Grayson Shor: Wow. Did you get that in Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Grayson Shor: Nice. I’m always trying to find the 長衫, that one. I found one recently, but sometimes they can be a really complicated design. I love the ones that are very simple. They’re just one color. I’m always having such a hard time finding those.

Audrey Tang: This is made of tencel, which is sustainable, but not exactly circular. [laughs] It’s an improvement.

Grayson Shor: It’s a step in the right direction, and it looks really good.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Grayson Shor: How have you been lately?

Audrey Tang: Pretty good, still following up on the Presidential Hackathon promises.

Grayson Shor: Nice.

Audrey Tang: We did promise a lot [laughter] during that hackathon. There’s some international exchanges happening. We’re working with a team to see if they can visit New Zealand again.

Grayson Shor: What was your favorite take-away from the hackathon?

Audrey Tang: I think the international track need to be on the same track as the domestic track.

Grayson Shor: I agree.

Audrey Tang: We planned international track mostly because we understand, for people under us, it’s a luxury to spend three months in Taiwan. If given the chance, they would love to. We should do this like New Zealand does it. It means that we offer up to three months, but you have to pay part of the trip.

Audrey Tang: We could support lots of people for three months. If you’re willing to do that, you feel free to come earlier and mingle with the domestic teams and even enter as the same team.

Grayson Shor: I’m happy that was your big take-away, too.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Grayson Shor: There’s a great opportunity for the next one to get more of the integration between Taiwan and those international groups.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Grayson Shor: We all got to mingle together.

Audrey Tang: You’re kind of the prototype.

Grayson Shor: The guinea pig, hah.

Audrey Tang: You did spend the three months in Taiwan. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: That’s right. We’ll just call it the Shor Model, something like that.

Grayson Shor: I thought it was really good. Congratulations to all of you guys. I thought it was a great success. I posted on my LinkedIn and my Facebook a little bit about my experience. I had so many people message me from around the world that are very curious about what Taiwan’s doing and the fields that were discussed or the teams.

Grayson Shor: For example, even the water box team, a lot of interest in those types of things. I think it’s a great success. One of the things that Taiwan’s a leader in the world besides technology, but also hackathons.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. I’m make sure to invite some of the teams to visit the U.S. too.

Grayson Shor: I hope so. They have a really good team. They’re a good, fun group of people, too.

Audrey Tang: AIT and the Fishackathon was the original challenge that made Waterbox in its infancy. It’s a great story of U.S.-Taiwan collaboration as well.

Grayson Shor: Exactly, so I’m excited. Speaking of hackathons, I had a question for you. I just finished a meeting with Ta-Ching and Ryan at AIT. I came straight from that.

Audrey Tang: For the Presidential Hackathon, as you know, I’m the lead of the jury, but I don’t do the scoring. I just facilitate the conversations. If I do score, based on conflict of interest alone, I’ll have to walk away on one-third of the teams. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: It’s best if I don’t score myself, but I’m happy to serve as part of a jury, to facilitate discussion.

Audrey Tang: What about the data set? Usually, for a hackathon, whether it’s NASA or Fishackathon, there are data sets provided by the people who are sponsoring this. GEC, as far as I know, is now funding the first batch of projects…

Grayson Shor: Yep.

Audrey Tang: …to work on Mandarin OSINT, to which Twitter just                                                       contributed a data set                                                   publicly yesterday.

Grayson Shor: Really? Wow.

Audrey Tang: They banned huge numbers of fake Twitter accounts doing info op on Hong Kong from PRC in origin, from a block of IP addresses reserved by the PRC that doesn’t need to use VPN to access Twitter. That’s probably their offensive unit.

Grayson Shor: Really?

Audrey Tang: Yes. Before deleting all of this, they archived all of it so that it’s beyond their term of use. It’s not term of use anymore. There’s no privacy to protect, so they just published everything, including metadata, IP address, everything, of those literally info-op operatives.

Audrey Tang: It is a pretty interesting development. Analyzing it would be fun.

Grayson Shor: Is it open source as far as…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s open for analysis.

Grayson Shor: That is so cool.

Audrey Tang: I would really like Facebook to do the same. They’re still evaluating it because, unlike Twitter, they don’t have a very clear “this is community violation and this is info op so we can publish.” Their legal team need to work on it.

Audrey Tang: If the hackathon is next February, maybe they would have sufficient time…

Grayson Shor: Maybe by then.

