Audrey Tang: Let’s get started.

Laetitia Lim: Thank you very much for your time, Minister. For me, it’s the first time we met. Actually, my name is Laetitia Lim. My Chinese isn’t… [laughs]

Audrey Tang: That’s fine. I think in English.

Laetitia Lim: Apologizing.

Audrey Tang: That’s fine. We’ll both use a foreign language.

Laetitia Lim: Basically, thank you for your time, because actually, what we’d like to share with you today and really get your feedback on is we are going to launch an initiative about talent-rich. What we’re trying to do is connect, basically, Taiwanese talent with the French tech community in the world and vice-versa.

Laetitia Lim: In the French tech ecosystem, there’s a lot of startup that are starting to scale up and go overseas. Definitely, they need international talents. That’s a tool, a platform to help connecting demand and supply around tech talent.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

Laetitia Lim: We’d love to your feedback on that. Really, feel free to tell us, “This is good. This is bad,” whatever. The tool, of course, is an idea that the French Tech Taiwan team initiate, but we want it to be the open to the community.

Laetitia Lim: We are now already discussing with all the community, and Laurent will tell you more about that. APAC first, and then hopefully, in other world. We definitely want to Taiwan to stay in the center of that initiative, even though it’s open.

Laetitia Lim: That’s why really would like to have you, also. If you think it makes sense for Taiwan, get you involved more and your support, so that Taiwan stay in the center of this.

Laetitia Lim: Maybe, the last thing I would say is La Mission French Tech that you know, definitely, in Paris is giving a fund, sponsorship for different initiative. In Taiwan, we got lucky to get a sponsor from La Mission French Tech to push this initiative.

Laetitia Lim: That is something supported by La Mission French Tech, and we definitely want to kick that off. That’s the context of that, and I’ll let Laurent take you through the details.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Laetitia Lim: Please, stop us, and any suggestions, highly welcome.

Laurent Le Guyader: We seed funding from France to do this project. We’re maybe 100 community worldwide.

Laetitia Lim: We have one of the biggest family for this project.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

Laurent Le Guyader: We have only 26 members awarded, and Taiwan is one of the most active.

Audrey Tang: This is like entirely part of your state department outreach, or it is its own nonprofit organization?

Laurent Le Guyader: We are a nonprofit organization.

Laetitia Lim: It’s a nonprofit.

Audrey Tang: It’s a nonprofit organization?

Laurent Le Guyader: Registered in France as an association. That’s why we got civic funding.

Audrey Tang: I see.

Laurent Le Guyader: La French Tech in France is the Ministry of Economy.

Audrey Tang: So basically, you’re working in the partner role to the larger French Tech idea. On the other hand, your community’s actually larger than the French Ministry of Economy.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, sure. Sure, definitely. We have a quick presentation, maybe to present a bit of scope. Again, what is La French Tech? Created maybe four or five years ago by the French Ministry of Economy.

Laurent Le Guyader: Since last year, President Macron really want to use that as a tool to promote tech startup entrepreneurship, create more economic value and job in France, and connect this ecosystem to French entrepreneur abroad.

Laurent Le Guyader: Through those French entrepreneur abroad to reach to the local ecosystem that want resources, companies, talent, etc. Since last year, Macron decided that the French Tech mission, there are three main aspect we need to focus on.

Laurent Le Guyader: It’s invest, help our company find fund. Market rich, the chance to have 100 community abroad to access the different market, culture, and people. Talent, to attract a lot of international talent in the French startup.

Laurent Le Guyader: In France, French startup or scale-up are opening offices everywhere in the world as we’re hiring international talent for France, but also for abroad. We have a few companies here hiring talent in startups.

Laurent Le Guyader: They also decide to short-list a few companies, 120 who are the most fastest-growing French startup in France at the moment.

Laetitia Lim: They’re calling FT120, like Dow Jones. They use this notion of FT120…

Laurent Le Guyader: Of those 120, there are 40 who are supposed hopefully to become unicorns in 2025. That’s the spirit.

