Anett Linno: I’m from Citizen OS, which is e-democracy platform. Maybe you have heard about us. We have this really huge need, but also, we are currently working together with scientists and researchers, and collaborating with the universities as well.

Anett Linno: We just have the need to bring all those parties together, and also civic initiatives, representatives who actually use our platform and who actually implement the things that we are doing. We don’t want to do it alone, and that’s why we are looking for, globally, partners and people who could be also interested of joining us, and helping us to build the community, and also later then to run this community.

Anett Linno: I googled you. I actually googled you. I found you from the Google. [laughs] The things that you have done, it’s really super amazing and really inspiring. Starting from the Sunflower Movement, and g0v. How you pronounciate it? It is correct?

Audrey Tang: It’s pronounced “gov-zero.”

Anett Linno: Sorry? Oh, gov-zero.

Audrey Tang: Physically, it’s taking something, that gov, and change the O to a zero. Say, gov zero represent this physical transformation to digital transformation. It’s gov zero, and it’s easier to pronounce, too.

Anett Linno: Thank you. I’m really amazed and inspired on what you are doing in Taiwan. Definitely, it would be really awesome to collaborate with you and hear your ideas, and feedback, and experiences about what you have done. Do I understand correctly, that g0v is mainly focused on Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: There if you type g0v.it for Italy, you will see Italian. Gov zero is just an idea. It’s just a domain hack. There is no membership per se. People in Italy, if they want to start doing something like that in Italy, they don’t have to ask anybody in Taiwan. They just started doing it.

Audrey Tang: I would describe it as more of a meme than anything. It’s just a mind virus that does. You can find people working with the same gov zero ethos in the US, in both coasts, in Canada, in Italy as I described, in France, and so on. The branding itself is public domain, so anyone can call themself gov zero, as long as they are doing something that is in the open, and that concerns public benefit.

Anett Linno: Do you have an overview about how many countries are using it?

Audrey Tang: Gov zero is just a model that promotes people initiating innovations that are alternatives to public service, that can then be adopted by the governments that service, to become a collaborative governance system. We actually don’t write code, unless there’s an absolute need to do so.

Audrey Tang: In the beginning, the g0v movement mostly run on Hackpad, which is a system that’s already written by a startup. Hackpad gets acquired by Dropbox. Because of open source, then we switched mostly to a team called HackMD. HackMD, MD for markdown, is now a preferred form of collaboration over a Hackpad.

Audrey Tang: We work with both teams, to ensure a good transition from g0v.hackpad to g0v.hackmd. This is just one of the many examples. It used to be that people in g0v was very interested in liquid feedback, the liquid feedback, which is a very early prototype of the thing that you are doing now, and then we discovered Loomio, which works somewhat better.

Audrey Tang: For a while, people used Loomio quite a bit, and then we discovered pol.is, and so a lot of people start now working on pol.is instead of Loomio. Of course, all those tools have their places depending on the size and the use of the teams, so we’re not wed to any specific technology.

Audrey Tang: We have good relationships with Enspiral, or with mySociety, or with The Governance Lab or the usual suspects, Omidyar, now Luminate, that works with these technologies.

Anett Linno: Thank you for the overview. You also sent me the links, and then I actually reviewed them all. HackMD is, basically what we do…

Anett Linno: …sometimes it covers exact. Usually, in Estonia, we have really good WiFi. I don’t know what’s happening today.

Audrey Tang: In Taiwan, we also have broadband as a human right. I think that’s something that both jurisdictions have in common, and unlike our nearby jurisdictions, so that sets us apart.

Audrey Tang: In any case, we’re far away in terms of light speed, so it’s understandable. You were saying that you reviewed Loomio, HackMD, and so on, and find a lot of similarity of the work they are doing and you were doing.

Anett Linno: I reviewed them all, yes, and what I was saying is that I’ve been contacting with the more than 20 civic tech organizations who work with the same mission as we do, and I’ve been inviting them to join the community. Today, we already have around 10 organizations are really interested of joining this community and building this community.