Audrey Tang: …to work on this thing. For this kind of coordinated manipulation, there really is no right to say that privacy is being violated because it’s covert action that damages the underlying infrastructure.

Audrey Tang: A black-hat cybersecurity hacker cannot say, “You can’t publish my IP address to the indicator system worldwide, that’s my privacy…”

Grayson Shor: Out of personal curiosity, do they ever have any issues with somebody that’s a real person, but they accidentally restrict their information because they think it’s a bot or something along those lines?

Audrey Tang: Aside from CAPTCHAs, if the platforms suspect that you’re a bot, they sometimes asks for a SMS number, which they can correlate and make sure that several accounts don’t share the same SMS number.

Audrey Tang: GEC has a programme toward this direction too, in their Region 2 call for proposals. Maybe there will be more datasets by February, preferably also from major platforms…

Grayson Shor: Yeah, social media…

Audrey Tang: If there is a social media influence operation from the same actor doing another hard cyber security attack, then it’s much higher chance that they’re not innocent at all. Maybe focusing on correlate the datasets is my first suggestion for the hackathon. It’s exactly like NASA hackathon, except more social, less environmental. That’s the first thing.

Audrey Tang: The second thing is I would suggest that in addition to funding, it may make sense to have a data jam, like workshops to help the local teams regionally make sense of those datasets.

Grayson Shor: That’s a good point.

Audrey Tang: What we have found as working pretty well in Fishackathon and NASA hackathon is to have the local domain experts in their local language write a kind of introduction to the issues at hand and envelopes background and things like that.

Audrey Tang: It does make sense for each participating country to do this a different way, because their local context may be very different. Frankly speaking, materials coming out from academics in Taiwan has a higher chance of being redacted anyway by our nearby jurisdictions.

Audrey Tang: It makes sense for every partnering country to make their own introductory material, but we need to set an embargo date, like three months before the competition, two months before the competition to be fair to all the participating countries. That’s my second suggestion. I think these two make the most sense from the previous exercise we’ve had before.

Grayson Shor: Make a deadline for…

Audrey Tang: Right. Like everybody announce around December?

Grayson Shor: Excellent. When you said for each country too, is it based more on the country or based more on the dataset? For example, if it’s Facebook or let’s say Twitter is releasing this information and they need to write something that explains how to use it, right?

Audrey Tang: That’s right, but for the local experts to reinterpret it in the local context. I mean cultural translation. I’m sure that Facebook can do six language at once, but what they cannot do is to contextualize it locally, because they don’t operate in our nearby jurisdictions. That’s one.

Audrey Tang: Also, as I mentioned, if they do do that, they choose the common denominator that is universally true but not exactly country-specific.

Audrey Tang: What Fishackathon has done and NASA as well is to work with academics in each jurisdiction widely recognized as unbiased, non-partisan experts on this matter, and for them to host a sense-making lecture, or a workshop, or, as I mentioned, data jam with people who want to participate don’t quite know how to make sense of these data.

Audrey Tang: It does make sense for this to take a more local venue and it needs to happen roughly the same day or the same week at latest as not to give any jurisdiction an early-mover advantage.

Grayson Shor: That makes sense. First being finding some way to correlate the cyber-attack, a hard data set, to this data set for example, a Twitter data set.

Audrey Tang: You can begin with the Twitter data set. It’s a good example.

Grayson Shor: I like that. Thailand, too yesterday released stuff. The second thing focusing on some type of way looking at how the NASA hackathon, Fishackathon locally contextualize the data, how they follow in the same method of working with the academics to create some type of explanation.

Audrey Tang: Like pre-run activities.

Grayson Shor: Can that be in the form of a website, a PDF?

Audrey Tang: I think a website plus a chance of people meeting face-to-face. For Taiwan, for example, if you decide to do this in Taichung, or Kaohsiung, or Taipei, it makes sense to have more people who is connected together, or at least a dialing link for people who cannot make it to any of the municipalities. It’s even more true for nearby jurisdictions that are larger in land areas.

Grayson Shor: Those are two really good suggestions. Is there anything else you would suggest on top of that as well, or would you say those are the two main ones and move forward from there?

Audrey Tang: That’s what we spend most of our energy on the Presidential Hackathon. The idea is for the public servants involved to get to know the team gradually, instead of just under award ceremony.

Audrey Tang: The previous few months is spent on having the teams mingle together – domestic and international teams – as well as have the domestic teams composed of multi-sector players so that they can do the feasibility analysis by themselves.

