Ravi Nataraju: I used to be upstairs when this was…

Audrey Tang: When this place was incubating apps?

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. APP Park.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, the App Park.

Ravi Nataraju: Basically, our relationship in Taiwan is I’m Indian by ethnicity & nationality is British as I stayed in London for the last 15 years. My wife is Taiwanese. We stayed in London for five years.

Ravi Nataraju: I wanted to do something new in the space of people in society, so I left London. I came to Taiwan because Taiwan is number one in open data, especially. Thanks for all the efforts…

Ravi Nataraju: …from you guys as well. For us, we wanted to create a smart city for the people by the people.

Audrey Tang: Like smart citizens. [laughs]

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. We considered predominantly on the happiness of people in the city. When we came to Taiwan, we created an application called CLAPPIO (                                                      www.clapp.io                                                  ). If you like something you clap.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, I’m aware of that.

Ravi Nataraju: [laughs] We wanted to make sure that people can contribute to the emotional index across the city. We created this application where you can actually say you’re happy in this place or you are unhappy in this place, and why you’re happy or unhappy in this particular place.

Ravi Nataraju: It was an ambitious plan, I would say. Nonetheless, we pushed it. Our first year was more about understanding how to do stuff and everything else. We got space in the APP Park to experiment as well.

Ravi Nataraju: Then in the second year we provided a solution to Taoyuan Metro. The last three years, they’re helping us, which is exceptional for a startup to be supported by somebody that great and that big. We also then pushed a little to use the open data provided by the system.

Ravi Nataraju: We went for a hackathon in NTU called Smart City Hackathon. We found out that you guys had already released the MRT exit data in 2012 and nobody had used it. When I go to MRT I always get lost as to which exit I should take.

Ravi Nataraju: Then we contacted Google to see if they can fix this problem. They were, “Not in our plans to do it any time sooner.” I’m, “I guess we have to do it by ourselves.” Then we looked at the data. It was already there. We just created a hybrid version of that in two days. We won the Public’s Choice Award in NTU.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: Which was really a turning point for us.

Audrey Tang: For Taoyuan Metro?

Ravi Nataraju: It’s to start with Taipei, then we did Kaohsiung, and then we did Bangkok.

Audrey Tang: They have the same format, the PTX.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. We did the same thing, plus we did Taipei, Kaohsiung. Then Taoyuan Metro was, “Hello, we’re the clients.” We were like, “But you don’t have the data, though.” “But, we’ll give you that,” and, “OK,” because they were a little bit late in getting the data, but we did that anyway. We did Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taoyuan, Bangkok, New York, Shanghai, Fukuoka, Singapore, Barcelona, and Paris.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: Same application. Yes, we did it in two days, but we add more data to it. That was another significant contribution from the open data that we saw.

Audrey Tang: What’s the name of the app?

Ravi Nataraju: It’s called                                                       www.exit.rocks                                                  .

Audrey Tang: Exit dot…?

Ravi Nataraju: Rocks.

Audrey Tang: Ah, exit rocks.

Ravi Nataraju: We didn’t get the domain for exit.com or anything. We thought, “Let’s make it a little bit jazzy.” The good thing is, if you take the airport line today, every seat, back seat, you will see the sticker of                                                       www.exit.rocks                                                   promoted by Taoyuan Metro for the last three years.

Ravi Nataraju: The idea is for the commuters traveling first time to Taiwan, we want to give them the best…

Audrey Tang: Experience?

Ravi Nataraju: …thing that we can give. Google wasn’t giving the exit at that time. Even if it did, it’s not as good as ours because what we are trying to do is give more of a local experience as to what can be done. If you look at this, or if you clicked on experiences, you click on that, we’ll tell you how to go from here.

Audrey Tang: Awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: The good thing is all of this powered by open data. Google comes somewhere here. We can do that as well, but we chose not to. [laughs] What we did was, on this one, even if you use Google Maps, Google Maps only gives you this information, and that’s 10 months after we did whatever we do. This is where the value proposal comes into picture, especially for mobility and for parents.

Audrey Tang: Universal access.

Ravi Nataraju: We presented this in Paris. Then we were invited to present this solution in Paris because Phil Tinn, the researcher from MIT, he used to do the cycle project here.

Audrey Tang: He’s been here like three hackathons for the urban mobility.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. We both met together in Paris, and he was doing that. I was saying, “Unfortunately, we are not that hands-on, because we are more software people, [laughs] so this is the best that I could do.”

Audrey Tang: The case.

Ravi Nataraju: The case.

Audrey Tang: I’m sure the mobility…the universal access can also use his vehicles, but it’s a lot more from investments.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. I said, “This is all we could do,” and it was pretty chuffed, and he chose this. The question in Paris was asked to me was, “If you’re old, where would you retire? Would you retire in Taipei or would you retire in Paris?”

Audrey Tang: That is a trick question.

