Yuri Baral: First of all, I wanted to give you this gift, compliments of our office.

Yuri Baral: It’s a paperweight, in case you need to put weight on anything.

Yuri Baral: I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this, but they were also there last year at the Yushan Forum.

Audrey Tang: I was at the Yushan Forum.

Yuri Baral: What were your thoughts about it?

Audrey Tang: It’s pretty good. I really appreciate that you invited the Nobel Prize recipient. Also, I saw in the introduction video where our foreign minister, Joseph, said something about warm power of Taiwan, "臺灣暖實力 命運共同體" is the 10 words that he said. We just took that verbatim to here as the slogan. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: It’s a really universal message that talks both about cross sexual collaboration toward common goals internationally but also domestically as well. It’s a really good unifying message for the Yushan Forum. Great work. How can I help?

Yuri Baral: Sorry. The purpose of our visit today is to first say "Hi." Also, because we were previously looking for a venue for an event coming up in April, it just so happened that we were looking for a very casual, very cozy environment, something that people could easily relate to. A place that would be very inviting for people to walk-in.

Audrey Tang: How many people?

Yuri Baral: Around 60 to 80 people. Actually, I gave you in the pouch...

Audrey Tang: In the brief thing.

Yuri Baral: I gave a brief description of the activities. There you go. Sorry. There will be two events. The first one is going to take place in April. We call it the "Asian Dialogues." It’s going to be an inter-generational dialogue between elder leaders and younger generation leaders talking about contemporary issues. We’ve identified *deficit* as the overarching theme for the event.

Yuri Baral: There are going to be three sessions: the first will be on democratic deficit, the second on development deficit, and the third on trust deficit. Since the Social Innovation Hub touches and works on the SDGs, we had to check whether the content and objectives of the event were aligned with the SDGs. We were told that for us to use the venues they had to be aligned with the SDGs.

Audrey Tang: One or more goals.

Audrey Tang: The more, the more likely. [laughs]

Yuri Baral: Right. Even before that, though, if you could after you read through the description of the event or the activity...

Audrey Tang: I did.

Yuri Baral: It does touch on several goals. But for the sake of the description, I had to identify two or three.

Audrey Tang: It’s just fine.

Yuri Baral: It is going to be an inter-generational dialogue, wherein we shall be flying in speakers from across Southeast and South Asia. We are working on this activity with the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation from the Philippines and also with the American Institute in Taiwan.

Yuri Baral: One of our contacts here said that you’re in close contact with AIT as well.

Audrey Tang: Yes, sure.

Yuri Baral: They’re also helping us out with this activity. For this event, we hope to bridge the generational gap. As you may know, society’s getting older, our population’s getting older. There’s also a lot of misunderstandings in terms of how different generations see things.

Yuri Baral: Behind the differences, there’s also something that can be shared like mutual experiences that they can work on together and build on so that they can achieve common goals. What we saw specifically would be these key themes that we’ve identified in three areas.

Yuri Baral: By tapping into the experiences of older generations, there could be a transfer of wisdom or transfer of leadership experiences which is very essential, even, particularly, for Taiwan. We want there to be a good rapport between these different generations of leaders.

Yuri Baral: The goal is to spread the message of meaningful experiences and exchanges across generations to different parts of the region. When we think of the the New Southbound Policy, one of the main stakeholders are the youth. We want to engage them more proactively in regional development, giving them a voice, giving them a role in social transformation.

Yuri Baral: This is going to be one of the activities. We’re doing this here to extend that or to promote the NSP’s goal of better youth engagement. The other thing is for us to build quality connections for better relations with our neighbors within the region.

Yuri Baral: I know it sounds strange, that a Filipino is working for to help advance this policy. One of the things that people ask me whenever I’m talking about the NSP is, "Are you representing Taiwan or are you representing the Philippines?" [laughs]

Yuri Baral: I think it’s very interesting, because usually, my answer is I’m speaking as a member of the TAEF and as a person who fell in love with Taiwan. It’s very important to note that I myself, I’m a product of the New Southbound Policy.

Yuri Baral: Through me and through my experiences, the good experiences I’ve had in Taiwan, I think I can speak on behalf of several other people who have had the same experiences as I did, that Taiwan has so much to offer to the world. This is something we actually want to share as a message. We do so through our activities, and the very first activity under the youth program this year is the Asian Dialogues in April.

Audrey Tang: You showed me this five day...