Audrey Tang: This picture doesn’t look like a unicorn, though.

Laetitia Lim: To be frank, there’s still a long way to go.

Audrey Tang: No, don’t get me wrong… I mean the visual. The logo doesn’t quite look like a unicorn. I guess if you stretch the other side a little bit, like if the head is on the left side. [laughs] Maybe you can see it as a unicorn with some rotation. [laughs]

Laetitia Lim: It’s to keep the French statue, the rooster. The rooster is the French symbol, the animal.

Audrey Tang: It symbolize France?

Laetitia Lim: Yes. It’s an animal symbolizing France. That’s why they wanted to keep the rooster, even though it doesn’t look like a unicorn.

Audrey Tang: Right.

Laurent Le Guyader: …they don’t have the rooster.

Audrey Tang: I see, I see. Maybe a rooster with a unique horn?

Laetitia Lim: Yeah! Nice, nice. We should think about that.

Laurent Le Guyader: Among those priorities, we apply for projects in mostly talent and market reach. Those were about 20 companies. They’re all in tech, digital, software, some hardware, retail, AI, IoT, a bit of everything. This is a kind of representative of the current ecosystem in France.

Laurent Le Guyader: In our range are the Next40. You might know a few, like Sigfox, for instance, which is also based here, Devialet, high-end speakers, also based in operation in Taiwan. Some other are prospecting right now in Taiwan. Those are also company we are focusing on in terms of talent, for instance.

Laurent Le Guyader: As La French Tech Taiwan, we’ve been here since 2016 doing a lot of things bridging France and Taiwan. It’s always what do we do is bilateral. It’s not a work to promote France. We’re also here because we live here, we love Taiwan, and promote Taiwan in France. It go both ways, otherwise it’s not very meaningful for us.

Laurent Le Guyader: Our work the way we see it is to mostly promote this ecosystem of French 120 and 40 companies, and the best way to do that for us at the moment is to put them in touch with talent in Taiwan. Either they are experienced people in existing companies and startup or freshly graduated.

Laurent Le Guyader: We have already started some webinars. The first was last week, the next will be next week with Sigfox HR. We will talk to a Taiwanese student, etc., in labs and there will be a Q&A. I think we’ve got to send you this invitation if you’re interested to promote and to participate. We aim to do that maybe with two weeks with some other Next40 company.

Laetitia Lim: The next one is Devialet, because Devialet was interested to settle down in Taiwan. They want to hire people, so we have visited the headquarter, the Paris HR of Devialet, who will join the webinar.

Laetitia Lim: We also have the APAC Director so that the Taiwanese talent can really ask questions and have different angle and understanding about Devialet as a group, and Devialet’s strategy in APAC so that they can really have these…

Audrey Tang: This is awesome.

Laetitia Lim: Yeah, it’s awesome.

Laurent Le Guyader: It’s also a good chance to know how the French HR thinks which need help so the talent here to maybe to see how, what they need to focus on when they apply for a job in a French company, either it is in Taiwan or in France or in the US, but in a French company.

Audrey Tang: You call it also a talent tour, right?

Laetitia Lim: It’s part of the talent tour.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, because we were supposed to tour physically universities, but because of COVID-19 we don’t do that in tour. We’ll keep the webinar.

Audrey Tang: You’re not flying in drones to virtually…

Laurent Le Guyader: No.

Laurent Le Guyader: That was the idea, to tour and do it…

Laetitia Lim: We adjust.

Audrey Tang: You pivoted.

Laetitia Lim: Yeah, pivoted, yes.

Laurent Le Guyader: We pivot. It’s very, very nice. This is one part. The second one we are also running a survey on Taiwanese talent, how much they like France, those tech companies, how much they are willing to explore the French job market.

Laurent Le Guyader: A lot of question about that, the expectation which sector they rather work in or at the current IoT. We plan to have more than thousand people answering as it’ll be very valuable not only for us, of course, but for Taiwan…

Laetitia Lim: Also with this COVID situation, honestly, we have a question. We say, “Is Taiwanese talent, and how do they see France now? How do they see Europe?” Maybe it’s changed.