Ravi Nataraju: I said, “Of course, no brainer. Taipei, of course.” Everybody was shocked. They asked, “Why?” I said, “We have looked at the data. If I have to travel anywhere in Taipei, I know exactly I’m supported everywhere. In Paris, I cannot move without, because the mobility is not that great, because it’s an old infrastructure, of course.”

Audrey Tang: That’s right. They’re having a longer tradition that also impacts it. There’s more legacy.

Ravi Nataraju: I told them, “You may have whatever problems you have, but at the end of the day if you ask me as a person who is in need of help and infrastructure, I think I would rather live in Taipei than Paris.” They were completely shocked.

Ravi Nataraju: They were like, “Can you please do this presentation? Because when we tell it to our local people, they try to mock us, because that’s what they do. If somebody as a foreigner explains to them why, and they will probably understand it better.” We were like, “OK. We’ll do it.”

Ravi Nataraju: We did stream it from upstairs to Paris, so we presented it from Taipei. There was a lot of buzz in Twitter, and also these journalists who were sitting there, like, “I agree with that. We’ve been telling that forever,” and everything else. [laughs] It was awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: Everything went very well. Clappia also created a buzz within the Taiwan Metro space, because we were collecting data as to where people were unhappy on the network itself. The head office used to know what the problem was within the stations, even before the station masters.

Ravi Nataraju: They started to complain saying, “We don’t need this app because it is creating something, not of a good cultural relationship between the hierarchy within the organization.”

Audrey Tang: The mid-level and upper-level management is on the same page.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct.

Audrey Tang: That threatens their hierarchy.

Ravi Nataraju: What we told them is in the second year, we could provide station access. People from the station master can use their own data straight away without having to go through that one. They were like, “Why are you only listening to visitors? What about the staff? We are the integral part of the network.”

Audrey Tang: They’re also stakeholders.

Ravi Nataraju: We were like, “OK. In that case, we can try that one,” so we did that as well.

Audrey Tang: This is OpenStreetMap, right?

Ravi Nataraju: Yes. We never used Google for that one, because we don’t want to.

Audrey Tang: Sure. It’s good to have a choice. [laughs]

Ravi Nataraju: It works, which is very rare…

Audrey Tang: Of course, it works.

Ravi Nataraju: …but it works. Basically, for Taiwan Metro, what we did was…this was really radical for us because we never thought this would actually fly in this manner. Basically, when we did this, we created a thing like this, where we gave an option that if you are…

Audrey Tang: Whether they’re a staff or not.

Ravi Nataraju: That created a positive feedback loop as well.

Audrey Tang: If they say they’re a staff, and they’re unhappy about staff.

Ravi Nataraju: You can.

Audrey Tang: You can do that.

Ravi Nataraju: You say you are really. Whatever, and then you go in and you say where you were, and then to that.

Audrey Tang: That’s really nice.

Ravi Nataraju: I think you did not select one. I think where you are happy.

Audrey Tang: I’m a staff happy about the staff.

Ravi Nataraju: And where. With this one, what we did was we gave them the dashboard in such a way that they can look at only the staff view, station view, and the train view so that they can actually organize themselves better moving forward. This gives us a lot of ideas for us.

Ravi Nataraju: We spoke to Carrefour here. We did a pilot with them. We did one with Taipei City Hall for all the toilets. Right now, the same application has been deployed in Singapore, in all the shopping malls. The core factor behind this was we did not want to invade the privacy of users. There is no install, no download, no registration, no login.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. It’s a PWA-ish thing.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: You talked to Carrefour?

Ravi Nataraju: We did it in three shopping malls to see how we can enhance the user experience of the people when they get to the shopping malls. We were in the parking lots. We were in the toilets. We were in the cold section, food section, bakery, and all these places so that they can get key insights in these places.

Ravi Nataraju: In the second year, we did a little bit different approach. Originally, we were doing a government approach, which is we give                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   to the government, and the government gives it to everybody else. Taxpayers pay to the government, so it only makes sense to do it like that, but it took a longer time.

Ravi Nataraju: What we did was, “Let’s do the business first because they want things done yesterday.” They’ll pay tomorrow, so it’s OK.

Audrey Tang: It’s a B2B2C arrangement.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah, so we did that. Right now, we have two solutions with Decathlon because of the French network we have here. We are in Taichung Stadium. All the seats behind have                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   as well, so that we can better stadium management through Decathlon.

Ravi Nataraju: Decathlon sponsors the project for the stadium, so it’s a good CSR, you would say. We are also doing the product innovation bit with Decathlon as well. Instead of you creating a product, going to market, and trying to sell the product which does not sell…

Audrey Tang: Usually.

Ravi Nataraju: …why don’t you ask the people in the first place how to do it? Then you create a product so you’re not creating waste in the marketplace.

Audrey Tang: It’s true crowdsourcing of the design.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct, yes. What we’ve done is we have done, for baseball in particular, we have selected on sport and then we are working with the users of baseball to say, “What kind of products would you actually like to do?” Then we’re doing innovative product management solution using exactly the same thing.