Yuri Baral: Oh! This is the first sheet. This one is the activity for April. Sorry, I had to...

Audrey Tang: No, it’s fine.

Yuri Baral: This would be the activity for July. It’s going to be an even bigger activity.

Audrey Tang: This is not yet...

Yuri Baral: Finalized? No, not yet.

Audrey Tang: All the names here are tentative.

Yuri Baral: Yes, because it’s still several months away. We’re working closely with three other organizations for the event in July. The general idea is there. I already mentioned the first activity in April, which is the Asian Dialogues.

Yuri Baral: It’s just going to be a one day event, but it’s going to be a full day activity starting from around nine o’clock to about five to six o’clock. There are going to be three sessions. The three sessions will be touching on the different themes I mentioned a while ago.

Yuri Baral: Sorry, I just keep on talking.

Audrey Tang: No, it’s fine.

Yuri Baral: The second activity is going to be in July. We call it the Southeast Asia-South Asia-Taiwan Youth Camp or SEASAT Camp for short.

Yuri Baral: From our definition geographically, it’s going to be the 10 Southeast Asian countries, the ASEAN countries.

Audrey Tang: I see, the ASEAN countries.

Yuri Baral: Right. We want it to be more politically correct and politically neutral as well.

Audrey Tang: I see.

Yuri Baral: By being neutral, we’re not overlapping with existing organizations. You understand what I mean.

Audrey Tang: I see now.

Yuri Baral: We really hope it to be a more inclusive activity, and since it’s going to be involving the youth--quite a lot of representatives from the youths from different countries--since we’re advancing the NSP, we wanted it to be inclusive in the sense that it’s not just going to be Southeast Asia as is the case for many existing programs.

Yuri Baral: We should never forget that the NSP is not just about our closest neighbors, but even the ones beyond Southeast Asia. We also are looking at South Asia, and our friends in the Pacific. But for this event, we will just be inviting participants from Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Audrey Tang: Not quite New Zealand?

Yuri Baral: Not yet. We’re trying to build on the successes of this first youth camp and how the reception will be by the public. We also want this to be heard of by the general public, even though the young participants are from different countries, we would also want the Taiwanese people to hear about this, because the experiences of these youth representatives from the region would be reflective of, in a way, how their societies or how their governments would also be responsive towards how Taiwan wants to socialize or to engage its neighbors. I think it’s very important to build on these successful stories of partnership.

Yuri Baral: Ambitious, I know, but we build on dreams.

Audrey Tang: How many of these foreign students will be first time visitors to Taiwan, roughly?

Yuri Baral: I wouldn’t really know per se, but the assumption is, because these are from the college levels, tertiary, I’m expecting not so much of them have had the opportunity to travel overseas.

Audrey Tang: It’s our way to build first impressions.

Yuri Baral: Right, exactly. We want to give the best first impression that we can give.

Audrey Tang: They’re not already college students here or anything like that.

Yuri Baral: No.

Audrey Tang: I see 30 student participants from Taiwan.

Yuri Baral: We’re looking at 20 participants from Southeast Asia and South Asia. I know it’s not really a big number, but since this is the first camp...

Audrey Tang: Sure, it’s a pilot.

Yuri Baral: It’s a pilot camp. We wanted to have more representatives from Taiwan to join in, because their stories would be the ones that their fellow camp members will be hearing the most. They would be immersing with each other. We want more people to represent Taiwan. We’re doing it here.

Yuri Baral: Another thing that I mentioned with the AIT, specifically when we were doing the preliminary discussions about this was we hope to involve the indigenous youths of Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: Interesting.

Yuri Baral: First things first, Taiwan’s identity would not be complete without the IP youths. In terms of cultural diversity, historical diversity they have so much to offer.

Audrey Tang: The shared Austronesian nation tradition as well.

Yuri Baral: For sure. It’s common history and it’s also common knowledge that a lot of the groups in Southeast Asia have roots in Taiwan. It’s actually the W-movement that I was taught before. One direction was towards the Southwest, one towards the South, and one more towards the South Pacific or the islands in the Polynesian triangle.

Audrey Tang: Easily half of those 30 people could be from indigenous nations.

Yuri Baral: Right. I think it would be a good experience for them to share their insights on leadership as well. I know there are so many youth programs already existing, youth camps happening. It’s a buzzword.

Audrey Tang: It totally is.