Laetitia Lim: I think this survey will also give us thoughts about…

Laurent Le Guyader: Before they were scared of terrorism, now we took two, and COVID.

Laetitia Lim: Before is Euro-West, now is…

Laetitia Lim: Wondering, honestly, we’re curious about how they see Europe and France now as a tech hub, and would they be willing to go there. That could be things we are also interested to find out from the qualitative survey.

Laurent Le Guyader: The main aspect is who’s the job board that we are just already open, and we’re still improving daily. We present at the moment the Next40 job offers, which are open to international talent on the platform. It’s like a portal. I’m going to show you.

Laurent Le Guyader: A kind of quick demo – I need the Internet.

Audrey Tang: You can use our Internet. Joel can help.

Laurent Le Guyader: OK. I use my phone.

Audrey Tang: Your phone is fine, too.

Laurent Le Guyader: Joel, it’s OK. I’m going to use my phone. It’ll be faster.

Laetitia Lim: It’s the first version that we’re going to improve over time.

Audrey Tang: You’re just using your phone. That’s fine. It’s an ASUS phone?

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, it is.

Audrey Tang: They say so on the SSID. [laughs]

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, it’s ASUS. This is, it’s a French tech phone. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Ah, OK. That’s awesome, co-branding, yeah. [laughs] That’s the way to go.

Laurent Le Guyader: This is our platform. This was basic website landing page to introduce France, La French Tech. The next 40-hour concept is a subject flag, virtually, quickly…

Laetitia Lim: Fast, easily.

Laurent Le Guyader: …across Taiwan, but it’s a very poor image right now, because nobody fly anywhere. This is what we developed, anyway, before the COVID. Again, the idea is really to present France and jobs.

Laurent Le Guyader: It is translated into traditional Chinese, of course, because the beginning idea was to bridge Taiwan students and French companies. Now, we’re seeing it makes also sense to use Taiwan to, from Taiwan, to grow this platform with the other APAC community.

Laurent Le Guyader: We go directly into the job board, which is what we want to see. We automatically populate our job board with all the next 40 jobs, tech jobs, or any job they have, either in France, it’s like a flight information board.

Laurent Le Guyader: Either in France – so this job in France – or international. The same company, but they recruit in Hong Kong, for example, as job published yesterday, and Anna Dunn, and etc. From there, you can just click and see the description and go to the official application page.

Laurent Le Guyader: That way, we’re promoting our talent tour, our webinars on our social network. This is going also to be open for other startup to publish such as French-friendly startup in Taiwan, for instance. Also, Taiwanese startup who are very close to La French Tech can publish jobs.

Laurent Le Guyader: Soon, there are, I think, 11, 12 French tech communities in APAC, and they are all very interested to provision jobs.

Audrey Tang: If I click this, it does nothing, right? I have to click the earth.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, it will change, because it’s not very intuitive, and we need to improve the UI.

Laetitia Lim: We need to improve the UI.

Audrey Tang: Super non-intuitive, but OK.

Laetitia Lim: Definitely. I think it’s an issue for…

Laurent Le Guyader: Especially on that screen.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s not very clear what to do here.

Laurent Le Guyader: This will disappear in two weeks, and then you can click on the whole row. We also display directly the description right under it. Then you can apply.

Audrey Tang: OK, awesome.

Laurent Le Guyader: This is a beta version, in the coming months, we have the big one.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s agile development. Yeah, OK, go ahead, yes.

Laurent Le Guyader: What is it around? This is the concept. As I mentioned, we have a network for this talent tour, mostly focus on start-up in France, including the Next40. This platform will be open also to any French tech start-up to publish. We’ll have certain of job that can be promoted in Taiwan, also from accelerator, etc. In Taiwan, we already reach some universities who also happy to help us to promote this.

Audrey Tang: There’s exactly four job opening in Taiwan right now?