Audrey Tang: That’s very smart. It’s user participation not at the implementation level but at a design level.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: That’s one thing which we have done here as well. When we tell this in France to people, they were like, “You’re working with French partners in Taiwan, and you’re doing all of these things, and we’re not doing anything here?” I’m like, [claps] you haven’t opened up the door such as Taiwan did for us, so sorry, [laughs] you’re standing in the queue, which was really, really influential in that way.

Ravi Nataraju: Then we spoke to a Taipei Hop-On, Hop-Off bus. The contact ended last week, but we were there for the last one year with all the seats, behind, collecting the data for that. We did for the Taiwan tour bus as well, E-Go bus as well.

Ravi Nataraju: We did moving assets, which is buses, trains, static assets like buildings. We have started to collect a lot of data, which is totally not invading your privacy at all. At the start, we were mocked that if you did not collect user data, then there’s no business model.

Audrey Tang: Now, after GDPR…

Ravi Nataraju: Exactly. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: …suddenly, you become the star.

Ravi Nataraju: When we went to the Hacking House, the most questions asked for us is, “People have to interact with you to know what’s actually going to happen. What if people did not interact at all?” I’m like, “Yeah, maybe. So we need to probably look at a different angle.”

Ravi Nataraju: Again, what we have seen is I never owned a car, ever. We bought a car last year, and then I started to see the problems from a car perspective. I only used public transport, so I never seen the problems for a city perspective, from a car user’s.

Ravi Nataraju: Then I found out a lot of problems was if only people who drive the car knew what the problem was with the car. Then they would never bring a unhealthy car to the road and create a domino effect for everybody else, so no traffic jams, pollution-free because not everybody’s stopping.

Ravi Nataraju: I was thinking, “Why haven’t people done anything in this angle?” Then I used the SigFox Hacking House to see how we can provide a OBD2 plug, put that into the car and only listen to the bad things that the car would say, and then give it to the user. The user will decide, “Is this car healthy enough for me to take it to the road or not, or should I take it to the repair?” That’s the first thing.

Ravi Nataraju: The second thing was, even if I do that, would people buy things like this? Maybe, maybe not. How to incentivize people to actually do it? Then we spoke to Huanan Bank.

Audrey Tang: The insurance branch.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. What we told them is, “We won’t tell you anything about the driver behavior, but we will tell you about the vehicle behavior. Then you can aggregate the data and then do better premiums based on that. What do you think?”

Ravi Nataraju: They thought, “If you can pull it off, we will definitely do a test with you.” I was like, “OK, that’s a good start.” Then we applied for that. Currently, we are still in the design phase of doing it. We have proposed the same thing to Cathay. They think it’s a cool idea as well.

Audrey Tang: When we were discussing the injuries, we’re like, “This is a business model that’s just waiting to happen.”

Ravi Nataraju: Happen.

Audrey Tang: Right. [laughs] I think it’s really good that you talk with both the citizens who has a certain expectation when it come to privacy, as well as the ultimate payers. That’s the insurer and companies that are banks or maybe financial service providers. What we really like is that you’re setting yourself as the catalyst for them to trust each other more.

Ravi Nataraju: Yes.

Audrey Tang: That is actually not the norm in smart cities. Usually, you cater to one group and make them trust you more, but you kind of exploit that trust and create negative externalities. I like the way of innovation, of a norm-first way that you’re doing this.

Ravi Nataraju: That went well, so we spoke to KGI. They are pretty interested as well. What we are seeing is, as we are a part of one of the other beneficiaries is the fintech space. We are a part of that one, which means we are currently in the digital sandbox for the fintech…

Ravi Nataraju: We are now trying to do this on blockchain. When we spoke to people, some people, not everybody, said, “We don’t mind sharing our data if we are incentivized for sharing our data.” When we speak to the businesses, they say, “As long as the data is clean, we would be willing to pay for that data.”

Ravi Nataraju: That is why we are now thinking of storing the anomalies on the blockchain. If the users want to sell, they can sell this data to any buyer, but they have to set the price on that data if they wanted to. That’s a choice. It’s not that you have to, but it’s a choice, which is very rare for me to hear.

Ravi Nataraju: I was on the polarized version of people don’t want to share their data at all. I’m slowly seeing people are different shades of gray.

Audrey Tang: People do want to share data and even curate the quality of data if they can be recognized as workers, that it actually takes work, that there is a dignity part of it. Nobody want to be data slavery [laughs] relationship, right?

Ravi Nataraju: True.

Audrey Tang: Because of that, there’s a strong opposition if we’re feeling that we’re exploited by larger companies. Nobody wants slavery. If we’re dignified as like a worker’s co-op, then everything is by choice. I think there’s a lot of space in that.

Audrey Tang: As you said, there’s basically the pre-GDPR view of just exploit as needed and then the GDPR view of everything is closed off by default. I think privacy, by design, can also enable data dignity by design.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. After doing these interviews, we were like, “OK, I think we should take a step back on a completely polarized view of black and white. We should probably look at the different shades of gray.” Give options to people so that they’re not bound to black or white, but give them choices to where they can work it out.

