Chuck Chiang: I know you’re very busy. This trip is possibly ongoing, so thank you very much for your time.

Audrey Tang: No, it’s my work, and I really enjoy working with people who care about sustainability.

Chuck Chiang: If I can ask you, for starters, have you been to Canada before?

Audrey Tang: Yes, I was actually in Toronto about 12 years ago working on a new computer language with a lot of friends.

Chuck Chiang: What about Vancouver? I know Vancouver’s tech community is not as big, but have you had a chance to go to Vancouver?

Audrey Tang: No, this is my first time, literally my first day.

Chuck Chiang: First day in Vancouver. How are you finding the reactions from the friends here?

Audrey Tang: Of course, it’s really positive that Taiwanese people here as well as the people who support our mission really align with the value that we’re bringing to the table, because this Blueseeds is about three things.

Audrey Tang: It’s about working with indigenous people in a fair way that represents their art, their culture internationally, so it’s indigenous. The second thing is the environmental friendliness and the regrowth of their land’s potential, and the third thing is it’s economically viable. It is actually a pretty good business to do the socio-environmental good.

Audrey Tang: This idea, what we call triple bottom line, I find that this is one of the most important goals in human’s history, if I may. That’s all the different nations united together agree that we have to reach these goals together by 2030.

Audrey Tang: Canada being one of the signatories of the 2030 UN Agenda I think has a lot to offer Taiwan in terms of how to develop a good robust social enterprise, social innovation, and social financing model. Taiwan can also share our experience in working with indigenous people.

Audrey Tang: Our spokesperson now is Amis, is of the First Nations. Even our President, on her grandmother’s side, is also of Paiwan Nation heritage, so our way of truth and reconciliation also has a lot of resonance with the Canadian experience.

Chuck Chiang: How do you know that the model’s working? Is there a way of judging how successful a social enterprise is in Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: Yes, definitely. Previously, social enterprises in Taiwan mostly gets procured or bought by the CSR, the Corporate Social Responsibility, so any listed company have to declare publicly what kind of social or environmental good they’re doing.

Audrey Tang: It’s usually a fraction of their total earning or revenue. Then we measured what we call buying power, which was how exactly do large corporations procure the services or products with a clear, sustainable development goals attached to it.

Audrey Tang: What we found is year by year, more and more procurement moved to the supply chain side of things, meaning that it enters their supply chain. It could be people with autism entering the quality assurance part of a technology company. It could be people with disabilities in mobility partaking in buildings information modeling.

Audrey Tang: More and more the large corporations are seeing the social enterprises as a natural partner in their supply chain, instead of just in CSR procurement. This is the first year actually that we see the supply chain buying is more than the CSR. That means that it’s really integrating into international economy instead of as a kind of afterthought.

Chuck Chiang: This is the effect of the companies. As the companies grow, they become better representatives of society with their work towards diversity within the workforce, so that naturally becomes heart of the business. When they do good business, it doesn’t just make sense socially, it makes sense financially, because that’s what the company is.

Audrey Tang: Also, it’s the idea that inclusion drives innovation. If you include people who are neurodiverse in your team, you actually get honest, fresh perspective, or like people with Down Syndrome. They see the world with a dramatically very different way as we do, so the art they make is very unique.

Audrey Tang: We think them as not as vulnerable people, but as valuable and unique contributors. The total economy grows because of them.

Chuck Chiang: Can you talk a little bit about your choice of Canada and Vancouver, specifically Vancouver and Toronto. Why did you choose this location to say, "This is a good chance for us to talk about social enterprises." Is there something about Canada as a market that made you choose it?

Audrey Tang: Yes. Canada has the Buy Social program that was introduced to Taiwan by David LePage. David LePage is one of the people in the Canadian consultation that I think just completed this year in its fresh edition about the way forward for the social innovation and social financing.

Audrey Tang: I learned a lot when David visited Taiwan and introduced this idea of inclusive innovation. Around the time when he visited, that was in late 2016, I think, Taiwan was working on our industrial innovation plan. David said, "You know, if you want to be truly inclusive, it cannot be just industry that innovates. The society has also to innovate."