Laurent Le Guyader: At the moment, right now, yeah. Two are from the Next40 and two are going to be the Sigfox operator. It is a test to have them publish, also give us feedback. When we start in a month, we need to heavily promote the platform when it is more intuitive and ready. Then we have much more start-up in Taiwan who can publish jobs.

Laurent Le Guyader: We’re also some contact with SMEA, who help us to engage with incubators in universities, and the French office, etc., who are also very keen to promote that.

Laurent Le Guyader: I mentioned the APAC community. We have 12 communities of La French Tech in APAC, Taiwan as a country, but most of them as a city. We have Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Beijing for China, Seoul, Tokyo…

Laetitia Lim: Singapore.

Laurent Le Guyader: …Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippine, Malaysia, and Manila. They all say, “It’s great. We want also ecosystem to publish and we want to promote that in our ecosystem,” etc., who are also going to give an APAC flavor to this program. We want to keep Taiwan because we’re the lead anyway, but we want to keep more visibility…

Audrey Tang: By APAC, you mean New Zealand and Australia also?

Laurent Le Guyader: As well.

Laetitia Lim: Yeah, it could be.

Laurent Le Guyader: There is no French Tech community yet, but they can publish. Maybe even India, eventually, but it’s not done yet. French Tech communities like us, they’re accredited by the French state to be a French Tech community.

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Laurent Le Guyader: Australia, they don’t have any people yet, but we have two new. Philippine and Malaysia were created this Monday, so it’s growing. In the world, out of APAC, it’s 100, 50 in France, 50 abroad. US is covered, Latin America, Africa, Middle East.

Audrey Tang: Excellent.

Laurent Le Guyader: The attraction for Taiwanese talent, for instance, is global career. Those companies, they support especially our endeavors everywhere. Strong focus Taiwan and APAC, of course. Thousand of jobs and more to come. We are going to see which Taiwanese company could publish.

Laurent Le Guyader: There is a French flavor, obviously, so that is valued most for the students. All the Taiwanese start-up who are linked with France, who are prospecting in France, who are the friend of La French Tech, founded by French, or led by French here, they will publish. They are allowed to publish for Taiwan. There’ll be a hundred or so company who can publish also their jobs.

Laurent Le Guyader: It’s free, that’s very important, and it always will be. There’s no commercial, no whatever. Not intuitive yet, but simple because we are not collecting CVs or profile from the company, etc. We are a platform people. We aggregate all those information because, for Taiwanese, they don’t know what is a “French Tech”.

Laurent Le Guyader: They look at the US, China, Japan, but for tech, they look at France still for luxury and for leisure. In tech career in a start-up, we need this kind of tool to bring that awareness that there are great companies and a great career to make anything.

Laurent Le Guyader: It’s not only fresh graduate with those companies. They definitely need seasoned Taiwanese entrepreneur who can scale up a company, establish a branch here in Asia. Those are the kind of people, those are that they need. They are scaling up, but they need people who can do that. I think Taiwan are a large pool of people capable of scale up companies.

Laurent Le Guyader: Voila. This is the webinar of next Monday with Sigfox. We can send you the link, if you’re interested. It’ll be the first of a series of many. We plan to do that also from time to time with Taiwanese partners, maybe universities or company HRs.

Laurent Le Guyader: We see to be there an opportunity for Taiwan to reinforce its lead in the product at an institutional level. We can definitely by promoting it helping your talent to find some job, Taiwan and APAC and elsewhere.

Laurent Le Guyader: We want to promote Taiwan talent globally, so we want also to see how we reinforce the Taiwan touch in this project to be sure so they are visible and Taiwan is promoted as such. By doing this job with a French tech company we’ll also look at Taiwan, “Hey, there is talent over there. You should contact maybe La French Tech and see and come, etc.”

Laurent Le Guyader: That’s something we need to work. It’s not very near, but we need to find some more to do so. I don’t know, first maybe your general feedback on that. We have things we must improve with each Next40 company, and you have a very small briefing.

Laurent Le Guyader: All those information can be found elsewhere. We’re aggregating some information, and just people can say, “OK. Very small brief.” If they want to know more, they can see the website, etc.