Audrey Tang: If things happen between, say, December and February multiple times in each country, then there is a chance for the local jurisdiction and local academics to re-contextualize their very local solutions to something that is useful internationally and understandable to people in the GEC as well.

Audrey Tang: Perhaps we can try it out for the second year, when there are already alums from the first year?

Grayson Shor: Seems similar, for example, the Presidential Hackathon, that the first year is test it out. Then maybe the second year…

Audrey Tang: We can improve it.

Grayson Shor: Exactly. The first year, there’s not that possibility for that.

Audrey Tang: Exactly. It’s not like the first year’s winner will solve all info op issues, and next year we don’t have anything to do. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: That’s all done, at that point you just sit back and relax.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Grayson Shor: OK, cool. That gives me some good thoughts to contemplate.

Grayson Shor: Moving from that, some other news on my end. I wanted to meet with you, I may have sent an email or last time we met. I return back to Washington, DC this Monday. My time has gone by so quickly. I remember, I think we were in some other office here, the first time we met.

Audrey Tang: It’s the same one. It’s just redecorated.

Grayson Shor: Is it the same office?

Audrey Tang: It is the same office. It looks very different though.

Grayson Shor: It looks so different. It’s a whole new setup.

Sheau-Tyng Peng: Yes.

Grayson Shor: I like it, though. I like this setup more. It’s more of a open concept.

Audrey Tang: Yes. The basement is also totally redone using the same concept.

Grayson Shor: There’s a basement downstairs?

Audrey Tang: There’s a basement. You haven’t been.

Grayson Shor: I didn’t know there’s a basement.

Audrey Tang: Yes. You can take a two-minute tour.

Grayson Shor: Yes. I’d be really interested to check that out. Plus you can watch “Game of Thrones” or whatever you watch directly…

Audrey Tang: [laughs] That’s right, exactly.

Grayson Shor: It’s been great. My time here the past six months here in Taiwan have been absolutely amazing. I’ve been very busy as I know you always are as well. I’d like to say learning is my first language. A busy life is a learning life.

Grayson Shor: I visited everything from almost all cities along the coastline of Taiwan visiting electronic e-waste facilities to plastic recycling plants, to research institutes, to government offices, to you name it. It’s been amazing. My goal when I return back to Washington, DC is two-fold.

Grayson Shor: First is I will be continuing my work on the GCTF for next year, which I have some questions for you about. I’m hoping to get your advice on that. Then the second one is when I return back I’ll also be working on a OECD portfolio.

Grayson Shor: My hope is to use OECD portfolio as also a mechanism to promote the circular and the greening economy but also open-source data and a lot of the values that you and I share and a lot of people in our generation as well about the importance of open-source data, open-source information, and even the civic hacker, and the maker community as well.

Audrey Tang: Nowadays, open-source intelligence.

Grayson Shor: Exactly. It’s going in that direction. That’s great. Lastly, I have to say that, to you, before I jump into some of the questions I have about the GCTF. Again, I always sound like a broken record saying this but I’m very impressed and so happy.

Grayson Shor: I’m sure you get this all the time. Everybody I talk to is always like, “Audrey, I love Audrey. She’s amazing.” Especially an inspiration, you’re one of the top if not the top person that has inspired me the most while I’ve been here.

Grayson Shor: From your personal story about your personal life story and how you’ve come from day one to where you are today and the efforts and the projects that you’re focused on. I wish you the best of luck.

Grayson Shor: I’m really curious to see where the future takes you. I know that we’ll have an opportunity beyond even this GCTF to continue working together. Also, it’s very cool you went to George Washington University, my old school.

Audrey Tang: I did. That’s right.

Grayson Shor: I’ll keep doing that stuff. If you come to Washington, DC again, you have my email. You have to look me up.

Audrey Tang: OK. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: Please, come. I’m sure you’ve gotten some good tours of the area. If you had some extra time when you’re there, I’d be happy to show you around.

Audrey Tang: Awesome. Really appreciate that.

Grayson Shor: My pleasure. Thank you.

Audrey Tang: Now, GCTF.

Grayson Shor: GCTF, exactly. Date isn’t set yet but we have a GCTF that will be focused on the circular economy and marine debris. This will be in Kaohsiung out of Kaohsiung AIT. The local partners will be ITRI and the OAC, Ocean Affairs Council. As you know, it’s typical GCTF three-day event. Maybe one of those days will be a larger 400, 500-person event.