Audrey Tang: He brought this idea of co-creation as part of the Steering Group to Taiwan, and so I learned a lot from Canada. This trip for me is apply what we have learned, and we figured out quite a few things especially around the regulatory co-creation and indigenous relations that we also want to bring back to Canada as open innovation.

Audrey Tang: We learn something, we build on it, and now we want to share the fruit of our learnings as well, and so it’s because of heritage that we inherited the Canadian model of Buy Social, of buying power, of the cross-sectoral co-creation Steering Group and we now are giving back to Canada.

Chuck Chiang: Aboriginal issues here is a very big issue. We had a big incident here last year in terms of people opposing a pipeline coming through here, and a lot of the opposition came from the Aboriginal.

Audrey Tang: The Elders.

Chuck Chiang: It came from the Elders. They don’t want the pipeline to go though. What can Taiwan offer from its experience from dealing with Aboriginals and benefit economically business-wise that Canada can learn from. Is there something that we can learn from?

Audrey Tang: Yes, definitely. We say "indigenous people". We changed the name of the council from "aboriginal" to "indigenous people". Our First Nations, of which there are 16, are very diverse both in terms of culture, of the Austronesian culture, as well as in the model that they operate.

Audrey Tang: One of the most important things is that the agenda must be set by the Elders in a way that it’s First Nation first, so it’s not we, the government trying to impose anything, but rather we... As I said, I tour around Taiwan and visit indigenous communities.

Audrey Tang: Personally, when I dropped out of junior high school when I was 14 years old, I lived in the Atayal indigenous community, and so I learned from their ways of seeing the world. Also, when I tour around Taiwan, I make sure that I’m there with them, personally.

Audrey Tang: So the minister is always with the local people. The various ministries, the public service may be in Taipei, but they always see through my eyes how people live here. Previously, in the last century, the so-called consultation model with Aboriginals is usually they sending one or three representatives to Taipei, and that lose the context of their conversation.

Audrey Tang: Through digital technology, through broadband as a human right, through our Digital Opportunity Centers, this has a massive effect of not representing the indigenous people. Through digital technology representing their habitats, their views, their wisdom to Taipei, but they can remain in the place that they’re most comfortable with and let the nature and the spirits speak through them.

Audrey Tang: We have a lot to learn of how the rivers, the animals become alive in their world view, and we’re just reckoning this fact. It’s the same as the New Zealand people, where they made a river a legal person that can sit in through the board of a company.

Audrey Tang: The river can -- through representing the level of pollution, the level of sustainability -- suffer damage if someone harms the river as a legal person. We have a lot to learn from that world view as well in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: We would also like to share our model of regional innovation that allows every nation to essentially make its own home rule an experiment for a year to see, for example, a blockchain-based, distributed ledger-based local economy identity, whether it’s a good fit. It’s always done by innovators throughout the nation instead of being imposed by central administration.

Chuck Chiang: I know you’re a big proponent of non-traditional educational means. People learn through life, not necessarily best learning through the traditional school system structures and things of that nature.

Chuck Chiang: Do you think that is reflected in your work on this field, the fact that looking outside the box, looking outside of the traditional learning processes that institutions and governments have set up, it’s important to really resolve issues going forward?

Audrey Tang: The Experimental Education Act of Taiwan, for the past decade or so, we’re one of the most -- I think the most -- open to experiment education system in our region and in the world. Up to 10 percent of the students in Taiwan can choose to be home-schooled or alternative schooled, so it’s not just me. It’s up to 10 percent of the total student population.

Audrey Tang: What we have learned is that, as time goes to the full automated world, people, instead of learning skills or particular competitiveness along particular tracks, they’re now more and more learning about the internal characters.

Audrey Tang: The character you’ve mentioned about autonomy, about thinking out of the box, but also about interaction and communication of being able to talk with people with a different culture and a different discipline and then of common good.

Audrey Tang: Of seeing, for example, the First Nations or the other people in the world having different values, but still having the capability of finding common values for a common good. These three, autonomy, interaction, and the common good become the core characteristics of not just alternative education but starting next year.

Audrey Tang: Because before joining the cabinet two years ago, I was part of the K-12, our basic curriculum committee. Starting next September, we’re rolling it out country-wide.