Audrey Tang: It’s really well-designed. I really like this idea.

Laurent Le Guyader: [laughs] Thank you.

Audrey Tang: The job board, this destination is the physical location that a person need to work at.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yes, it is. Either France or international, and then…

Audrey Tang: There’s no work from home.

Laetitia Lim: That’s a good point. We are going to do that, [laughs] because this is the COVID touch, so work remotely definitely it’s…

Audrey Tang: I think it should be the default. [laughs]

Laurent Le Guyader: It will.

Laetitia Lim: We discuss that actually. This is part of the next version.

Laurent Le Guyader: This is being implemented at the moment.

Laetitia Lim: Yeah, because we started that before the…

Audrey Tang: I know, I know, I know. We all need to pivot.

Laurent Le Guyader: The phase three is being rolled out.

Laetitia Lim: Definitely it makes sense.

Laurent Le Guyader: In three weeks you will see.

Audrey Tang: Maybe don’t call it “work from France”. Say “work anywhere.”

Laetitia Lim: Anywhere, nice.

Audrey Tang: “Anywhere” is good.

Laurent Le Guyader: Anywhere?

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

Laetitia Lim: We have it France, international, anywhere. Nice.

Laetitia Lim: Audrey. Yeah, because international means not France, but if it’s a remote work, it could also be France, so anywhere is the most inclusive [laughs] of all. Twitter just tells its employee to work anywhere forever. [laughter] Anywhere is the space, forever is the time.

Audrey Tang: This is really good idea, and I’m really happy to do the co-promotion. I have a steady release of creative comments for you on my Flickr, and so you can put words in my mouth, because you’re a not-for-profit organization. [laughs] You can just make me say anything.

Audrey Tang: Seriously, seriously.

Laetitia Lim: Seriously.

Laurent Le Guyader: That’s funny.

Audrey Tang: People are doing that, and people are putting words on my mouth selling everything that has a DT idea. The copyright is designed such that it could only be used to sell ideas and not products, and people do use it.

Audrey Tang: I just saw that our Ministry of Economy, or the Jingjibu…Their latest social media post was this thing, that. I hope the SDGs, each correspond to a different sustainable goal, and how buying such services or products actually furthers the sustainable development goals. It’s a little bit like your Tech-for-Good idea.

Audrey Tang: To realize the SDG 4, we have these technologies. To realize the SDG 10, we have these technologies SDG-whatever. This is a natural partnership. If you can get more French companies, if they have a Taiwan Chapter, to register on the social innovation platform, si.taiwan.

Audrey Tang: Then naturally they have access to this Ministry of Economy network, and it’s run by [Chinese] in the SMEA anyway. [laughs] You probably know these folks. [laughs] They now partner with [Chinese] . That’s the Digital Culture Association who run PanScience and also NPOst.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, I know it’s a weekly…

Audrey Tang: They’re literally my office managers now, and we work in the park of the C-Lab. Of course you know C-Lab, because the nicer thoughts and ideas, nouvelles idées, were there, and we tore down all the walls so people can just walk in from the streets.

Laurent Le Guyader: I’ve been there of two years.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, from the street. It’s now a very nice park.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah, yeah. I saw, I saw.

Audrey Tang: It’s a very nice park.

Laurent Le Guyader: Finally, you ripped those walls, they were not very welcoming for visitors.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s now a park next to the Daan Park. It’s like a new park. Instead of having a park, a small one within the administration, now our administration is in a large park. It’s a flip of ideas. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: If you have anything to reach out to the general public webinars, you can send me this digital flyer, and I can broadcast that in the Social Innovation Lab so that anyone who walks across the park can see a very large QR code that they can scan.

Laurent Le Guyader: That’s going to be awesome.

Laetitia Lim: Would be nice.

Audrey Tang: That’s another very obvious thing. Joel probably know that I mention if you can send ST, as soon as they give us any QR code, we’ll post it on the advertising.

Laurent Le Guyader: Then we’ll send you the flyer.

Audrey Tang: Right.

