with each other quite closely. Yeah. Yeah. And Tina Lynn. Tina. Hi. Hi. This is Tina. I'm in charge of the Google Taiwan. Yeah, we, yeah, we work together during the mask 2.0 during the E mask for all sort of different things. So thank you so much for for all your support. Thank you. Thank you. And then there's Lan there. Lan Chen. Hi. Hi. I cover communications in Taiwan. Nice to meet you. Nice meeting you. So because of social distancing, yeah, I actually have to keep them away from you. They were good. Yeah. Very safe. Good, good, good, good. Well, we're we really do want to do what we can. And I need to have shared with me a lot about what you all have been doing to deal with COVID. And I have to say, it's very fortunate that you have a vice president who has who's an epidemiologist. How many around the world have such well, actually, the epidemiologist because he literally wrote a textbook of epidemiology. I mean, that's that's the right leader in the right place at the right time. That's right. So and and congratulations. Only 444 cases. I understand they're now been 28 days without a local case. We're relaxing a lot of things. I mean, our professional baseball now have like thousands of all people in the audience. So we're life is migrating to the new normal now. Wow, I can't wait till that happens to the rest of the world. But but congratulations. It's so clear that SARS taught Taiwan so much about how to deal with a crisis like this and your way ahead of the rest of the world. And so I think the rest of the world is is very eager to learn from your success. On the policy side, it's really clear that you've had terrific, very smart science based policies on technology. What have been some of the secrets? What are the ways you deploy technology? And indeed, I must praise the ease of use of the Google places and map API because that's literally how our masquerading system hinges upon when we were initially distributed the mass through convenience stores. There is a GDG that's Google developer group in Tainan, one of the southern cities that's very quickly become the cultural capital and is already the capital for food. And you know how developers love good food. And so they have a group of people there that just started prototyping. Well, it's like Ushahidi, if you know that it's people who voluntarily report how many convenience stores still have masks and how many of them are out of stock. So it's a crowd reporting to a collective intelligence system. Yeah. And unlike many other map API providers, I think the GDG has already well equipped themselves so that they can prototype it in a matter of minutes, not of days. And that is essential because then it showed everybody what is possible. And the very next Monday I just presented that Google map API and visualization to our premier saying that we really got to support this guy and especially because he's at that time I think owes Google 20k US dollars in API credits. I really need to support him financially. And I'm happy that eventually the CSR team wrote it off. But I think this is a really good story of not your traditional PPP, which is a government setting the agenda for the private sector to enlist social sector support. Rather, this is the social sector setting the agenda and they enlist the public sector to work with the private sector such as Google to realize their design. So we become like vendors of those civic technologies. Wow. And I think that is really the key of the success of the fairness because then the real time map let everybody see that a pharmacy distribution is fair. You can go to a pharmacy, swipe your NHI card and see for yourself after a couple of minutes that a stock level decreased by nine. And this is participatory ledger almost like a blockchain that increased everybody's trust in each other instead of a daily publication. This is a real time publication. But transparency is the key. That's right. And you had already established a lot of credibility through policies that you've chosen as government. So then you're able to engage the social sector in a really positive and really beneficial way. Right. Right. To trust them with open data, as we say. Well, a lot of countries could learn from that. There are a lot of countries that follow a different model where there is less transparency and where the social sector isn't as supported as it is in Taiwan. So I guess some of the ingredients you have because you're a democracy and you're a working democracy and you have very energetic NGOs, very energetic civil society. That's part of the story of yours. I was just talking to a journalist this morning from Wired and I said that when we had the first presidential election in 96, the World Web is already part of the culture. And so people know that there's a lot of things that could change because the power structure has massively changed with the World Web. And during that time, I think in a decade or so, even our constitution went through six or seven revisions. And so unlike many other older Republican tradition democracies, we don't have hundreds of years of proud tradition. But on the other hand, our constitution and our polity, the design of our administration and legislation is as malleable as the World Web itself. And people really put a lot of energy into thinking innovation also about democracy, not just under democracy. And that was, 96, was that Chen Shui-bian? That's right. The election of Li Deng Hui in 96. And then the next term is Chen Shui-bian. Chen Shui-bian. You also, I should congratulate you also. This is now one year anniversary of marriage equality in Taiwan. That's right. The first in Asia. Right. Yes. Faster to Vietnam. At that time I thought maybe Vietnam would be the first, but you're the first. Yeah, or Thailand, but we're the first. And we got ahead because we work in a way that connects intergenerational solidarity because we introduce a truly innovative model that I call結婚不結 