Yuri Baral: I know that there would be some criticisms about this, particularly on the expenses so we’re approaching it very carefully and by looking for partners and sponsors who can help reduce the costs. The truth is, given the NSP, we wanted to be more open and more accepting. When I say that we wanted to be more inclusive, we don’t want to stick with the same existing pool of youth representatives who are repeatedly being invited for such activities.

Yuri Baral: What I mean by this is since there are so many government and non-governmental organizations across the world organizing youth camps, youth symposia, they usually invite the same people from the same lists, which means you’re not exactly broadening the discourse. You’re limiting it to the same people.

Yuri Baral: In fact, sometimes in a month if there are two camps or two activities involving the youth, chances are the ones you saw from the previous week would still be the same ones you’d be seeing in the next event. It’s something I didn’t want to do. How we’re doing this is via an "open call." For sure, the tangents of communication or promotion would be through some of the universities that we’ve talked with.

Yuri Baral: Me and my colleague, Cheng-Chia , last summer we went to the Philippines on a goodwill trip to talk about the advancements of the NSP and to see the status of the NSP in the Philippines. At the same time, we also wanted to share the programs that TAEF is doing, one of which is the youth program. In a way, you could say we marketed the programs to see if there was any interest.

Yuri Baral: We got so many queries about what the youth programs are about. How would the schools and the students be involved? How would they be participating in such activities, etc.? Beyond even the youth programs, there were curious questions about any possibilities of partnerships that could be formed that would not just benefit the students but also the institutions.

Yuri Baral: This time, I’ll be going to Jakarta in February for the US-ASEAN Partnership Forum. While there, I’ll also be touching base with some of the organizations and some universities in the capital. They are interested to know what the TAEF does and what the New Southbound Policy is about.

Yuri Baral: There were curious inquiries as well as to whether there would be possibilities of collaborations in community development, which I think is very important. It’s a matter of us looking at how, if not through the TAEF, we can organize such collaborations.

Yuri Baral: If there would be other organizations or avenues through the government’s policy to facilitate such engagements. We’re getting there. It’s very promising.

Audrey Tang: Great. To check my understanding, they’re college students or graduate level students.

Yuri Baral: Not necessarily college students. Participants will be from ages 18 to 24. Well, they could be in college, but as long as you fall within the age range. There are some people...

Audrey Tang: They don’t have to be students.

Yuri Baral: That’s correct. Thus the open call. It just so happened that one of the major tangents of promotion is through the universities. During our visit to the Philippines last month we said that the call can even be shared with graduates, drop outs, friends, friends of friends, even the people in the streets.

Audrey Tang: Maybe you want to change this to young leaders or something.

Yuri Baral: That’s true.

Yuri Baral: Taken note. Yes, I will improve this. As long as they fall within the age range. It’s also important to note that even people out of school can participate.

Audrey Tang: That would be my suggestion actually. Things like some very long established [non English speech] UN, mock UN or whatever communities, which primarily target students. They already have a pretty, as you said, well represented network of young students.

Audrey Tang: In these countries including Taiwan, especially if you’re putting an indigenous perspective, by the time that they’re 22 they’re not necessarily in a college. They could qualify as young leaders. Maybe they’re running a co-op or something like that.

Yuri Baral: Usually they do.

Audrey Tang: Usually they do. If you target these people then it creates a really good, unique, differentiating factor so that you will not be confused with any of those MOE activities.

Yuri Baral: We should take note of that. That’s a brief idea of what the events would be on. The other thing that we wanted to mention to you about was...I’m so sorry. I’m going to be more personal here.

Yuri Baral: Since I’m the one in charge of the youth programs, with my colleague helping me out, we were hoping to actually invite you. We believe that you resonate closely with the youth in communicating your thoughts, communicating your passions.

Audrey Tang: I’m not 24 anymore. [laughs]

Yuri Baral: You know what, just this morning we had a meeting with Messe Frankfurt for other events happening in March, May and August. There’re many things happening this year. We mentioned something about the youth and young leaders.

Yuri Baral: We said, "Oh, for as long as you feel young and you think you can do good to contribute to society and you still are very lively, then yes, we can consider you as a young leader." You could be a senior young leader if you want. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Great. OK, I’m sure Diane will love this narrative of Commonwealth.

Yuri Baral: You personally know Diane?

Yuri Baral: Yes.

Yuri Baral: I first met with her back in 2012. She was younger then.

Yuri Baral: Several years younger then.