Ravi Nataraju: Funnily, by doing so, we then spoke to Tatung, the white goods manufacturer, and they have a lot of smart appliance , but they haven’t actually converted that smart data as a sellable asset for the person who actually owns the white goods.

Audrey Tang: Right, there’s no agency, no idea of how to control the use of the data in a way that responds to the market.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. Then, we asked them if we can use their API to put that data on our data market where the users can decide that they want to sell their fan data or their AC data or anything like that. They were like, “Well, if you take the responsibility of buying and selling, we don’t have any problems sharing the revenue with you.”

Ravi Nataraju: We were like, “OK, let’s do it.” We signed an MOU with them to actually see how this would go on because this may be contrarily to DDP, but the question asked us was like who would buy this data. I said, “You know why the elections got turned in Taichung and Kaohsiung? It’s all because of pollution.”

Ravi Nataraju: If the data was given in the right hands at the right places, it could have changed the election outcomes basically because if I, as a user, told you that I’m using an air purifier at home and somebody is telling me that my area is polluted and my air purifier tells me not, or it does. Again, I’m not polarized with this or that.

Audrey Tang: No, I understand.

Ravi Nataraju: As long as people were given facts and they made decisions based on facts, then it would be a totally different model.

Audrey Tang: I totally agree.

Ravi Nataraju: That also compliments you telling that the windows also should be sending the data back as to what…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, the air boxes project.

Ravi Nataraju: The same thing.

Audrey Tang: Every home appliance could be an air box.

Ravi Nataraju: An air box.

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

Ravi Nataraju: Then, we said, “There is my buyer.” The buyer would be somebody who would want to use facts to present their use case. It could be DPP, or it could be KMD. You never know.

Audrey Tang: It also could be someone in an industrial park who are suspected of polluting the air, but they claim or they know that they’re not. How do you prove it to people? By working with the people, right?

Audrey Tang: Previously, they tried to publish their own numbers, but they’re not trusted. If it’s the appliances nearby that are all reporting the same, that justifies their claim. On the other hand, if they sometimes pollute without management knowing, then the management knows about it.

Audrey Tang: As you said, you don’t go into it expecting to be polluting or not polluting. It’s obviously better than the previous way where one half of people think it’s polluting and one half is not.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah. I said facts-based resolution or a solution is the most effective way of doing anything. We need to empower people to actually do it and incentivize them to do it.

Audrey Tang: Right, to do high resolution resolutions.

Ravi Nataraju: Yes. I was like, “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from.” I said, “OK, fine. We will work with you, no problem. We will do that.” For us, we have seen that, from a synergy perspective…I was working in London for the last 15 years, but I don’t see London for whatever forward thinking first nation, whatever.

Ravi Nataraju: They’re not that synergistic as compared to Taiwan at least from my perspective, and I’m guessing a lot of positive wipes running around from the governance side, from the business side.

Ravi Nataraju: Everybody else can actually see if you can actually portray it in a non-negative way, a non-competitive way, but a more collaborative way to actually make things work and reuse existing resources, which I think was a very, very good way of doing it.

Ravi Nataraju: When we spoke to the FSC and also for the regulators here, when we spoke about Urban AI, they were like saying, “I think you should be speaking to the Ministry of Transport because they have another sandbox for transport solution…”

Audrey Tang: For more transportation.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah, it could be something. This, I would never expect to happen in India where I was born, not in UK where people would actually recommend you actually go use your solution somewhere else. It happens only in Taiwan.

Ravi Nataraju: That’s why I was thinking maybe there are other sandboxes, which are going to be in place or plan to be in place where we can recommend things where we can actually say, “Hey, this is not done. We can actually do it.”

Ravi Nataraju: Then, I thought who should I be speaking about this, and then I met you. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: I know something about sandboxes, yeah.

Ravi Nataraju: Then I thought, “Oh, maybe if we speak to you and then share our experiences, maybe there might be a way around to actually deploy it effectively.” We don’t believe in subsidies and grants because it only incentivizes people to concentrate on the subsidy requirements or on the grant’s requirement.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, I know.

Ravi Nataraju: We, personally, don’t believe that’s the right way to encourage innovation or creativity. However, we support small businesses. We should be competitive enough to portray and say, “Hey, this is the project. It’s a project-based incentivization. You enable us to actually do this, and we will support you to do it.”

Ravi Nataraju: Subsidy only cripples growth. That’s my personal view. I might be wrong.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, money is very blunt.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: That’s the main problem.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct, not being used properly. APP Park was perfect because we were still new. We needed some space to understand and see where things are.

Audrey Tang: Now, you’re like six people or…

Ravi Nataraju: No, we’re still only three.

Audrey Tang: Oh, wow.

Ravi Nataraju: The good thing is we are very flexible. For the                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   project, I did it by myself because I’m technical. For the                                                       www.Exit.rocks                                                   project, I was not that good so we got some resources from NTU to actually work on this project for the three months.