Audrey Tang: The OAC has a pretty good venue for that. Their building itself is pretty good.

Grayson Shor: Really? I didn’t know that. They have enough room to…

Audrey Tang: They have a sufficient number of rooms. Being the flagship of cabinet-level ministry in Kaohsiung, they have pretty good, not just venue but also local access to…Their neighbors are the Science Park. I’m sure that the mayor would fully support that as well seeing that he had just met a director.

Grayson Shor: That’s perfect. That was some of the questions I had for you was two categories. One is, do you have any recommendations of site visits, people to attend both international but also in Kaohsiung and around that area? Specific businesses, or you said the Science Park, or I think it’s the Langhai Industrial Park…

Audrey Tang: That’s right. Yes. You got it. [laughs] You have very good connections as well.

Grayson Shor: All right. There we go. I’m learning step-by-step.

Audrey Tang: If you want something that feels really grand, the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center is excellent, the KEC. The Asia Pacific Social Enterprise Summit was held there.

Grayson Shor: You said that’s the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center?

Audrey Tang: Yes. The Kaohsiung Expo Center. It’s really good venue, super good. We spent a lot of resources to help the Care for Us Foundation and the Social Enterprise Insights and Impact Hub Taipei, which all care deeply about circular climbing.

Audrey Tang: This year’s APSES is also supported by a local company named ASE, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering. They are based in Nanzih District in Kaohsiung. They had, six years ago, an industrial pollution incident…

Grayson Shor: Was that Vietnam? Was it that?

Audrey Tang: No, I think it’s locally in the Houjin River. You can read all about it on Wikipedia. The ASE Semiconductor, ever since then, set up a sustainability relationship and strategy unit. They’re very keen on proving that they’re not the same company anymore in its DNA.

Audrey Tang: They are very kind in supporting the APSES with a lot of circular-economy focus. That would be my main suggestion. As for venue, I think the Expo Center is really good.

Grayson Shor: Expo Center. There’s the big question of would there be a local Kaohsiung organization or maybe they can be any Taiwanese company or organization that would want to host a first-day large event? With the GCTF, the MOFA pays for the GCTF attendees.

Audrey Tang: Yes. That’s what ASE is good for.

Grayson Shor: ASE would be best for. This is my first time hearing about them. I assume they’re a large company. Are they a medium size? Would they be able to…

Audrey Tang: Their revenue is about, I don’t know, close to 10 billion USD?

Grayson Shor: 10 billion. OK. Yes.

Audrey Tang: Reasonable size.

Grayson Shor: That’s perfect. For further organizations or site visits as well beyond these locations.

Audrey Tang: I would defer to the council on what’s the name again? The OAC.

Grayson Shor: The Ocean Affairs Council?

Audrey Tang: Ocean Affairs.

Grayson Shor: Ocean Affairs Council.

Audrey Tang: Goes very well with Continental Affairs.

Audrey Tang: I wonder if the Mainland Affairs Council could rebrand itself to Continental Affairs Council…

Audrey Tang: Anyway, I would defer to the OAC. They, especially with the new research branch, what they are doing is to solve sea debris with advanced technology, to stop them at sea instead of on the beach. I would defer to them.

Audrey Tang: They have pretty good connections — as evidenced by the Presidential Hackathon — with Greenpeace and friends. So I would entirely defer to the three OAC agencies. It may make sense to ask them one-by-one.

Grayson Shor: The three…

Audrey Tang: Agencies, which is the coast guard, the one that does excellent Facebook campaigns that gets, I don’t know, 100,000 likes and followers by publishing one simple image, on the day of typhoon they process something that says, “If you insist on doing dangerous behavior around the ocean, when a typhoon comes we may not save you.”

Audrey Tang: That has huge amount of Facebook likes. It’s so far the most successful social media campaign. That’s the first one…

Grayson Shor: I like how that’s the popular experience. I feel like that’s very Taiwanese in the sense of safety and…

Audrey Tang: That’s right. That’s the coast guard. Then there’s the sea conservation unit. There’s the ocean institute.

Audrey Tang: The institute is new. The name is T-O-R-I, Taiwan Ocean Research Institute. The coast guard is CGA, Coast Guard Administration.

Audrey Tang: The conservation is called OCA, I think, Ocean Conservation Administration.