Audrey Tang: She’s still pretty now.

Yuri Baral: She’s still very sharp. I forgot about, CommonWealth magazine. We’re also looking at having them over for the April event as a media partner. Also, to serve as a resource person, as a speaker for the session on trust deficit.

Audrey Tang: If you’re talking about intergenerational trust, this is a focus theme for CommonWealth.

Yuri Baral: She has seen generations of leadership as well. Even within her company, even within CommonWealth, different administrations, Diane has seen different transitions.

Yuri Baral: I think she would take it very personally as well, given that she is in that age point right now. I think she would find it very nice to be able to impart her knowledge to younger people as well.

Audrey Tang: She personally oversaw the digital transformation of CommonWealth Group, which went pretty successfully, as well. It’s not in private. They actually wrote a report of how they did the digital transformation. It was pretty well received.

Yuri Baral: They’re very transparent about their development as well. For April, if we could invite you over to attend.

Audrey Tang: I get to pick a timeslot during the two days, or is one of the two days?

Yuri Baral: I’m sorry, for April?

Audrey Tang: Is it already set?

Yuri Baral: For April, sorry, it’s already on the 11th.

Audrey Tang: It’s already on the 11th.

Yuri Baral: That’s right.

Audrey Tang: I was going to say that 10th, I’m here anyway. It’s a Wednesday. I’m here from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM. You can just borrow me for a five minute slot.

Audrey Tang: For the 11th, I’m only available from 3:00 PM onward.

Yuri Baral: Then you would be here for either the second or third session. We could invite you over then.

Audrey Tang: Sure.

Yuri Baral: That’s for April. At first, we were hoping that you can actually do a keynote, because we’re doing it in the Social Innovation Lab, so that maybe we could introduce the team behind the venue.

Audrey Tang: But that’s the Cabinet meeting. It’s unlikely.

Yuri Baral: I know. It’s fine. It would have been nice, but we understand. Maybe we could have someone from the team to talk about the Social Innovation Lab, just to give a background on why the students are there, what’s the social significance of the Social Innovation Lab.

Audrey Tang: I can do a hologram or something. [laughs]

Yuri Baral: Oh, yeah. That would be so cool.

Audrey Tang: No, no, it’s my customary way of doing this kind of thing. More seriously, though, because it is the Social Innovation Lab, I’m committed to introduce the space.

Yuri Baral: That’s also one of the reasons we wanted to choose this location, so that we could also spread...

Audrey Tang: You’ve already got the approval from the...?

Yuri Baral: We are working on that with Ellen. She’s helping us out on the request. We’ve made a tentative reservation on the activity day.

Yuri Baral: The reason we would also choose this venue was so that more people would be made aware of this place. They can do some of their events and meetings here at the Social Innovation Lab. I think it’s important because I found out that anyone can use it. It’s open to anyone.

Yuri Baral: I think even if young people — universities, for example — had something that is aligned with the activities or the goals of the hub, I think this would be a good option for them to hold activities and maybe they can discover further opportunities working with your team.

Audrey Tang: Maybe in the morning, I just give a short like two minute remark through hologram or some kind of robotic projection or something. Then in the afternoon, I appear in the flesh.

Yuri Baral: I’m sure they would love it. The guests would love it.

Audrey Tang: The carbon-silicon transformation. [laughs]

Yuri Baral: The audience for April is going to be a mixed crowd. It would be students, educators, some parents I guess, and maybe a few government representatives. It’s a mixed crowd. That’s for April.

Yuri Baral: Our request for July, though, it’s going to be a stretch of five days, four nights. Each day would be a different theme. I have this outline here.

Audrey Tang: I saw this.

Yuri Baral: The theme would be...It’s still fluid. Day 1 would be on non-traditional security. Day 2 would be human rights. Day 3, heritage and culture. Everyday there’s a different theme. Towards the evening or after the major lectures or classes, we would be doing a heart-to-heart, personal talk with more established young leaders.

Yuri Baral: We say you’re still a young leader. People to talk on a more personal note about their passions or advocacies, what drove them to where they are right now. It’s important, since this is a leadership camp, we need to have a session that lets them understand the value of leadership among the youth.

Yuri Baral: Each night, there would be a different speaker. We were hoping that for Day 1, depends on your schedule, between 3:15 to maybe 5:00 o’clock, if you could. It doesn’t have to be that long.

Audrey Tang: Do you already know which day of the week it will be, like a Monday or a Tuesday or something like that?