Ravi Nataraju: Once that was done, it was just data loading of every city. You don’t need…

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah. For the Hacking House as well, we had Wolfie with us, the German guy, to work on the hardware limit.

Audrey Tang: Oh, so it’s a kind of ad-hoc partnership.

Ravi Nataraju: Yes.

Audrey Tang: It’s not like they’re your employees.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct, because now, he’s in Himalaya. He’s in the basecamp right now. We need flexibility for people as well. You can’t tie them to say, “Hey, you need to work. You don’t have freedom in life.”

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Ravi Nataraju: That’s why we’re working in a model where we are expanding and contracting based on what we’re doing, but we consistently grow ourselves in a more holistic way. I think it’s a good way, I think.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: Still, there’s lots of open data available not being completely tapped on the power because people see open data as a good thing but not used effectively. I think we don’t inform the businesses as to the usefulness of that as well, the fundamental issues, again, of not informing people.

Ravi Nataraju: In the                                                       www.exit.rocks                                                   application, what we did after was also to use flights data, which was not used properly. The reason is every time when somebody takes the train, the first question is, “Should I get on at terminal one or terminal two?”

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Ravi Nataraju: Once I get there, which counter should I go to actually check in my luggage? Then, which gate should I go on? People get into a panic mode for not knowing. If only you informed the people prior, then I would be in a more cool, calm space. I would say, “Yep, I know it’s terminal one. It’s definitely check-in counter number three and gate number seven.”

Ravi Nataraju: It’s all about giving the right information for the people at the right time. We proposed this to Taiwan Metro like saying that, “You’re an airport line. Don’t you think we should give the flights data to people who are actually taking the flights?” They were like, “Well, if you can, we would be more than happy to actually give that back to the people.”

Ravi Nataraju: We then looked at the MOTC data, I think, for flights. Then, we actually created it, and we added that as a model as well. Now, the good thing with that one is once we added t model, we spoke to Cathay and said to Cathay, like, “Hey, don’t you think people need to be informed that they need to be insured when they’re actually leaving Taiwan?”

Ravi Nataraju: Oh, well, I was too busy. I did not know, but now, I know. I’m sitting now. I have one hour from Taipei to Taoyuan. Cathay said to me, “What do you propose?” I said, “We can introduce a customized insurance for that particular journey because we know where they’re going, and we know like…”

Audrey Tang: That the risk factor can be calculated.

Ravi Nataraju: Then, we said, “We will give you all the data, and then you give us back an API. Then, we will process the insurance there.”

Audrey Tang: That’s funny. That’s really interesting.

Ravi Nataraju: [laughs] We don’t even know until they told us there’s an API for the insurance. I was like, “Well, what do you think?” They were pretty…this is something very, very…a good thing about Taiwan is that they came back to say, “It’s a great thing…”

Ravi Nataraju: Where is this?

Audrey Tang: They were willing not only to try that, but actually build it into their kind of API framework.

Ravi Nataraju: Yes. They were like, “Yeah, we’re looking…”

Audrey Tang: Awesome. That’s awesome.

Ravi Nataraju: It’s fantastic. We proposed to Taoyuan Metro, Taoyuan Metro gives us the green light to put the flight data and we put the flight data, and then, Cathay comes and we tell them, “This is what it can do.” They were like, “OK, don’t stop innovating. Don’t be shy in proposing something because you never know how the domino effect would work.”

Audrey Tang: Exactly.

Ravi Nataraju: This was fantastic. I never expected Exit to be something, which would actually help people to be made aware of the risks they can achieve once you leave Taiwan. Who’s going to cover the risks? These guys.

Ravi Nataraju: Then, we went to Taoyuan Airport and we see that insurance companies lined straight. They occupy a lot of space in Taoyuan Airport. Then, we were wondering, like, “OK, when you get to the airport, your first concern is not to miss the flight. Find the check-in counter, get your check-in baggage done, and then, what do you do?”

Ravi Nataraju: You just go to departures, but as these guys are sitting there waiting to sell . It’s not going to work. If you tell me when I’m sitting and I can actually make my decision with no sales push for me to actually buy my insurance. If I can compare that insurance, then…

Audrey Tang: The offers.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah, then I could actually do it. Then, I know…Some people don’t trust doing transactions on phones. That’s OK. Go to the counter. There’s people there…

Audrey Tang: That’s right. Show them the QR code.

Ravi Nataraju: Yep. They were like, “OK.” Then, we presented the same use case for Cardiff, BNP Cardiff, which is a French bank and an insurance operator in Taiwan because they can upsell directly, but they sell it through Taiwan Corporate Bank. They were saying, “If you have tools like this for our other partners, then we would be more than happy to actually do it.”

Ravi Nataraju: We were like, “That is even curious,” because then, we are now doing the B2B, shortening the sales cycle in such a way that it is beneficial for businesses to operate effectively. We were like, “Oh, my god. This is mind-blowing.”