Audrey Tang: All the first graders in primary school, in junior high and senior high is going to switch from a model where they overidentified with competition in particular skills to where only the characters matter.

Audrey Tang: The Capstone projects, the university social responsibility programs allow them to experiment with their local community and solve a real social and/or environmental problem as part of their learning.

Audrey Tang: Because of this, they identify with the community just as they’re starting to learn skills, so they don’t overidentify with the score of the skills. When automation comes and takes that skill away, by AI or whatever, there’s no loss of dignity, because they know that these automated skills are just there to further the community’s mission.

Audrey Tang: If they, in the previous bad old days overidentified with particular skillsets, when that gets automated, they suffer a loss of dignity. In an AI-first world, this is not just for home schoolers or experimental school. It’s for everybody, and that’s what our new curriculum reflects.

Chuck Chiang: Going back with the social enterprise model, our experience here is that things like solar power and things like something that benefits the community in the past usually costs a little bit more. I’ve talked to Blueseeds, and they’ve said their products do cost a little bit more than conventional large conglomerate manufactured goods.

Chuck Chiang: Do you think that consumers are willing to pay a little bit more, or companies are willing to pay a little bit more, for goods that are beneficial to society and beneficial to the environment? What’s your opinion on that? Are consumers willing to pay...?

Audrey Tang: We don’t need opinion, we have a evidence-based survey. Every year, the Development Bank of Singapore, the DBS, as well as the Vision Project of the UDN Media Group in Taiwan asks people around Taiwan: "Are you willing to pay more for products or services with a clearly evidence-based, better socio-environmental value?", and year after year we see this growing. This is actually last year’s number, but by this year it’s more than 80 percent now.

Chuck Chiang: This is in Taiwan, right?

Audrey Tang: This is Taiwan of course, but of course, we have some way to go in Taiwan also, because when they ask people on the street, "Can you name one sustainable business model, then only one-fifth of people can actually name a social enterprise.

Audrey Tang: This year we also see it growing, partly because FamilyMart partnered with Blueseeds, so now some Taiwanese people can just say, "Blueseeds, they’re one of the social enterprises." People in Taiwan are really willing to both pay more to do impact investment, to do venture philanthropy, and to choose with their wallet.

Chuck Chiang: What about here? With you setting up office here, the ideas also introduce a little bit of this Taiwanese warm power, so to speak, this social enterprise model to this North American market. Do you have any indication that consumers here are willing to pay more for socially responsible, socially beneficial goods?

Audrey Tang: I only have what David LePage and the steering committee tells me, right?

Chuck Chiang: Right.

Audrey Tang: They tell me that if there is a clear evidence to back it up that people can see the whole story, that there’s accountability trail, then yes, people are willing to pay more. If it is just a label, but there’s no story and there’s no evidence behind it, then people here maybe are still new to this idea, and they will want to know more.

Audrey Tang: One of the most important things is a clear communication of the social impact and environmental impact. In that we can also work with Canada to establish a value-based mode to assess what a social enterprise has actually done for the past year, and for the society.

Chuck Chiang: It’s not just a sticker on a product that says "social enterprise." You need to let people understand exactly what you’re doing to society by buying this product.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, that’s what we call the impact assessment.

Chuck Chiang: Moving forward, how would you judge this visit as a success? You have a milestone or what you like to achieve either through Blueseeds or other Taiwanese companies here in Canada, here in North America? Is there something that you’d like in a year’s time, two years’ time, five years’ time?

Audrey Tang: Definitely. In Taiwan, the concept called reconciliation with indigenous people, we measure how many people are aware of it, and how many people recognize it as important, so these are the important metrics for us.

Audrey Tang: As I said, social entrepreneurship and people’s willingness to identify with it, but also be able to tell one particular story that they still remember. These are the key metrics that we measure.

Audrey Tang: In my trip to Canada, which is why I wear this T-shirt of sustainable development goals, I want to measure and also see how Canadian people see the SDGs, not just sustainability. As a concept it’s great.

Audrey Tang: I’m sure people here feel sustainability is great, but particular goals like life on land, life below water, like plastic waste, all these 169 goals, if more and more people can identify, as I do, of their work in conjunction with sustainable development goals and can say, as I usually do...