Cheng-Chia: Let me check.

Yuri Baral: 29th I think is Monday.

Cheng-Chia: I can check it. You can continue.

Yuri Baral: Sure.

Audrey Tang: July 29?

Yuri Baral: Yes.

Audrey Tang: If it’s a Monday, tentatively, I don’t have anything.

Yuri Baral: All right, but it may change?

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

Yuri Baral: You may inform us if anything comes up within your schedule. Then we can move you to either second or third day. The fourth day would be rather busy because...

Yuri Baral: The thing about this camp is what we’ve agreed during our preliminary meeting with AIT is to hold a synthesis of what happened that day.

Yuri Baral: Furthermore, they would be divided into groups to discuss issues mentioned within the day and how their countries address them if they do. It’s like an ideation activity. Issues are raised, questions follow, and if there are things that have been done in their countries, what works? What didn’t work? What would their recommendations be?

Yuri Baral: Within the span of three nights, based off on their discussions within the groups, they would be coming up with a proposal addressing one key social issue. They could choose within the lines of what was discussed during the days of the lectures, or they could come up with a completely different issue that was not mentioned within the camp.

Yuri Baral: Then they can come up with a solutions proposal or a project proposal. At the fourth day, everyone gets to present what their proposal is. We’re still currently looking for a sponsor for the winning project to maybe start up or to jumpstart their project.

Yuri Baral: I think it would be a good way to show that maybe Taiwan has some commitments in supporting its young leaders within the region. We’re currently looking for sponsors. We’re trying to tap ASUS Foundation. We’re trying to tap Fubon Foundation too, because they also work within the area of the youth.

Yuri Baral: If there would be some interest there, we would be more than happy to push forth and do this awarding at the end of the youth camp, just to start the project, just to start the proposal.

Yuri Baral: It depends on your schedule. If you’d be free on the first day...

Audrey Tang: Which is Monday, the 29th of July. I’ll tentatively reserve three o’clock to let’s say 5:30 or something.

Yuri Baral: Thank you so much.

Audrey Tang: Usually, the way I run this is everybody use their phone, assuming that everybody has connectivity. This one is not going to be here.

Yuri Baral: No, this one is not going to be here.

Audrey Tang: Hopefully, somewhere near. If you choose Penghu or something, I can be there. [laughs] It will take my time.

Yuri Baral: Our current venue is 福華文教會館.

Audrey Tang: Which is pretty close, definitely. Usually, I run this that you need a projector. Everybody use their phone to connect to slido.com, which is a question system for anonymous collection of dialogue topics.

Audrey Tang: I just keep talking for two hours and have a dialogue with anyone who raised their hand, but if they prefer to ask through their phones, usually we see better group dynamic if people are going to like each other’s questions.

Audrey Tang: If one person raises a hand, sometimes they just talk about things they personally care about, and the other people may not be that interested. By using an online system, we have a better gauge of the measurement of the common interest between the people.

Audrey Tang: Especially that this is the first day, the bonding is not yet established. It usually takes like three days to bond together. I would prefer that format.

Audrey Tang: For you to choose a venue, the thing that I’m looking for is, of course, good WiFi connection and 4G connection if need be, and a high resolution projector so that everybody can see the screen and me at the same time. That’s all I ask. Otherwise, it’s fine.

Yuri Baral: We’re more than happy to provide those.

Audrey Tang: ST will reserve my schedule and be the one to update you in case that the schedule doesn’t work out. In terms of more possible NSP partnerships and so on, Aurora will maybe look into it, but we’ll see. We’ll see what we can do.

Yuri Baral: All right. Thank you so much. The last one is about the Yushan Forum. Although it wasn’t really part of the agenda, I mentioned earlier that we saw you there last year. We were very happy to have you there.

Yuri Baral: Since we’re currently also preparing for this year’s Yushan Forum, it would be so important for us to hear about your insights about it, what your thoughts were, and what areas do you think we should improve on, or if there are any recommendations.

Audrey Tang: When will that be?

Yuri Baral: Every year, it happens every October 11th and 12th.

Audrey Tang: It’s right after the National Day.

Yuri Baral: Yes. I was told you just went for the first day. We were hoping maybe you could give your insights or recommendations on which parts of the Yushan Forum you think should be improved on, and if there’s any specific topic that you felt like would be of importance.

Audrey Tang: Strategically, are you looking for more social sector or more public sector participation?