Anett Linno: My main question for you maybe is that, first of all, what are your ideas and thoughts about this global community? Let me just explain a little bit of a background how we thought to build it up.

Anett Linno: Basically, there are two needs for this community. First is having this wider discussion over the big picture, where are the democracies heading in the world, and especially where e-democracy is heading in the world.

Anett Linno: This is where the scientists and researchers have really important role, because we would like everything to be scientifically proved. If some political decisions are made, how it affects the way it’s being communicated to the people, if people and citizens have been involved.

Anett Linno: If not, then what happens when people go to the street and start raising their voice, and so on. Basically, what’s behind of different political decisions and civic activisms, and how technology can support building better communication between the governments and citizens.

Anett Linno: The other need for this community is basically to start mutual projects. One very simple example is that maybe it’s possible to create a standard for decision. When we have some topics, they’re being discussed all around the world, like in Estonia, in Singapore, in Taiwan, in Russia, in whatever country. Very often, those pro and cons are the same.

Anett Linno: There is a lot of effort that is going on those discussions. Maybe it’s to build a standard for the decision that when it’s already discussed, for example, in Spain, and now Estonian government, or civic activists, or NGOs, or somebody start the issue, then we can already take those discussions that’s already been discussed.

Anett Linno: We don’t need to put so much time there anymore. Maybe those decisions would be sent, like you send PDF files or you send Excel sheets, for example, the kind of projects that could only be built globally, if you understand what I mean.

Audrey Tang: Yes. I hear two things. It’s about sharing of the best practices, more on a technology and policy level. The second is to share learnings from more of a governance level, and especially governance issues that are pertaining to a global nature instead of only a local nature.

Anett Linno: Yes, but both actually, both local and global, but yes, that is correct.

Audrey Tang: What I’m saying is that for those two particular needs, there exist existing international communities dedicated for exactly that, and I wonder if you have considered just working with them. The obvious choice for example is, in your country, Ott Karulin from the Adviser of the Government Office, is currently in charge of your Open Government Partnership commitments.

Audrey Tang: That’s their work, to make sure that people like you are invited to the policy-making worldwide, not just in Estonia. That’s a existing community internationally, exactly just for your purpose.

Audrey Tang: Another one which is started by governments but by technologists, is the Code for All network, which g0v is also a part of, but I don’t see a Estonian chapter on that Web page. Those are the two that we very regularly work with, and by we, I mean my office, the Taiwan government’s Public Digital Innovation Space.

Anett Linno: Thank you for sharing the Code for All and also the OGP, because we are not in Code for All. We are not members of them, but definitely, I will go it through. Thank you. [laughs]

Anett Linno: I am currently in contact with the OGP, and we are just starting discussions over collaborations or how we can work together with them, and how we can support each other. I actually invited them to become the founding members of this community as well because…

Audrey Tang: I didn’t get an entire paragraph. [laughs] Would you like to resume?

Anett Linno: Yes. What I was saying that this community that we are aiming to build is more focused on e-democracy, for how the technology and the technology organizations can foster participation and participatory democracy. This is very well focused, I would say.

Anett Linno: OGP is really working with governments. They also have a chapter for e-democracy. I’m not sure if they have separate department, but there are people who are working towards it as well, and I’m currently in contact with them.

Anett Linno: Just to jointly develop better technologies for people who are actually using technology for involving more people, are those the governments who involve people in the decision-making, or are those civic initiatives who want to involve people? Are those NGOs? This is a small aid for civic tech organizations.

Audrey Tang: I see.

Anett Linno: Yes, but currently, we are on a phase where we have this idea and dream. [laughs] We are maybe a little bit searching people and organizations who feel the same way as we do, and who are inspired of this idea. How it all goes in the future, I cannot tell you yet because the aim is to co-create it, to co-build it.

Anett Linno: Audrey, could you also share…You have so many experiences with different organizations, and you work for the government and in IT field as well. If you heard what I was just talking about, like e-democracy and democracy, do you have any idea or a thought regarding it?