Audrey Tang: At the end of my talk, I always say, "OK, as the Digital Minister, I work on the goal1718, reliable data, 1717, cross-sectoral partnerships, 1706, open innovation. If more and more people can say with explicit numbering the work they’re doing toward the sustainable goals, then that counts as a success to me.

Chuck Chiang: A lot of this success, by the sounds of it, it sounds like transparency is the main thing, the fact that people have to know what processes...A lot of this is education and communications like you said.

Audrey Tang: There’s four pillars of the work that I do in open government that I’m aware that next year, Canada is going to host the summit for the open government partnership, the OGP.

Audrey Tang: Canadian people, of course, place a lot of emphasis on inclusion, so it’s not just transparency, it’s also not leaving anybody behind so that everybody can participate into the transparent and accountable framework, not just people who are particularly good at computer programming, at data analysis or at legal analysis or impact investment.

Audrey Tang: These people are already onboard, but we also need everybody to be able to tell the difference of a process of they’ve looked into a product or a service, know exactly where it came from. They know the story of origin, they can participate and check the verifiability of it and just be included into the process. This also is very important.

Chuck Chiang: Your background in computer languages, did this contribute to your thinking, your ideology behind this? How did you experience in terms of working in a globalized computer language co-forming community? How did this inform your theories and your practices in terms of leading this effort?

Audrey Tang: Back when I worked in a computer language called Perl 6, which is now also called Raku. The language is explicitly a humble language. In traditional computer language there’s different schools of programming. There is the functional school of programming that sees programs as mathematics.

Audrey Tang: There’s this object-oriented school of programming that sees programming as coordinating like orchestrating interaction between objects, and there is the imperative programming, which sees a program as commanding the computer to do things.

Audrey Tang: There’s other schools as well, but in Prosix our slogan is to reconcile the irreconcilable, to let the programmer choose object-oriented, imperative, or functional world view in the same program in a way that still makes sense for people in very different world views.

Audrey Tang: Having worked in that particular world-building methodology, it enables me to say, "I’m a language designer, but I’m really just designing for possibilities. I’m not imposing my world view on the programmers using this language and allowing themselves to express however they want.

Audrey Tang: There’s more than one way to do it, but also let people with a different world view to see their work in their modality as well, and this is exactly the world view that is taken by the sustainable development goals. You can be a major in economy and business, you can be a major in environmental protection, you can be a major in the social justice, but still all your works reinforces each other.

Chuck Chiang: Canadian language does not mean only a language. A language belongs to everyone who uses it.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, exactly.

Chuck Chiang: Going forward, are you going to be talking with the Blueseeds to track how successful the Canadian reception to this is?

Audrey Tang: Very much so. We require all the social enterprises in Taiwan to clearly not just identify with particular sustainable goals, but report yearly on how they have achieved and how they oversee branches and so on.

Audrey Tang: This is actually how the accountability is built. It’s not reporting to government, it’s reporting to everybody around the world publicly on the Internet.

Audrey Tang: That’s why we just passed this November the New Company Act that allows companies like Blueseeds to declare their socio-environmental mission in their company’s founding documents and disclose it on the Minister of Economic Affairs website for the whole world to see.

Audrey Tang: This is also what the other jurisdictions are doing, through a structure like Benefit corporation and things like that, they enable corporations to identify exactly how much they contribute to the triple bottom line.

Chuck Chiang: Last thing, Audrey, I was wondering if there’s one thing you can tell the Canadian leaders, because a lot of Canadian businesses are interested in social enterprises, but they can’t attend today. If there’s one thing you can tell Canadian people, Canadian companies, in general, about the message you want to bring, what is it?

Audrey Tang: The message is very simple that we use to think in silos of public sector, private sector, and social sector. Now, sustainable development is about cross-sectoral partnership.

Audrey Tang: Whatever sector you are on, please think outside of the box of the predefined sectors and work with the other two sectors in order to create a brighter future. If you’re interested in how, please read Inclusive Innovation, the recommendations of Social Innovation Co-Creation Steering Group of Canada.

Chuck Chiang: Do you mind if I take a quick photo of you for the...?

Audrey Tang: Not at all.

Chuck Chiang: Thank you very much for your time.