Yuri Baral: I cannot speak on behalf of the chairman and the executive director.

Audrey Tang: It’s kind of a mixture.

Yuri Baral: That’s true. Public sector is more first day.

Yuri Baral: The second day is social, because the second day is allotted for the applications of the NSP and the reportage of where we are with it. I think what has more value would be the social sector.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. It would be like a showcase of successful social sector Taiwan partnerships. Something like that. If you curate toward that direction, I think it would be a pretty good showcase for Taiwan’s what we call Warm Power nowadays, toward the NSP partner countries.

Audrey Tang: When we talk about value, there’s the domestic one, which is pretty close to election day, but that’s fine. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: There’s that value, but there’s also the long-term partnership kind of value, where we hope that people come here and bring back longer lasting relationships and partnerships. It’s kind of difficult to curate for both.

Yuri Baral: That’s true. I think we’ll look into that. We’ll have to look into that.

Audrey Tang: If we tie it into more election, presidential showcase of successful diplomacy, that will link to more public sector representatives. I wouldn’t say it wouldn’t be long-term partnership, but it would be necessarily more headline grabbing sort of thing.

Audrey Tang: If you can say we just put two or three of such success stories but devote most of our energy into social sector collaborations, then over time, the forum itself will be more cherished as longer lasting.

Yuri Baral: And it’s more relatable.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. It will become a longer, relatable brand, whereas the existence of Yushan Forum itself is being debated as what direction to go.

Audrey Tang: I think the more international affinity that people feel that they share the Yushan community, not just random Taiwanese administration people setting the direction, the more participatory it is, I think it will create more longer term value overall. I don’t know whether you consult previous participants around the curation as well.

Yuri Baral: We do.

Audrey Tang: I think the more participatory it is, the longer term the value will be.

Yuri Baral: I think we agree, though. Overall, the team behind the foundation and forum, we do share the same idea. We’ll try our best to keep it balanced as well. Thank you very much for that. Thank you so much.

Yuri Baral: Hopefully, by this year, you could stay longer. Last year’s youth panel was actually very engaging. It was very fruitful. It always takes place on the last day, almost towards the afternoon. We had social entrepreneurs who spoke in the panel, young social entrepreneurs working on I think...

Cheng-Chia: A catering company and also banking.

Yuri Baral: Social financing.

Cheng-Chia: One was on inclusive banking which provides people who are not allowed to get a loan from ordinary banks.

Yuri Baral: Revolutionary ideas. Stories like these should be heard more.

Audrey Tang: In May 11th and 12th, we’re going to run a APSES, the Asia Pacific Social Enterprise Summit, a gathering of social entrepreneurs around the Asia-Pacific.

Yuri Baral: Where will it be?

Audrey Tang: It will be in the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center, 高雄展覽館. It’s already online, I think apses.asia or something like that. If you have time to participate, some of the especially social entrepreneurship curation could be shared. If you see a keynote speaker or a showcase that you think is particularly good for Yushan, then that’s something that you can look into.

Yuri Baral: Right. I think that’s something we can attend to get ideas from. Activate Asia.

Audrey Tang: Right. It’s called Activate Asia. Because it’s far enough from Yushan, there’s plenty of time for you to do additional curation based on this. ＳＴ will send you the relevant materials for APSES.

Audrey Tang: I think for this year, the ICDF hopefully is also going to join us at least as a participant, if not as a speaker, to build more "public diplomacy" connection to social entrepreneurs. Traditionally, we didn’t have that much official relationships with social sector in these countries. We think this is one of the ways to broaden the horizon.

Yuri Baral: Currently, are all countries within Asia-Pacific represented?

Audrey Tang: The previous year was pretty well represented. Maybe not all. The main curators is not our government. It’s the Impact Hub, and SC Insights, and the Caris Foundation. They do the curation.

Audrey Tang: This year, we’re in partnership with the Social Enterprise World Forum. They started from Scotland and then expanded into the SEWF, which is a world forum of social entrepreneurship. They will also help with working out the discussion.

Yuri Baral: Is the summit the same one or similar to the one held last year in Taichung?

Audrey Tang: That’s right. It’s the same one. It’s the same branding, anyway. Both are called APSES, but last year’s is called Tomorrow Asia, and now this year’s is called Activate Asia. We’re going to find another verb next year.

Yuri Baral: I think we all do that. We keep coming up with best words for our activities. We’re all copywriters in our own right, I guess.