Laurent Le Guyader: I don’t live very far, so I will definitely go this weekend and check if you did your work.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, instant gratification.

Laurent Le Guyader: We will take a visit.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, the Flickr photos and so on. It’s really popular if you have some French technologies like one of the Sigfox applications maybe, to make a promotion. We also offer a free venue to demonstrate those ideas. For example, I don’t know whether you know ECOCO, which is a recycling station that you can put your used bottles in.

Audrey Tang: It does a circular economy that returns to you shopping cards and things like that. This is just like the vending machine in reverse because you put in bottles and it gives you cash. [laughs] Reverse vending machine. Then it says, “Made in Tainan.”

Audrey Tang: We just set up such a thing with this nice regional revitalization badge on it, and it’s at the front door. Anyone who walk through the Zhongxiao Alley will see it, and they may be attracted in and walk in the park. Literally, a walk in the park.

Laetitia Lim: Those are basically the location where you could rotate to visit a different message for different types…

Audrey Tang: It’s a exhibition space. The manager of what goes where is the Digital Culture Association folks, the DCA folks. Talk to them.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: Use my Flickr photos however you want.

Audrey Tang: These are the three offers that I can give you right away. Going beyond a little bit, the Taiwan Circulation Alliance, which is the AIT counterpart of your…

Laurent Le Guyader: There is a All Hands…

Audrey Tang: I’m pretty sure that you can co-host some events because there is no limitation in the TCA that says this is US only. This says like-minded economies.

Audrey Tang: I’m sure France is a like-minded economy. [laughs] That gives you access to another branch of the Ministry of Economy, which is the more serious branch, the IDB and TCA.

Laurent Le Guyader: We know IDB…

Audrey Tang: Because you are also looking at webinar materials as well as expositions and things like that, and they don’t have a job board. There’s technologies that you can sell.

Laurent Le Guyader: I heard All Hands is going to release a job board very soon.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. I’m aware of that, too. At least you can syndicate the content.

Laurent Le Guyader: Sure.

Audrey Tang: Especially the anywhere column works anywhere.

Laurent Le Guyader: That’s very true. Remote, I don’t know if anywhere…

Audrey Tang: I think anywhere is fine.

Laurent Le Guyader: All Hands, it sounds like they receive fundings from NDC, etc. We have been operating for four years, raising money from our own in Taiwan, in France. We’re not very good at receiving support from the Taiwanese government. Maybe we should knock up the door to IDB or NDC and see.

Audrey Tang: NDC in particular is having a Startup Island idea.

Laurent Le Guyader: Yes, we need to talk to them.

Audrey Tang: You probably want to talk to the person who’s going to run NDC next week.

Laurent Le Guyader: I know who he is. He’s a good friend of ours. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Do talk to the new commissioner.

Laurent Le Guyader: Is he still here? He is, no?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, of course.

Audrey Tang: That’s pretty much it, NDC, along with the existing SMEA and IDB connections. NDC is going to be very important in this because, during the work of the Startup Island, one of the focus is to build also a Taiwan identity in terms of how Taiwanese talents are more creative, more diverse, more creative, and things like that, the four colors…

Audrey Tang: …by this infinity logo.

Laurent Le Guyader: They visited us a year before they released the logo to ask how is La French Tech working, etc.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome. I think this is your natural partner, and it has a very strong branding aspect to it. If you partner only with SMEA or with IDB, it’s probably just your logo. [laughs] If you partner with Startup Island…

Laurent Le Guyader: This is an umbrella.

Audrey Tang: This two logo works really well together.

Laurent Le Guyader: Ministry’s administration are federated based on…

Audrey Tang: Right, because this is…

Laurent Le Guyader: …the question we’re asking, this is only NDC…

Audrey Tang: Like my photo, this is in the commons, so anyone can use this.

Laurent Le Guyader: Like La French Tech?

Audrey Tang: Including La French Tech. [laughs] You just tell the NDC, and then you start using this logo. I think this will create more affinity because then people who work anywhere, including Taiwan, because of COVID, it’s unlikely that they will migrate en masse to France at this moment.