Audrey Tang: Because OAC is new, a lot of connections may not be entirely absorbed in the proper OAC yet. It may make sense to ask the three on their own.

Grayson Shor: Perfect. That’s really good recommendation. Coast guard, OAC, and TORI.

Audrey Tang: OCA.

Grayson Shor: OCA.

Audrey Tang: Ocean Conservation, as in protecting biodiversity.

Grayson Shor: Ocean Conservation. Coast guard, you said the acronym is TC…

Audrey Tang: Coast Guard Administration, CGA.

Grayson Shor: Administration. Perfect.

Audrey Tang: They also have a lot of connections to the topic of sea debris as well.

Grayson Shor: Perfect. That’s awesome. These three organizations themselves also offer a lot of possibility for international collaboration post-GCTF. There’s counterparts to all three of these, for example in the US, that can have a collaboration. That’s good advice there.

Grayson Shor: Two other questions related to this as well. What would you suggest as a potential long-term goal…Maybe a better way to phrase this question is how can this GCTF be organized or set up in a way so that it has a long-term outcome?

Audrey Tang: That’s a pretty high level question…

Grayson Shor: Yeah. I know you work with the hackathon. When we first sat down, you were saying we want it not just be where everybody comes, you take a picture and then leave. We want it to be something that you make a promised, and then something happens long-term, it turns into something bigger.

Audrey Tang: Right.

Grayson Shor: Do you have any recommendations, from a sage, to how to structure it?

Audrey Tang: A few things. There’s GCTF topics that has been run since forever, women’s empowerment, anti-corruption. They already figured out a way to make those relationship long term. We don’t need to look beyond the GCTF framework to see whether it could be turned into a long-term relationship.

Audrey Tang: The challenge always is because women’s empowerment and anti-corruption is literally never-ending. It may broader in its concerns for intersectionality and for beneficial ownership, not just anti-corruption, into something more proactive. There’s new themes every year, but the shared concern never goes away. It will essentially outlive the SDGs and [laughs] it will just continue on.

Audrey Tang: The main challenge when we talk about media literacy or the more recently GCTF on other sustainable goals is to pick themes that would make sense beyond 2030 as a umbrella term, first to ensure that the people who are invited gets invited at the end.

Audrey Tang: People who participated, when they think about a decade-long horizon, they will also think about how to, for example, have the younger generation participate more meaningfully. In 10 years, that will be their turn in this community as well. Just have a longer planning horizon is the key.

Audrey Tang: The other thing is I think the GCTF framework could start to be more public, as in having an outreach arm.

Grayson Shor: I agree.

Audrey Tang: The GCTF media literacy track and the GEC hackathon you mentioned, has such a synergy. You can have the GCTF itself making the academic connections and do the analysis and things like this, but after all, it’s not a public-appealing event.

Audrey Tang: If the academics can feel that, by coming here, it’s not just sharing the best practices, but can collaboratively determine the agenda of a outreach event that is truly global – like the GEC event – that everyone can then take back to our countries to serve as local contextualizers, then it gives them a lot of things to do right after the GCTF for five months or six months.

Audrey Tang: The next GCTF will naturally be then going back and reporting whether this intervention was useful. In a closed setting, not open to the public, people can be very frank in how to make the second year better.

Audrey Tang: We had that discussion following the first Presidential Hackathon. People had a lot to say. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: That means that people can keep committed to this. Instead of walking away, they think that they’re part of the table for the next 10 years. I think this is very important. These two work supporting each other.

Grayson Shor: Interesting. Find some ways for local integration of some of these ideas.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Grayson Shor: I totally agree about the be more public-facing or have better public media about what’s happening here as well. Relationship to the SDGs, I saw that one coming though your name card. You’ve got always the Sustainable Development Goals. I agree with you on that 100 percent.

Audrey Tang: If there’s some quick, actionable conclusion right after each GCTF, the media loves that. For example, we have a good story to tell, like at AIT at 40, the digital dialog, the very first one as a top suggestion saying the AIT should send someone to participate in the Presidential Hackathon. They’re like, “Sure, why not?” A week or two after that, we got your application. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: It’s a really good, continuing story, and everybody loves that story. Having something like that as a concrete output of GCTF saying, “After this GCTF on media literacy, we’ve determined that we’re running a hackathon with the GEC. And these are the specific inputs from our experts, and we will take that into account in the next hackathon,” the media will love that story.