Ravi Nataraju: If only you don’t stop innovating, you don’t stop being creative, if you’re not shy, if you’re able to be open, this is the place where we can, because most of the fintech area, especially in the world, is bank haters, basically.

Ravi Nataraju: If we are going to hate the banks, and we’re going to take over all the banks, why? Why? Did they do anything wrong? They are following the regulations. They are working with the regulators. They are playing within societal rules. Maybe, that’s what’s crippling them to be innovative.

Ravi Nataraju: Just because they’re crippled by the regulators and regulations doesn’t make them any bad. They need to work within the rulebook, right? Just because you are a startup doesn’t mean that you don’t have to follow the rulebook. Hello! You have to follow the rulebook, too, and then, you’ll fall into the same place.

Ravi Nataraju: Our idea is more about collaboration, innovate to a place where they cannot, and then bridge the gap to them, and then, keep these people happy, keep these people informed, give them choice, give them choice on what we said is…

Audrey Tang: This will improve the banking experience…

Ravi Nataraju: Correct.

Audrey Tang: …which is the main thing both the regulator and the clients really want instead of just working on specific banks, which are just institutions to do banking. We can just imagine banking together, and then, individual banks can follow or they can just look at what you have done successfully and decide to do that on their own.

Audrey Tang: That’s the spirit of sandbox is open innovation.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct. We saw that if the synergies are good, people are not draconian in the way that they’re going to eat you because you’re innovative, nothing like that. Just continue to be innovative. People are just not going to attack you anymore and that’s it.

Ravi Nataraju: A number of networks that you have makes you stronger because you have a lot of positive contributions to them so they do positive contributions to you.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Ravi Nataraju: It was awesome. For me, to book the meeting was to share the good things that we have looked at it. The main reason why we named ourselves THINKTANK was to actually change the core definition of think tank itself.

Ravi Nataraju: Don’t do research for the sake of doing research, and don’t advise for the sake of advising. Try it yourself. See if it works for you. If it works for you, then, advise.

Audrey Tang: It is a kind of think and do tank.

Ravi Nataraju: Do tank. That’s why we thought let’s do it in that way because we want to change the way things have been done. Yes, of course, there is nothing wrong with think tanks as it is. What we are trying to say is get some more creative and innovative people who can actually do some work about prototypes with you, and then test it to the market, and then advise who and what you are supposed to be advising.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. I think that is a thing peculiar to software. It’s because it’s literally very malleable. Previously, think tanks wouldn’t do public construction projects because it’s too time consuming, and you can’t just abort in the middle of building a road or something.

Audrey Tang: With software, you can literally change every hour. That fits with the kind of iterations like the think tanks operate with. It’s only through software design or software defined policymaking that you can just try it out for everybody for a firsthand experience, and then do some really policymaking.

Ravi Nataraju: Correct.

Audrey Tang: I think it’s very rare that there’s a construction material that evolves faster than regulations.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: [laughs] Software is that.

Ravi Nataraju: Yes, and the good thing was we applied…Whenever we go to any government-run organizations, we have this issue of bidding. If you charge more than, let’s say, 100K, then you have to go through a standard bidding process. Now, startups cannot go through this whole bid because what are you going to do, do paperwork or do development? Which one will actually work?

Ravi Nataraju: This pushed us into a state where I was…This is a bad decision or a really good decision, I don’t know. I said, “OK, fine. What is the price that you can pay us where we don’t have to go through this and so we can continue doing this?” They were like, “99K.” I was like, “We cannot sustain on 99K alone.” That’s the way out.

Audrey Tang: That’s the municipal government?

Ravi Nataraju: Any governmental bodies.

Audrey Tang: For the central administration, if ministers bless your idea, it’s now 10 times that.

Ravi Nataraju: OK, that’s news to me.

Audrey Tang: We changed it last year.

Ravi Nataraju: Oh, is it so?

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

Ravi Nataraju: That was it. Then, last year, I think III created this pre-bidding, pre-vetting suppliers for the governments. Then, I thought I’ll apply for this one. Maybe this is our way out to do it. We applied. We succeeded.

Ravi Nataraju: Right now, from this year on, I think we are on the pre-approved list of suppliers for                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   for government offices to actually buy it, which was unheard. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Congratulations.

Ravi Nataraju: This, I think, I really put that in a positive way to all my friends across Europe and India because we had few Indian companies who came last month. I told them, “Look, see, merit still works in Taiwan. I don’t have to have leads to do the right things in Taiwan.

Ravi Nataraju: “You could just be anybody. You just do the right thing, and then, you get blessed. It doesn’t matter that it’s a business or government. We have actually proved that both works as long as you’re doing the right thing.”

Audrey Tang: Exactly.

Ravi Nataraju: It’s a good thing that we are now pre-approved, which means we will be able to be in a positive way where we can tell the government organizations how they would like to evolve. Of course, there would be a kind of pushback because this is probably new to them.