in, or we marry the bylaws but not in-laws. And that really convinced the people who are of a kind of elderly imagination of like the wedding is between a couple, but the marriage between two families. I'm like, okay, so marriage equality is about the bylaws, the same rights and responsibility, but it doesn't marry the families and everybody happy with that. Well, at least they can live with that. Yeah. Well, that's a lesson that other Asian countries could learn. When I was in Vietnam, Vietnam was the first to enable transgender people to change their gender on their identity card. That's right. And that's crucial. If you're trying to get health insurance, if you're trying to get health care, any kind of health care, that's critical. So it was a big step. There are lots more steps to go. That's right. Yeah, definitely. And nowadays in our kind of famously digitized health declaration card when you fly in to Taipei, the other gender is displayed prominently. So that people from Australia or other places where the neutral gender is recognized, they can actually just take that box. And very soon we will also roll out in our resident certificates as well, so that we'll have this national ID number that allows for a gender neutral and non-binary gender as well. So that is for foreign nationals, I mean. So I think that is another big step. People can choose to be non-binary in our software systems, not just in our legal systems. That's fantastic. Well, congratulations. And it's been really interesting for us to see how committed President Tsai is to a digital economy, making your services available digitally. It's digital education. It's, again, a model for much of the region. Cool. And you have played not a small role in that whole process. Well, mostly as an inspiration, I guess. My name being used in Japan or in South Korea, but it doesn't really sound like me or seem like me. It seems like they're using kind of a model of me to inspire their cabinet members. I'm fine with that remix, Creative Commons and all, but it doesn't really seem like myself. As long as you're associated with something you believe in and care about, then it's okay. That's right, exactly. Well, I'm sure Anita has told you about this. We've been really happy to be able to provide ad grants that would be helpful to the government, to SMBs, because we want to be part of Taiwan's economic recovery. Part of getting small businesses back up to speed, getting schools, students back up to speed. And we feel like we will be able to contribute. That's awesome. But if you have ideas, if there are things that we could be doing and that we're not yet doing, we are open. Yeah, so we're at the moment still at the kind of defending against coronavirus stage. But soon we will migrate to the revitalization stage, as you said, the recovery stage. But we don't call it recovery because we never really had a lockdown. We didn't close at all. So there's nothing much to recover from, but we really want to revitalize the economy. And there's quite a few plans in the works that will encourage people to spend more on the SMBs. Because it's true that during the coronavirus, even that we had no lockdowns, you see a large boom in, for example, food delivery services, online platforms and so on. They're primarily e-commerce. And so conversely, the large gathering places such as the wedding benches, restaurants and so on, they do suffer and they tend to be SMBs and not chain convenience stores or things like that. So we're designing a stimulus package. Actually, right after this video conference. And then I'll keep you posted when it comes to fruition. And I think there's plenty of ways that Google can help. Well, thank you. We would like to be involved. I also think it's going to set the tone for others in the region. Yours is an open economy. I know you are the first to get on board planes and make sure people were safe getting on and off planes. At some point, planes are coming. And that's got to start up again. Lights will start up again. You'll have more imported cases. It's not going to suddenly be okay. We're not going to suddenly see blue skies. And so we feel like the economic recovery, such as it is in the region in particular, is really a long-term process. It is. And we feel like the key is going to be small and medium-sized businesses, because they are what make up most of the economy in most of the countries in Asia-Pacific. That's true. And the mismies also are particularly, it gives them the reason for digital transformation. Previously, many mismies has no reason to digitally transform themselves, because they have a kind of flurry of business from the places that they used to run, like a physical store and things like that. During this time, everybody need to pause a little bit and think how to digitally transform themselves. And so I think, indeed, the larger companies, on the other hand, probably all have business continuity and high availability plans in place. So I think it's crucially important that we offer the particular tools and to know how to digitally transform the business itself, not just the way that it interacts with its customers. There are three tools that we hope are going to be useful. There's Digital Garage, there's Google My Business, there's the remote work page. All of those are skilling tools that we hope SMBs will take advantage of and help them move into this digital era that the President and you have been talking about. And we want to make sure that they're appropriate for the Taiwanese context as well as for other contexts. I think Anita is trying to say something. Yeah, I was just going to add a little bit about digital transformation SMB. This is something that I, myself and Tina and Len here, we have actually been discussing with the Taiwan, Google Taiwan team. We'll have more details in the coming weeks, but it literally is centered around how we assist SMBs, especially important in Taiwan