Grayson Shor: That’s a really good point as well. I’m curious. Stepping away from the GCTF for a moment, I have one last question related to that. How do you get your information? You’re obviously very well up-to-date. For example, Twitter released their information yesterday.

Grayson Shor: I’m always so curious about this with you. When you wake up in the morning, do you have a favorite podcast you listen to? Do you read the newspapers a lot? Do you go on Reddit or something?

Audrey Tang: I just got it from the origin. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: …as well. They just send you emails now, I guess?

Audrey Tang: That’s right, saying, “Hey, we’re publishing that.” For the Twitter release, I got information from the Facebook liaison who said, “We understand that we’re doing this only after Twitter notified us, but we’re thinking alongside those lines.”

Audrey Tang: Because if we can help framing this as Facebook also wanting to do good, then that’s very good for their PR. If we’re framing this as Facebook doing…

Grayson Shor: Catch-up to something?

Audrey Tang: Indeed. So you see, people would really like me to frame things more clearly. I don’t always agree, but at least I do see everyone’s point of view, which is where I get information.

Grayson Shor: How do you determine how you want to frame things?

Audrey Tang: I meditate on it.

Grayson Shor: You’re kind of in a unique position where you’re coming from the maker, the hacker, the open-source community where it’s all about transparency in its natural, raw sense. You also have to balance that you’re working in government and some things are confidential and…

Audrey Tang: That’s right. I’m on the Lagrange point between movements and governments. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: There are five Lagrange points, right?

Grayson Shor: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: So I would ask myself: Which point am I on this particular part?

Audrey Tang: Am I literally between the two bodies that are not trusting each other?

Audrey Tang: Am I in a triangular relationship where I can commend each for approaching each other more?

Audrey Tang: Am I now widely seen as part of the movement or part of the government for this particular matter?

Audrey Tang: That’s the main thing that I think about. Once the position is clear, how to frame things become kind of “of course.”

Grayson Shor: I like that. You have your work cut out for you. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: So the question is really: “Am I between, aside, or behind?”

Grayson Shor: Interesting. I ask this question for myself in that I also come from more the belief of open source, open data in the maker community. I also am in the role of working in government. It’s how to balance those type of things in a way that it’s still beneficial to the overall goal, which is to try to create more cohesive collaboration, and it’s a win-win-win for everyone. Sometimes the path to do that’s hard.

Audrey Tang: I know, but we have plenty of experience of that in the open-source community, right?

Grayson Shor: [laughs]

Audrey Tang: It used to be that we have to work with Netscape, Inc., then with Satya Nadella and his people. When I was working with Apple, there was also a discussion about how to make the new programming language, Swift, not just open-source, but open-governance, which was really not part of the Apple philosophy at the time.

Audrey Tang: We had plenty of experience in the private sector, now the public sector. I think bureaucracy all look the same [laughs] and the same tactics apply.

Grayson Shor: Interesting. I’m with you on that, too. Life, it’s a learning process.

Audrey Tang: It is.

Grayson Shor: Last two questions for you here. One is jumping back to the initial question about participants internationally, so looking beyond the borders of Taiwan.

Grayson Shor: Are there any specific companies or organizations that you recommend, that you think would be good to have at this GCTF for circular economy and marine debris that you’ve worked with in the past, anybody you specifically would recommend that comes to mind?

Audrey Tang: Our APSES, we heavily leveraged the expertise of Impact Hub Taipei. The whole Impact Hub network cares about circular economy. In particular, the Taipei branch worked with the Tzu Chi Foundation on the so-called…

Audrey Tang: I’m just trying to make sure that I don’t get their things wrong. It’s called Vision Future, visionfuture.org.tw. It’s all on the website.

Audrey Tang: I think it’s rare that a venerated NPO, that is, Tzu Chi, which has its own diplomatic arm, is willing to hand this whole event, which they called 慈悲科技創新競賽, which includes circular economy, but using the very interesting term, mercy technology. The 5R is their main topic.

Audrey Tang: As you can see, this is very well aligned internationally. If you only look at the website, in the copy, you would never think that this is part of a Tzu Chi endeavor because they have a very religious, very conservative persona, but only hidden in the byline [laughs] by the Tzu Chi Foundation.

Audrey Tang: Impact Hub Taipei did really well in reframing this very Buddhist-inspired tradition into something that is very modern, appealing to teenagers, and very up-to-date to the latest 5R, cradle-to-cradle phenomena. Tzu Chi is extremely wealthy as well.