Audrey Tang: They can still work with French teams to scale it out and work as a center of APAC. Even maybe a team of French high-level company managers fly to Taiwan and spend 14 days together…

Audrey Tang: …and operate their APAC business. I’m not joking. This is a much safer place than pretty much any other nearby jurisdictions. Maybe this is a good idea to also promote Taiwan as a physical destination that has broadband as human right, a diverse set of talents that can work to solve French startup’s issues and problems, challenges.

Laurent Le Guyader: Taiwan can help.

Laetitia Lim: I think that’s what’s happening in my startup. I’m thinking about setting up some…which I was not because I had gone in Paris. I’m starting to think about hiring talent here and having my experts from the developers flying for some missions to train people here, definitely.

Laetitia Lim: Honestly, in the next coming months, travels in Europe…Honestly, for scale-up, it really makes sense. I think what Taiwan have done in managing the crisis, it’s something that the world deserve to see because it’s the safest place in the world for the moment.

Audrey Tang: It’s not just connectivity and food, it’s also health. [laughs]

Laetitia Lim: It’s the first thing people would think about before they decide to go somewhere, before salary, before anything. Definitely that. Then you are saying that this is the one that it’s the most…

Audrey Tang: This is the most important thing, because this basically says, “You can come here,” whereas the other logo from our Foreign Service like, “Taiwan can help,” basically says we go outside, so that’s outbound.

Laurent Le Guyader: Reach out.

Audrey Tang: This is inbound. Your message works better with this inbound message. Not to say that you shouldn’t work with foreign service. Joel is foreign service, our service.

Laetitia Lim: It has to be, too, and to-date. It’s well-perceived.

Audrey Tang: Inbound is a stronger message. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Laetitia Lim: Interesting.

Laurent Le Guyader: Excellent.

Laetitia Lim: It’s open, its initiative it’s Taiwan, French Tech Taiwan. What we want, because we are lovers of Taiwan, is to really advocate and market Taiwan to the rest of the world. The idea we have is it’s going to be open, because you know it has to be a open community. Nobody works in silos.

Laetitia Lim: We want Taiwan to stay at the heart of this initiative and, of course, open to everybody. We had this idea that we’d love to have, because we think you’re really emblematic of Taiwan Tech, Startup Nations, so we’d love to have…If you think this is initiative that really matches Taiwan values, etc…

Audrey Tang: I would love to see “Startup Island Taiwan” logo right here, because it says it’s part by La French Tech Taiwan. This part is La French Tech, but there’s no Taiwan. [laughs]

Laurent Le Guyader: No, not yet. We are working on the interface to add…

Audrey Tang: What I mean is instead of just say “Taiwan,” say “Startup Island Taiwan.” It’s the same number of lines, [laughs] , and so it looks like a natural connection. That’s what I’m trying to get at, because that will get people share it much more organically.

Audrey Tang: People will share it as one of the things that they identify, and then of course you can add your other APAC countries’ equivalent logos in their different locales. If you choose Taiwanese Mandarin interface, then you’ll probably want to say that we do work with Startup Island Taiwan. Talk to a new commissioner. You don’t need their approval, but it would be good to have that approval. [laughs]

Laetitia Lim: To really reinforce this Taiwan initiative, this Taiwan taste, like startup island, really in terms of branding, have a special home page, default any page, etc., do you think it’s possible or would you consider to be a kind of patronage us?

Audrey Tang: You can just look at my Flickr, and choose any of my photo and make me say anything.

Laetitia Lim: That’s cool.

Audrey Tang: As long as it’s not directly selling any product or service.

Laurent Le Guyader: No, no, no.

Audrey Tang: If it’s just advocating an idea, then they just make me say anything.

Laetitia Lim: If that’s something that we need just patronage, we could use your Flickr, right?

Audrey Tang: Mm-hmm.

Laetitia Lim: If we do any online lunch or whatever…

Audrey Tang: Sure thing. You can record something for your events.

Laetitia Lim: …a interview or comment, and basically if you could share your vision about that, what you think that brings value, etc.?