because a large portion of the economy in Taiwan is SMBs. And like Audrey said, they are particularly vulnerable to downturn like this. So we're talking about how we're going to use Google product and services to help them and also prevent them with tools. On digital transformation, that is actually a topic that we actually have been working on even before COVID. And at this point, it actually seems more important. So I've been talking with Tina's team on how we can help provide trainings, whether it's Google tools or it's non-Google tools. We want to go out there and talk to SMBs and then really answer their questions. And I attended a few of those sessions and I found that sometimes even just a session to walk them through very simple things, it's the piece of mind. It's letting people know that, yes, you are doing this right. And yes, you can ask us questions and you have support. That really is important. So all of these hopefully will come to some sort of final package in a few weeks. And Audrey, I'll definitely keep you posted when we have more details. I'm really looking forward to it. You will coincide nicely with our own timeline for the stimulus package. Good. The other thing we're working really hard on is making sure that we're putting out authoritative information. We're an information company. We want our information to be as authoritative as possible. I mean, the good news in Taiwan is you have TCDC that has been putting out authoritative information. We've been able to steer people to that information and not to the sources of the people who are trying to make money off the pandemic or those who are making up stories about the medicine that are not accurate. And we've actually literally removed millions of YouTube videos that were not accurate. We've been really, really ruthless during that. Yeah. I've heard that from the more than 140 mask distribution app makers. They say that as soon as they put any advertisement on it or as soon as they put a merchandise link, it just gets delisted from Google Play like within minutes. Right. Yeah. So nobody is allowed to profit from the accurate information thing. I think this is really nice. We think it's really important. I mean, look at the way you all have been acting during this crisis. You've sent 17 million masks to countries that needed them, three and a half million to my country. I really appreciate it because you geared up so fast and you would learn so much from SARS and you knew what to do. And you were not profiting from this crisis. We are not seeking to profit from this crisis, but we are seeking to help countries get back on their feet, get businesses get back on their feet and students get back on their feet. We think that's going to be really important in the time to come. Very much so. Very much so. But whatever, please, I'd love to continue this dialogue. I'd like to come and visit with you when we finally do get to Taiwan. And we're really thrilled that the president was able to stop by our Google campus. We're building a new engineering campus. Our numbers in Taiwan keep going up. A lot of talent there. And so I think after India, Taiwan is the second largest in Asia Pacific in terms of number of people hired, more than 2,000. So we're committed. The commitment continues. We really are determined to be as helpful as possible at this time. Yeah, that's great. And I also welcome the news that this trans-Pacific fiber optic line is getting to its final stages of approval. So yeah, I think this is really symbolic geopolitically as well. It means that we're firmly on the side of liberal democracy and we're really happy to share the exchanges that we had with Google both on promoting renewable energy, on responsible counter disinformation strategies and things like that. I mean, we don't always agree 100%, but at the end of it, we always end up with something that we can all live with. And this is important, especially around East Asia, because often many jurisdictions take a kind of top-down approach when it comes to internet governance. And we're adhering strictly to the internet governance norms. And we always do norm shaping before legalization. And I think Anita also appreciate that in our previous work. Yes, definitely. Ted, if I can add a few things, I want to thank Audrey for all of her help. Last year, especially before the election, there was a lot of different opinions in Taiwan to how the disinformation phenomenon should be governed in Taiwan. But Audrey is a very important partner of ours and she helped us to communicate our position and our proactive measures to the government, to her other government fellow. So they understand what is important on this stage. And I hope Audrey, through 2019, all of the activities and initiatives that you and your fellow government officials now have a better idea of the proactive and self-voluntary measures that we have taken while ensuring that the internet remains free and open. Yeah, basically you implemented our control union norms without us having to put a law to it. Much better that way. Much better that way, much better than the other way around. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, and you had a successful election. You had a successful and fair election. And early in 2019, I think we all had a lot of worries about that and how much misinformation might be used. I know we did a lot of training both on the executive side and the legislative side, where we've been very committed to fact-checking of all kinds and we're able to dig deep. And in the end, it was a successful and fair election. Yeah, and everybody learned the importance of timely response and humor over rumor. And even now, the spoke stock of the CECC is still trendy among all the different age groups. It's not just among young people, but the elderly also love their own child, the dog meme that shares ten sanitation rules and social distancing rules. So I would say that these trainings and these knowledge exchange sessions are really played a large part. That's really good to hear. And I'm also happy to report Audrey that we're continuing with similar activities and actually expanding it this year. Now, of course, COVID will also be creating shifting things to online. And again, I'm working on these plans, but when I have more details that are confirmed, I'll definitely let you know. But this remains a very important priority for us in Taiwan and we continue to work with outside partners like Taiwan Fact-Check Centers or MyGoPan and increase their capacity while we work together. And then again, later at a certain point, I'll let you know when we have more confirmed details. Okay, that's great. I also personally learned a lot with the interactions in your workshops with YouTubers and journalists and things like that. And because after going into the cabinet, I really haven't practiced so much at this YouTuber know-how. And I get to learn from the best this year that in your workshop, I just had a recording session this morning with Audrey, one of the YouTubers in Taiwan on the Taiwan Can Help That Us campaign. And that campaign again shows how the social sector can even take public diplomacy and uplift it into a very successful not just social media campaign, but actually real world campaign where there's a lot of offline support after the New York Times advertisement as well. And so I think YouTube also played quite a part in making this a reality. Yeah. I mean, the vice president has been a good user of YouTube and you're talking to Bloomberg, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. And Johns Hopkins has been one of the most authoritative sources for the world on COVID. That's right. And so I was really, it was really interesting to see him have an exchange with the dean there because he's an epidemiologist. He knows what he's talking about. And so he's just when he speaks, he's putting out authoritative information on the virus. And he's also putting out wise policy advice, science-based policy advice. And I just wish the rest of the world would listen. And, you know, some parts of the world are listening and some parts haven't been so good about listening. But the crash course that VP Chen Jianren recorded, a crash course on epidemiology is on YouTube and it's being translated into like 17 languages or something. So that's also something that you can talk to at the end. And how to amplify that message. It's right on the front page of Taiwan Can Help That Us. That's amazing. And that's what, you know, that's what we need to be able to do. We need to be able to put out information. People who know what they're talking about are sharing. And he certainly does. Yeah. On this topic of YouTuber, I said I may have included in my one of my reports, but I think one of the different characteristics of Taiwan's YouTuber communities is that they really like to work together. So in early March, they actually came up with the idea of how about we, I think about seven of them, they recorded a clip because they are all very popular. They all have a lot of viewers. So record a clip to tell people how do you wash your head properly? Where do you, you know, where do you need to wear a mask? And they also talk about, you know, do not panic. This is a time that we work together. If we all work together, we'll get through the crisis. And they did this completely voluntarily and work with us. And that is really something, a really phenomenon project that you don't see a lot in other places. It's a genuine vaccine against the infodemic. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And there are, I mean, that's the, that's the obverse, the reverse of what we're talking about. Those who are trying to take advantage of the pandemic to make money. These are people who, you know, see they have a chance, like 23 million citizens needs to know what to do to stay safe. And they want to help those 23 million citizens. It's, it's quite an inspiration. Cool. So I don't know if you have questions for us or if you have any further questions for all three, but I mean, I'm happy to continue this inspiring discussion, but I also know that you have a lot of other missions and duties. Right. I think I need to explain my radical transparency ideas. So we make a transcript of this conversation. We will not publish the video unless you do. And then we'll send a transcript over for you to edit as you see fit. You can change any part that you have set. And then we publish usually after 10 days. That is my kind of rule entering the cabinets for all the conversations and interviewing, even internal meetings that I chair. Yeah. Great. I'm all in favor of transparency. I think transparency is a way to govern well. Use maximum radical transparency, if you will. That's the governance in my view. Yeah. Excellent. That's the only thing. So very nice meeting you and looking forward to meeting in person where we don't have to wear a mask each. So before we all sign off, can I take a photo of the two of you? Of course. Sure. Let me turn off my own, my own camera. So it's only the two of you. And I think all three, you need to maybe either push your computer back a little or you move your chair. Yes. Okay. Like this. Yes. I think this is good. All right. Let me. Okay. To control comment for you, right? Okay. All right. All right. Ready guys? One, two, three. Wait. Control ship three. Sorry. Pause along. Ready? One, two, three. One more. One, two, three. All right. Perfect. Yay. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. I look forward to meeting you in person. Very much so. Very much so. We're going to come and have some good meals and Taipei and learn about all that you're doing and learn and we're inspired by your model. Yes. Very much so. And so have a good local time and see you next time. Thanks very much. Cheers. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Anita.