Grayson Shor: Yeah, so I’ve… [laughs]

Audrey Tang: I’m sure you know about that.

Grayson Shor: Oh, yeah.

Audrey Tang: It’s not just their social enterprise and circular technology, but the whole ecosystem. I think it makes a lot of sense to leverage not necessarily Impact Hub Taipei, but someone acting in the role of Impact Hub Taipei and bridge those venerated charities into the planning part.

Audrey Tang: It could also help on the post-GCTF follow-up because Tzu Chi has a huge amount of activities like this, not necessarily a branded thing. It’s something that can follow after GCTF. I’m sure that, for them, funding is not a problem. It’s mostly about co-branding.

Grayson Shor: What role would you see them playing? With the GCTF, there’s the multiple training sessions. Would they fit more into the category of…

Audrey Tang: As a trainer. I’m sure that they can serve as a trainer as well as providing commitment post-GCTF. They are not GEC, but [laughs] you can imagine them in a GEC-like role.

Grayson Shor: Would you see them also as something more on the technology side or more about a infrastructure, physical infrastructure?

Audrey Tang: They can do both, and they have very good organizing capability internationally, especially in this region. Even if you want to do something at the scope of GEC hackathon, but in the Pacific, I’m sure that Tzu Chi can handle a lot of local infrastructure and logistics, not just exporting technology. They, as I said, have their own diplomatic arm.

Grayson Shor: It’s a state inside of a state.

Audrey Tang: That’s exactly right.

Audrey Tang: I guess you don’t have to run with the same partner every year?

Grayson Shor: Exactly. Maybe even if there’s some possibility of getting them both in there. They do a similar thing, but from what I’ve heard, their approach as far as the materials that they take in, for example, the physical materials are different from the recycling capacity. One’s HDPE, and the other one is PE.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, which makes it kind of difficult to frame it…

Grayson Shor: That’s a hard one.

Audrey Tang: Indeed.

Grayson Shor: That’s that question. The last one for you, is there any potential role that you would like to or could play in this hackathon? To put an idea out there, I think some type of discussion or training on…

Audrey Tang: You mean GCTF?

Grayson Shor: For this GCTF, yeah. I think it would be very valuable to have some type of training session about the value of open-source data and data collection as it relates to understanding the marine debris issue.

Grayson Shor: If you look at a G20 or G7 or especially United Nations marine program reports, they talk about the need for a database, for example, about marine debris, where they’re accumulating, the types of plastics, and understanding the greater scale of where they’re coming from.

Grayson Shor: If you listen to a Jenna Jambeck, she says this a lot, as well. The Greenpeace and Society of Wilderness, SOW, report for the rapid assessment that was released last month, they also talk a lot about, in their report, the need to understand the volume of marine debris, and did a lot of data analysis and data collection.

Grayson Shor: I’m curious if you think there would be some possibility of some training around data, its importance and value to the circular economy and marine debris, and maybe some case study examples, like the rapid assessment.

Audrey Tang: When would that be?

Grayson Shor: We’re not sure yet of timing.

Audrey Tang: Roughly?

Grayson Shor: I don’t want to give you a rough time because…

Audrey Tang: This year?

Grayson Shor: Next year.

Audrey Tang: Next?

Grayson Shor: It might be some time around March, but I’m not sure yet an exact date. We’re currently in the process of determining that now. I think it would be some time between March and December of next year. It’s a huge…

Audrey Tang: [laughs]

Grayson Shor: That’s why I don’t want to give you an exact date yet. It’s not for sure yet.

Audrey Tang: It’s hard to commit to anything at that point, right?

Grayson Shor: Exactly. I know timing’s a huge…

Audrey Tang: It’s a habit now that every year during the UN GA that I visit New York and share our work about sustainability development.

Audrey Tang: During the past year, there’s a shift in my role to be much more international and less domestic. Although the term digital minister means that I can work literally anywhere, there seems to be more emphasis, at least toward the end of the year, that you will find me perhaps in eight countries.

Audrey Tang: Which is why I cannot commit to something that happens in Kaohsiung next year. I really don’t know where I will be visiting.

Grayson Shor: We’ll especially come in like May, and everything all related to that, but also if your role is pending…

Audrey Tang: I just mean we might have to talk about how to balance my diplomatic visits and my domestic visits. If it’s after May, obviously I can’t promise anything. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: Understandable.

Audrey Tang: If it’s between March and May, I’m happy to participate.