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

Yuri Baral: We’ll see if we can have someone attend in May. Whoever goes can maybe write about the event and also share it on our website.

Audrey Tang: This year’s focus, which is not just social entrepreneurship, but also sustainable goals around resilience around the common interests in the region, plastic waste, things like that, is going to be maybe 70 percent overlapping with the direction you’re heading.

Audrey Tang: I’m happy to know that there will be more emphasis on the social entrepreneurship part, including impact investing, social financing, and so on. It really is becoming a really hot topic in this region. If Yushan Forum dedicates some time to that, I’m more than happy to participate.

Yuri Baral: Right. Social innovation.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, social innovation. It’s one of my three mandates of my work.

Yuri Baral: Do you have anything to add?

Cheng-Chia: No.

Yuri Baral: Or any questions?

Cheng-Chia: No.

Yuri Baral: You have been very helpful. I apologize for holding this meeting in English. Although I can speak and understand some Chinese, I would sometimes rather speak in English if I want to be better understood.

Audrey Tang: It’s fine, because I think in English. If we speak in Mandarin, it’ll be translation in my head.

Yuri Baral: Perfect.

Yuri Baral: Thank you so much. That will be all for now.

Aurora Tsai: I do have some questions.

Yuri Baral: Yes, please.

Aurora Tsai: Do you have a youth council at the level of the cabinet, somewhere near to the premier or your president?

Aurora Tsai: I think it’s a trend and it’s a fashion that country leaders are...

Yuri Baral: Being invited.

Aurora Tsai: Or establishing a new assembly or a new council.

Yuri Baral: One of the end goals of the youth camp, actually the overall goal of the youth program, is first, we need to have outputs. To be specific, we have the Taiwan-Asian Young Leaders Engagement, which is the umbrella program of the youth programs.

Aurora Tsai: Under your foundation?

Yuri Baral: Yes, under our foundation. Under that umbrella, we have several youth projects, meaning programs of their own, which cater to different demographics of the youth.

Yuri Baral: At the end of each program, we hope to have outputs. For the youth camp, for example, we would be having a publication every year, which would serve as a resource for future iterations or for future members or participants in the camp, as well as for archiving purposes.

Yuri Baral: We can go back and see the progress, see what was discussed, if there were specific issues that were raised that need to be addressed in the future, if there were projects proposed, those things. That’s one. That doesn’t answer your question.

Yuri Baral: Second is we’re coming up an alumni network. The alumni network would not just be exclusive for the youth camp participants. All the other participants of the other youth programs will be connected in the alumni network, which we want to keep building on, increasing over the years in the different iterations of the different youth projects.

Yuri Baral: In time, if ever there’s any former participant who gets to that position that they have the clout, that they have the capacity to influence policy, that they have the influence to push for projects that were probably raised during their batches of the youth projects, then we could tap them. Maybe we could work closely with them.

Aurora Tsai: The reason why I ask is purely because we have a youth council at the premier’s office level.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, the Executive Yuan’s Youth Advisory Group, which is 18 to 35. Maybe only part of it fits your age range.

Aurora Tsai: Some of them are really interested in going NSP.

Audrey Tang: Very much so. There’s I think three indigenous people in the YAG.

Yuri Baral: They’re under the Executive Yuan?

Audrey Tang: Yeah. They’re directly headed by the premier, @eballgogogo.

Aurora Tsai: Mr. Trudeau, Canadian leader, he had a youth council like this one, too. It’s trending now. I’m just wondering, in the Philippines, do you have one? Or even in Singapore or in any of these countries. In Singapore, they have the youth assembly.

Yuri Baral: They do. I think some members of the ASEAN Youth...They call it the ASEAN Youth Forum. Some of the members come from government positions, I think, which is something that we want to tap.

Yuri Baral: We also want to network with young leaders who are already leaders in positions, which not only would further solidify the goals or the objectives of the programs, but they would serve as very invaluable contacts, not just for the program, but also for Taiwan in the future.

Yuri Baral: I understand where you’re coming from. Right now, what I can say is, because the Foundation has been around for only about half a year, TAEF’s youth program has only had the chance to invite six youth representatives from six different countries, five from Southeast Asia and one from the U.S.

Yuri Baral: One of these young leaders is a deputy governor from Cambodia. It’s an area of interest for Taiwan. It’s an area of interest for us.