Anett Linno: Do you have any need where you see that you could work together globally with other civic tech organizations and other people on a global level?

Audrey Tang: Yes. First of all, I think the term civic technology is good for building a new sector. To get more buy-in, especially from cooperatives as well as other social entrepreneurs who have been organizing in non-digital manner for a very long time, in Taiwan, we call it now social innovation.

Audrey Tang: Why social innovation is my preferred term now is that it doesn’t have to be…Because when you hear tech, people mostly think about digital technology, communication technology, hardware, software, firmware technology, or at most, maybe material science or agriculture, sustainable circular economy technology.

Audrey Tang: That’s the extent of imagination most people hear when they hear the term technology, but innovation doesn’t have to be technological in nature.

Audrey Tang: For example, a important social innovation before our time, actually, is the idea of cooperatives, which is people sharing the benefit of their joint work by share, which is just like a company, but they decide in a democratic manner just like in public sector, one person, one vote.

Audrey Tang: That is a technology because it combines the democratic principle with a profit-sharing model, so cooperatives could be seen as a social technology, but it has nothing to do with our traditional way of digital technology. It’s mostly a new form of organization.

Audrey Tang: There are many people working on those furthering the cooperative spirit in the digital age, for example, the so-called platform cooperativism, platform coops, which is essentially Uber, but run in a way that is democratically decided by the drivers.

Audrey Tang: When we say civic tech, these efforts usually do not get involved that much because they started with a social organization innovation instead of a applied science or applied nature science angle.

Audrey Tang: Saying social innovation is maximally inclusive because it includes both parties, and they do have a lot to learn from each other.

Audrey Tang: My current thought is that by saying that we’re working toward all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, led by the social sector and the private sector to form social innovation initiatives.

Audrey Tang: We implicitly include the e-democracy workers who are working on the goals 16 and 17, where we also include people that are working on more basic sustainable goals such as climate change, which affects everyone of us, and so it gets us more allies and less distance from traditional social movements. That’s my current thought.

Anett Linno: That’s really interesting and valuable thought that you shared. Thank you so much, and I definitely will go deeper into the social innovation term. Yeah, I really believe that it might be better for the community as well.

Anett Linno: Actually, Citizen OS also grew up from Let’s do It Foundation. Maybe you have heard of it.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Anett Linno: Which is organizing work clean-up days now, and actually in Taiwan, we have really active team there as well. [laughs]

Anett Linno: Social innovation is definitely more wider and better word for that. Thank you. If you think about your current work and what you currently do, then do you personally think that if there would be the kind of community, would you like to be part of it? Would you like to participate in the discussions, or working groups, or things like that?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, I am already in, as I explained, many of the working groups. When I look at a new community, the decision of whether to participate personally, or do I just refer it to my other friends in the communities, is mostly whether I can find a real case, either in Taiwan or in other places where this particular way of collaboration and discussion fits better than previous approaches.

Audrey Tang: I would also remind the communities that maybe it doesn’t work anymore to call it…and this is not a critique to your copy, but rather my personal view in Taiwan. For example, you call yourself a e-decision platform, but it’s like saying that, “Let’s send each other e-messages, or e-telegrams, or emails.”

Audrey Tang: It used to be that email is spelled with E, dash, mail, but nobody do that anymore. Everybody dropped the dash, and in Taiwan, we now just say, “I’ll mail you,” because it’s assumed that it’s a email. We would say postal mail if it’s not electronic. Do you see what I’m saying?

Anett Linno: Yes. [laughs] I totally hear you.

Audrey Tang: If I’m starting a participation initiative, we just launch one today, we just say, “Go to our participation platform.” If we run what we call a crowd survey or crowd law initiative, we just say, “Hey, here is our crowd survey,” or things like that.

Audrey Tang: We don’t say “e-“ anymore because broadband is a human right in my jurisdiction, and so is in yours, and so the “e-“ I think is not needed. To return to your original question, I would say that if there is a real case that would require the use of a new technological configuration or component, then I’m very happy to collaboratively develop that.