Audrey Tang: Of course. Just send me whatever you make me say on the photo, and I will say it again on video.

Laetitia Lim: [laughs] This is very fast and efficient.

Laurent Le Guyader: We think that they may improve the system…

Laetitia Lim: Really, basically, we’d love you to use your…

Audrey Tang: You can do a lot of A/B testing, and make me say a hundred different things since it resonates… [laughs]

Laetitia Lim: Could we say you are the…How do we say in English? Patronage?

Laurent Le Guyader: The godmother…

Laetitia Lim: The godmother of this initiative?

Audrey Tang: Whatever. Just make me say, “I am the patron of…” whatever.

Laurent Le Guyader: How many languages you speak? [laughs] Japanese?

Audrey Tang: In the “rice cooker mask revitalization,” that series I made is now 12 languages or something. I had to learn Taiwanese Hakka also. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Just make me say anything. You can look at the mask revitalization. There’s also a German version. I think there’s the French version, too. I’m not sure.

Laurent Le Guyader: Can you send me the link there and Flickr, everything.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, yeah, sure. Joel has my Flickr.

Laetitia Lim: Now we don’t have those facilities and capabilities. If we have any other areas and need your support one way or another, we maybe contact Joel, and see how we can basically benefit from your branding, if I may say? [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Yeah, of course. This is the Taiwan model. I mean literally a model.

Audrey Tang: Just to show you how this works. Let’s see how. This is how it works in practice.

Audrey Tang: Bonjour. Je suis Audrey Tang. Aujourd’hui je vais vous montrer comment désinfecter un masque pour le réutiliser.

Audrey Tang: J’ai besoin d’un cuiseur à riz electrique, d’un masque chirurgical l’on deja etait porté, et une horloge. Ouvrez le cuiseur et placer le masque à plat dans la cuve intérieure surélevé. N’ajouter surtout pas d’eau. Fermer le couvercle, allumez le cuiseur, et attendez pendant huit minutes.

Laurent Le Guyader: What’s the temperature there?

Audrey Tang: 110 Celsius for a few seconds and then it goes down.

Audrey Tang: Ouvrez le couvercle et laissez-le refroidir. [dinging sounds] Le masque est désinfecté est peut être réutilisé.

Audrey Tang: Taiwan peut aider.

Laurent Le Guyader: Taiwan peut.

Audrey Tang: That’s our outbound message. Taiwan can help.

Laurent Le Guyader: That’s interesting.

Audrey Tang: You can do something like that for your message.

Laetitia Lim: Thank you.

Laurent Le Guyader: Maybe we can keep the rice cooker.

Laetitia Lim: Everybody in France is getting out of confinement you know now…

Audrey Tang: I know, I know.

Laetitia Lim: …and everybody’s wondering how they’re going to do with the mask.

Audrey Tang: I know, I know, yeah. You can really spread this message.

Laetitia Lim: All the ages…

Laurent Le Guyader: OK, I will, I will.

Audrey Tang: This gets millions of views in Japan.

Laetitia Lim: I’m going to send it to my mama. They have rice cookers. [laughs] And my sister, they all have rice cooker. My family and friends have rice cooker.

Laurent Le Guyader: Find a mask in your rice, no thanks.

Laetitia Lim: I didn’t know you can do that in a rice cooker.

Audrey Tang: Hello, I’m Audrey Tang. Today I’d like to demonstrate how to revitalize… [dinging sound] …

Audrey Tang: And then also German. I did a German one myself, but…

Audrey Tang: …und heute werde ich Ihnen demostrieren wie Mann eine Schutzemaske revitalisieren kann.

Audrey Tang: Each one has a slightly different. German record are more cooler, so it’s a kind of light blue background, and the French people are more warm, so it’s a light orange.

Laetitia Lim: We have to take that into account…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s different video features. Let’s do something like that together.

Laurent Le Guyader: Thank you very much for your time.

Laetitia Lim: Thank you very much for your time, really. We’ll keep in touch.

Audrey Tang: OK. Bye.