Audrey Tang: Very much so.

Aurora Tsai: Of course.

Yuri Baral: We’re looking at partnering and working closely with countries within Indochina, if not directly with the national governments because of obvious difficulties. For sure we can work better or there’s a better chance for collaborations with local government units. He’s one. He is a deputy governor.

Yuri Baral: One of the future plans that we have, and this can be said on record, is to conduct future sessions or next iterations of the Asian Dialogues overseas.

Yuri Baral: We hope to work closer with our contact, the deputy governor from Kampong Chhnang in holding a leadership dialogue in Cambodia. Me and our executive director are looking at having that maybe for next year. By continuing to do collaborations with overseas organizations, we hope that, through our combined networks and shared objectives, we can do such dialogues beyon Taiwan’s borders.

Yuri Baral: If we can branch off further and bring the dialogues to other countries in Southeast Asia and maybe in South Asia, if we can find good partners, good counterparts, organizational and governmental contacts, as well as young leader contacts, that would be great.

Yuri Baral: I see the value that you mentioned there.

Aurora Tsai: It is a thought.

Yuri Baral: I know. It’s also been at the back of our heads. We have to work with what we have right now. We’re trying to see avenues for cooperation. We’re actively exploring how we could connect better with key people working in society, heads of organizations working on specific advocacies aligned with the NSP’s objectives. Definitely, we want to have more reach, more exposure and more partnerships.

Yuri Baral: Yes, point taken.

Aurora Tsai: There’s another one, World Youth Alliance under United Nations.

Yuri Baral: Yeah, WYA.

Aurora Tsai: They’re quite active too.

Yuri Baral: They’re growing. One of our colleagues was a former volunteer for the World Youth Alliance. He interned in the Philippines. And I’m friends with a former regional director of WYA.

Yuri Baral: We’re trying to explore how to better connect with existing youth networks. In fact, we just had a meeting the other day with an organization called the Asia-Pacific Youth Organization, which has been around for eight years.

Yuri Baral: They’re trying to see if we would be able to work with them closely on specific activities--could be events, could be more dialogues. Ultimately, we want to go beyond talks and actually do projects.

Yuri Baral: There’s never a shortage of talks and everyone just keeps on talking and doing dialogues. I think ultimately, what everyone wants is for something concrete to come out of it. The challenge now is how to get from dialogue to action.

Yuri Baral: Don’t worry. It’s a challenge, but we are working on it. Everything has to be calculated. Everything has to be within the framework of how respective organizations work. Since we’re sharing this with other people who would be reading this, I think if it’s within your interest, you’re welcome to help us out.

Audrey Tang: Yah. [laughs]

Yuri Baral: We want not just to work within the organization. If there is anyone out in public who has better ideas on how we can actually engage other people or other sectors of society in actually coming up with a project that we can work on that can actually materialize, they’re more than welcome to pitch in.

Audrey Tang: Awesome.

Aurora Tsai: Thank you for helping Taiwan out.

Yuri Baral: Thank you so much. I love Taiwan.

Aurora Tsai: What brought you to the TAEF ?

Yuri Baral: I think my experience. Technically, I’ve been working since I was 15. I finished my undergrad when I was 17. I’ve tried different circles of work, but mostly, I stayed in social development.

Yuri Baral: Some of the contacts I’ve worked with closely were the ADB--I used to work with them on some projects. There’s the World Bank, the Magsaysay Foundation, which is now a partner of the TAEF. They have a long history of 60 years and 350 awardees with whom they actively engage in key projects.

Yuri Baral: It’s very nice that we’re able to link with a long-running organization. We’re using each other’s networks. They’re working within our sets of goals, like how one of their missions is to share the stories of their Magsaysay awardees, but these stories also have applicable solutions to people in the region and beyond.

Yuri Baral: Their awardees for 60 years had been doing specific or very specialized work in their respective communities. That organization’s goal is to spread solutions. Why wouldn’t we be interested in sharing or spreading good solutions as well, especially if it would benefit Taiwan?

Aurora Tsai: Thank you for your contributions.

Yuri Baral: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s an honor. Hopefully, we could work closer with your office in the future.

Yuri Baral: We’re just neighbors.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, within walking distance.

Yuri Baral: Yes, across the street.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, every Wednesday, I’m here. Feel free to drop by.

Yuri Baral: Thank you.

Audrey Tang: Cheers.

Yuri Baral: Thank you so much.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.