Grayson Shor: Perfect. Initially, we were planning for March, but it’s still in debate right now. If it’s in March, then that sounds like that would be a good match. I’ll let you know. We should know in the next couple of weeks.

Audrey Tang: If it’s end of March to beginning of April, I will be in Taiwan for obvious reasons, because of parliamentary inquiry. I’ll have to know this new batch of legislators. It’s very much hopeful that I’ll be in Taiwan, and therefore, able to participate somewhere in Kaohsiung. May or afterwards, I don’t know.

Grayson Shor: Perfect. I was just seeing the possibility for that. Definitely, as far as the role for data, it seems like there’s a lot of organizations in Taiwan that could talk about these type of things. I think that Ryan, Ta-Ching, and I all share the same goal, which is to get Audrey involved as much as possible in whatever we’re doing. We’re three of your largest fans.

Audrey Tang: [laughs] That’s fine.

Grayson Shor: We’re always vying for some of your time and participation. I’ll keep you updated about that as we find out more information in the next couple of weeks or next month or so.

Audrey Tang: If I’m physically in Taiwan, I would love to participate. I’m just telling you my schedule.

Grayson Shor: Definitely. I’m excited for you with this new expansion of your role as well. We need more of you international as well. Plus, that means if I’m in Washington, DC and you’re coming to Washington, DC, you can come visit your best friend Grayson. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: I would very much like to take you on the offer.

Grayson Shor: If you ever want a tour of the State Department, too. I’m not sure if you have already.

Audrey Tang: The news about my participation around this year’s UN GA will be out in the two days. By the time this press release is published, it’s public knowledge.

Grayson Shor: You’ll be going to New York for that?

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Grayson Shor: Are you going to row a boat there? I’ve heard – I’ve been talking to some participants – don’t take an airplane because of the emissions. Somebody’s taking a boat there, I’ve heard.

Audrey Tang: Across the Pacific?

Grayson Shor: Yeah. It’s an interesting one.

Audrey Tang: OK, that’s very…I have to first learn wayfinding from the Polynesian technique. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: Exactly, maybe go back to school for a little bit to read how to read a sextant and all of these things

Audrey Tang: Exactly, how to read constellations.

Grayson Shor: Try hacking that one. Hack the stars, I don’t know.

Audrey Tang: That’s very “Moana”-like.

Grayson Shor: That’s what the song, the Heihei part. It actually comes from the sky, exactly. Little did we know.

Audrey Tang: Awesome. Never thought the marathon would be across the Pacific. Maybe we can charter a cruise ship. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: That’d be fun. It’d be a cruise on the ocean. You could do a “entrepreneur ship” or something, a play on words on the ship as well. That’d be fun.

Audrey Tang: There used to be companies that does that, like geek cruise, that runs, essentially, open-source conferences on a cruise ship.

Grayson Shor: Wow, never heard of that before.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. It’s a pretty interesting concept. [laughs]

Grayson Shor: The GCTF, just take the C and turn it into “cruise.”

Audrey Tang: “Geek Cruise Training Framework.”

Grayson Shor: Yeah, a geek cruise.

Audrey Tang: [laughs] That would be fun.

Grayson Shor: That’d be awesome.

Audrey Tang: That would be awesome, and I’m sure that Kaohsiung City would love that. They’re trying to make cruise industry a booming tourist attraction.

Audrey Tang: You know my timeline now. If I do visit DC, I’ll let you know.

Grayson Shor: Perfect.

Audrey Tang: I will be in New York, that’s for sure.

Grayson Shor: Excellent. I definitely will be in DC. Definitely, I’ll be back in late September. If you’re coming through, I’d be happy to show you around. It would be absolutely my pleasure.

Grayson Shor: Again, thank you so much for the time, the stuff that you’re doing. Not just for US and not just for Taiwan, but I think that what you’re doing internationally for humanity is extremely valuable. [claps] I applaud you.

Audrey Tang: My NYC trip will be around #UNGA74.

Audrey Tang: By late September, do you mean end of September?

Grayson Shor: Yeah. Around that time. I get into DC on September 18th.

Audrey Tang: OK.

Grayson Shor: If you’re coming into DC, you want to take a trip to DC?

Audrey Tang: We’ll keep you posted.

Grayson Shor: Perfect. Thank you so much, Audrey. I miss you already, but I’ll see you in the US.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Grayson Shor: I’m going to hold you to it. I’ll see you, sooner rather than later.