Audrey Tang: My office contributed, and I personally contributed for example to the HackMD technology, and the pol.is technology, and the Sandstorm technology, etc., because we used it in at least one day-to-day activity or at least one of the activity that my counterparts, the digital ministers of other countries that I personally know, is working on.

Audrey Tang: If we don’t have a real use case, then we would usually just suggest our civil society friends to participate in my stead.

Anett Linno: That’s fair enough. [laughs] Yes, I got my answer.

Audrey Tang: This is not saying that I’m not going to subscribe your medium posts or things like that. [laughs] It’s just that we really need a case. For example, we work with the de facto American Embassy in Taiwan, AIT, to launch a digital dialog around how to improve the US-Taiwan relationship.

Audrey Tang: They did not even know the technology, and we did not know their preferred technology, so we have to work toward a common solution. In this case, the technologies that we eventually chose to use would be then involved in the discussion because we need to extend and contribute back to the open source community that runs this dialogue.

Audrey Tang: If, for example, one of your cities run a joint conversation with one of our municipalities, or on the state level, that works too, then it gives us the perfect excuse, so to speak, to join the community powering this conversation.

Anett Linno: That’s a wonderful example. This is actually my case and our case as well that there are already great communities today as well. Actually, I wouldn’t say that there are great communities, and there are not so good communities. Even though people are getting more and more time on their hands, then people, they are choosing more where and how what they do with their time.

Anett Linno: Participating in community mostly means that people do it either from the passion, that they really love the topic, or they are really experts and they get something professionally from this community.

Anett Linno: This is really something that I’m thinking of. I don’t want to waste people’s time, and I don’t want to build a community which nobody uses.

Anett Linno: I really love that you said that if there is a real case, then you are interested. It’s very honest, and I really appreciate that you said that. This is really something that should be also the case of this community. Real things have to happen in there.

Audrey Tang: Your country actually hosted something like that back in 2015. The Digital 5 Ministerial Summit of Digital Trust and Service Design, which both are very much related to this social innovation for democracy that we just talked about. At the time it was five members, in the Digital 5.

Audrey Tang: Now there are nine members, and their next meeting I think is Montevideo in Uruguay in November 4, and so on. I don’t know whether you’re involved in any way, with your government’s community. Within the ministry of the Digital 9 engagement, I think is the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of your Republic.

Audrey Tang: If there are some real cases in the Digital 9, Taiwan is always very happy to participate as a partner instead of a member. Taiwan literally is a territory, a disputed territory at that. We usually build ourselves as partners instead of member states. We have actually worked…I personally have worked with Digital 7 when they were Digital 7, when New Zealand was the chair.

Audrey Tang: I’m happy to work with the Uruguay chair or the Israeli chair if your community can find some synergy between how the Digital 9 is going to work toward social innovation regarding democracy.

Anett Linno: I’m not sure actually. We are in this government’s community, where mostly our CEO is participating in the working groups, and the assembles, and things like that. I really should look it up. We are collaborating with government as well. The government’s petition system is built on Citizen OS and so on.

Audrey Tang: I’m aware of that. I’m aware of that. Our petition website is built by folks over the UDM Group. What I’m saying is that if you just want to have a technological component widget level sharing, I would not personally participate, but I can, of course, introduce you to the Taiwanese vendors that build very similar things.

Audrey Tang: For me to personally participate, it really has to be a multi-sectoral approach that do something together.

Anett Linno: I understand. Our time is up now. You scheduled 40 minutes for us. It’s exactly 1:40 in Estonia right now.

Audrey Tang: Thank you for the very frank exchange, and feel free to email me anytime.

Anett Linno: Yes. Thank you so much, Audrey, for the sharings. I’m really happy we met. If there are coming any interesting events that could be valuable for us as well, then I’m really happy if you would let us know. Let’s keep in touch via emails.

Audrey Tang: Very much so. Let’s keep in touch. Thank you and have a good local time.

Anett Linno: Thank you, Audrey.