Ravi Nataraju: What we are proposing them at                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   is about iterative development for themselves because we don’t look at the data. It’s you who look at the data as to what people are telling you in your premises. We are offering                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   as a solution, which you could use in your own office.

Ravi Nataraju: If people came, you put a QR code here, and we scan the QR code. We tell you what and how we felt in your office. It may be positive. It may be negative, but be open to know…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, we’ll find out together.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah. Then, by doing this, we are not pinpointing anybody in the office, and we are not revealing the data of the person who actually submitted as well. We are just adhering to the privacy and the security of personal data, which is very important. It was good that we have passed that phase.

Ravi Nataraju: Next year, our idea is to enable government organizations to be more iterative in a way where you see there was something wrong, you took some action, and then look again, if the same problems are being reported, are being related, and if your solution did not work or did work, and keep going.

Ravi Nataraju: What we are proposing with                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   is as a iterative developmental tool for you to do self-development for your organization or for your office locally, which is pretty…

Audrey Tang: Yeah. I just checked the public listing. It turns out you’re online like today.

Ravi Nataraju: Oh, gosh! I did not even know.

Audrey Tang: Right. Starting today, all the municipal offices and all the central government offices can just look up thinktank.com.tw and then discover your services. So, congratulations.

Ravi Nataraju: Thank you. I did not know that one. That’s news to me again. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: That’s as of today.

Ravi Nataraju: For advice perspective, what would…How could we approach the organizations, especially the government ones, in a more effective way, because even going and getting appointments with the government officials takes time for us? It costs us money and resources.

Ravi Nataraju: What’s the best way to reach out to everybody and then propose? Normally, the way we do it is we go and then do a demo of our stuff when everybody’s available, especially TPMO do that for us…

Audrey Tang: TPMO is actually very good at doing this.

Ravi Nataraju: Yeah, we did that, actually, at one of the consortiums that they actually created. We had Taipei Performing Arts Center actually very interested. We did three projects with them. We did Taipei Children’s Art Festival, Taipei Arts Festival, and Taipei French Festival.

Ravi Nataraju: We did three projects with them to enable them to know how the art performances across Taipei went ahead. The good thing was none of our projects had that good of a response rate as compared to them. In Taiwan Metro, for the year, we had 10,000 responses.

Ravi Nataraju: Taipei Children’s Art Festival, within a month, we had 5,000 responses.

Audrey Tang: Oh, wow.

Ravi Nataraju: We were like, “This is ridiculous. Why?” Then, we looked at their marketing approach. Yeah, they said they’re going to give a gift, and that’s… [laughs] The response rate was fantastic. It’s a good thing for us. We never knew that not only hate but little carrots also sometimes enable you to do the right things.

Audrey Tang: Sometimes, it’s just fun, right? It’s like how in the grocery stores, they now give you those mini-coupon stickers. It’s the same idea.

Ravi Nataraju: That’s a learning curve for us as well on how we can enable other organizations to incentivize their data gathering activities. That was pretty good. That was one thing, which we found out if TPMO acts on behalf of us, invites everybody, puts them in a place, and we go present…We spend one hour and then do locally doing the waiting, and then people come, and we give it to them.

Ravi Nataraju: Is there things like that, which you are aware where we can now…?

Ravi Nataraju: Join?

Ravi Nataraju: …and explain to the government organizations this is how we could actually do it, this is how we’ve actually done it before? We can present the use cases that have actually worked. Taiwan Metro, I don’t think is completely 100 percent government. It’s half government and half private, completely private.

Ravi Nataraju: Taipei City Hall, we did a pilot for three months, but we failed because of the placement.                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   was placed in toilets. People’s hands are wet when you’re in toilets, so they won’t touch the phone to scan it.

Audrey Tang: They’ll probably have some voice activate it.

Ravi Nataraju: Something like that, yeah. This is where I think the budget was an issue for us because we are a startup. We are self-funded. We don’t get funded by somebody else as we do these experiments.

Ravi Nataraju: Again, these are all things we don’t know, and that’s why I thought not to be shy with you, just pose the goods and the bads so we can actually see how we could work it out.

Audrey Tang: Sure. Right. Actually, here, is an incubator of startups as well as social innovators. If you go to the basement level, you already see a lot of demos. We run those pitch days and things like that. That is one potential place for you to engage with.

Audrey Tang: How old is your company?

Ravi Nataraju: Four years now.

Audrey Tang: Right, so you still qualify as a startup for the pre-approval process. We’re actually looking into teams to work with us for a year. Because I think it’s five years or earlier, that means you still get to work with us the next year. Yeah, there is the startup hub, which is across the aisle until I think the 11th of November.

Ravi Nataraju: OK.

Audrey Tang: They’re also looking for incubatees. That’s much like the old APP Park, but not focusing on specific technologies, but rather, as you said, increasing the relationship with not only government officials but also potential corporate accounts and things like that.

Ravi Nataraju: Got it.

Audrey Tang: That may be one venue that you can look into because they’re really good at finding those exposure connections. That’s one. I’m sure that you’re also working with the fintech space. They, of course, have their own portfolio, but less about government and more about banks.

Audrey Tang: There’s also the Presidential Hackathon, which is like the Sigfox Hackathon in the sense that it’s a three-month long process. It’s a long process, but I think the idea is that if you get a trophy from the President, it correlates whatever the personnel regulation or budget needed to scale that idea to the entire country.

Ravi Nataraju: Oh.

Audrey Tang: The kind of political promise as well, we promise the startups that work with the Presidential Hackathon. You can take a look into previous entries. I think it will start early next year, maybe right after the election. We can look forward into more municipal participation as well.

Audrey Tang: For this year’s Hackathon, there’s already some municipal governments participating. There’s a Chiayi one. They use essentially analytics to make the traffic signs more responsive to reduce traffic jams. That has a potential to scale to the entire country.

Audrey Tang: Actually, the one that you mentioned about air box, they also have a kind of derivative project. That’s the water box, which is because of a new act that says if there’s any arable land that has a plant on it, if the factory pollutes the waterway, then the central government must shut down its water supply and electricity supply.

Audrey Tang: There’s sometime collateral damage. Sometime, they’re saying, “The upstream is already polluted. Why am I being punished for that?” People really want to place the water box that also uses the NRG network to communicate the top three most sensitive water measurements into a distributable ledger.

Audrey Tang: In that sense, everybody is motivated to pay for it because people want to prove they’re not polluting. The farmers want to prove who are polluting. It’s a really good mechanism design as well.

Audrey Tang: I think Presidential Hackathon is also very much worth looking into. It starts, I think, just a few weeks after elections next year.

Ravi Nataraju: Got it, cool. For the sandbox bit, is there a…I think we spoke to the regulators of the sandbox. We also spoke to Baker McKenzie on the regulations and viability of us crossing any lines…

Audrey Tang: I don’t think you’re crossing any lines, no.

Ravi Nataraju: …saying this is the cleanest we have seen here. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: This is very clean. If you want a general purpose sandbox, like an evaluation of whether you’re crossing any lines, there’s always sandbox.org.tw, which is the NSME Agency. They will take care that you’re forwarded to a real regulatory sandbox if needed.

Audrey Tang: Otherwise, they will just work with the existing ministry to do interpretations so that they can clarify that you are not crossing the line. Mostly, they do that instead of going into the real sandbox because they would have to spend a year with you.

Ravi Nataraju: OK, got it. I think on that one, we are pretty clear. The only good thing that we would like to have is to get a platform to communicate with the governmental agencies so that we can actually convert the                                                       www.CLAPP.IO                                                   proposal.

Ravi Nataraju: We originally thought as long as we are on the preferred or the vetted list, then our marketing activities need not be that intensive as we have now.

Audrey Tang: It could be a network effect. A network effect is only promoted by the ministries that have bought your service, and therefore can serve as an example for all its agencies and related institutions.

Audrey Tang: Unless you have a central government level buy-in, if you’re still mostly working with municipal government, unless it’s classified as something they must have, it also takes a mayor’s political will for that to happen.

Audrey Tang: The main person you want to convince is not necessarily any particular department, but rather, the…Actually, TPMO is so good because if you convince TPMO, it’s good as convincing the DOIT. The DOIT is as good as convincing the mayor, right?

Ravi Nataraju: Got it.

Audrey Tang: They have that kind of internal escalation process. For many municipalities, if you look for…For example, Taoyuan recently has a innovation and digital office as well, which is on part with the other bureaus and departments in the mayorship. I think that is the main vehicle.

Audrey Tang: Otherwise, in many other municipalities where there is no DOIT or equivalent, usually it falls to the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, the RDEC.

Audrey Tang: There are maybe 20 RDEC councilors that you need to convince. They won’t just magically tell each other because they look at it as something that differentiates their county or city.

Ravi Nataraju: Yes, of course. You need to be unique.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. Central government does diffuse, but the municipalities, there’s some mechanism of doing that. On the other hand, if they see this as a covert advantage, they don’t necessarily…

Ravi Nataraju: Got it, OK. As far as replicating the TPMO, we have one in Taipei, but I heard there’s one in Chiayi as well. I don’t see any point of contacts there. I don’t think we have anything in Keelung because I’m now living in Keelung. I don’t think there’s anything in Keelung.

Audrey Tang: Our next visitor has come, but I think we can certainly…If you do decide to apply for the startup hub or for the Presidential Hackathon, we can certainly arrange a way for your ideas to be seen. Usually, if you make, for example, top 20 in the Presidential Hackathon, there’s free media making, whatever, storytelling.

Audrey Tang: You can check my Twitter, which has all the lists of the top 10. That’s the blessing that we give.

Ravi Nataraju: Sure.

Audrey Tang: OK.

Ravi Nataraju: Perfect.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Ravi Nataraju: No, thank you.

Audrey Tang: We’ll send you a transcript.

Ravi Nataraju: Thank you very much.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.