David Chang: Good. Two things today, actually. One is of course is that Singularity University summit. We are just about getting ready to turn in our first proposal for SU Summit. I know, it’s pretty exciting actually. We’ve been talks with SU already. We’re getting that good to go.

David Chang: Of course, there comes a part where we are also trying to gauge interest in sponsors. We’ve already talked to city government, Chingyu Yao, who has been very, very warm and passionate about directing us to city resources, perhaps even venue spaces, maybe some sponsorship money.

Audrey Tang: Which city is this?

David Chang: Taipei City.

Audrey Tang: Oh, the Taipei City government.

David Chang: Taipei City, International Affairs Advisory Council. Chingyu’s been wonderful.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

David Chang: From there, we can also connect with, of course, information and tourism bureau and everything else, but since we haven’t actually gotten the license yet, we’re gauging interest. As far as speakers, you’re our first person we’re coming into contact with. We’re actually meeting with Karen Yu in the afternoon.

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome.

David Chang: Would also like some guidance about how to navigate that scheme. We already have a draft proposal right now and a general rough...

David Chang: I’ll show you right now. Sorry. I was just pulling this up.

Audrey Tang: You can use my WiFi.

David Chang: Yesterday. Let me do that.

Justin Wu: I’ll just show.

David Chang: You can show. You can show. We need to refine and polish this.

Justin Wu: This is a rough draft.

David Chang: This is a rough draft.

David Chang: The basic of the format will be eight SU speakers coming here. Then probably around 15 to 20 local speakers.

Justin Wu: 15 to 20 local.

David Chang: Which we also would love to invite you to be a speaker...

Audrey Tang: Sure.

David Chang: ...because you’re awesome. [laughs] Then, basically we’re still calculating all the costs right now, but basically, we are also trying to see, because we do know that Ministry of Science and Technology also held the GIC competition through Taiwan Tech Arena earlier this year.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

David Chang: After our first initial contact with Asia Silicon Valley...Remember I first emailed to you a while back?

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

David Chang: They basically said they’re interested, but then they also have to, I guess, professional courtesy is to talk with MLST first.

Audrey Tang: Have the SU run any country level partnerships yet?

Justin Wu: In Taiwan, or globally?

Audrey Tang: Anywhere.

Justin Wu: Yeah, they already had it in multiple countries, like they had one in Japan last year, and this year had a pretty successful one in Thailand.

Audrey Tang: It’s called like the "SU Taiwan Summit"?

Justin Wu: Yeah, it’s by country, so they call it an international summit, and the license is applied by country.

Audrey Tang: Ah, OK, got it.

David Chang: I think, recently, the Portugal one just finished, as well as the Italy one, and then what else did Madonna say? It was in her email.

Justin Wu: I think the Italy one is coming up. The Portugal one just finished.

David Chang: We’re hoping that we can also bring Taipei and Taiwan into the fold.

Audrey Tang: Sure, sure.

David Chang: Of course, how this relates with Crossroads is that after the summit, we do hope to become their country partner here. Crossroads could become a crossroads between SU and Taiwan. We can also do some major connection between the two.

Audrey Tang: That’s great.

David Chang: We can see how that works.

Justin Wu: The benefit of becoming a country partner is we’re basically like a SU branch in Taiwan. We will send some of the people over there to get trained, be certified, so we can run programs that are similar to SU, but kind of localized here in Taiwan.

Justin Wu: Then bring speakers from Silicon Valley, flying them directly here, and then giving out the programs and the talks.

Audrey Tang: 10x methodology stuff?

Justin Wu: Yeah, exponential technology, those kind of things.

Audrey Tang: OK, cool.

David Chang: Of course, we’d also like to not only consult about sponsorship, but also any types of speakers, what types of fields. We already have a list, of course, but we of course would love to listen to you, too.

Audrey Tang: Let me finish reading it.

David Chang: OK.

Justin Wu: Sure, sure. You want to go through it, maybe.

Audrey Tang: Quickly through it, maybe.

David Chang: All right, quickly scroll through Singularity with date, fall. We’re looking at a year’s planning. Ideally it would be just fall.

Audrey Tang: Fall is kind of busy at the ICC, just for your information.

David Chang: OK.

Audrey Tang: It’s the conference season.

David Chang: Maybe winter then.

Audrey Tang: Not a problem, but...

Justin Wu: As he soon as he books the time, then we’ll know.

David Chang: So why Taiwan? Oh, this is for SU’s eyes, but what is Crossroads for them? Summit program at a glance -- day one, day two, day three. The summit itself would be two days, but the whole planning would probably be accompanying around four days.

David Chang: Day one as far as the guests are concerned, we’ve made this opening ceremony. We would pick them up from the airport, cover their hotel fees. Day two would be we would have three...Actually, this doesn’t outline that well.

Justin Wu: It didn’t say. Maybe this one. We’re planning to have three stages. Actually, it should be three workshop areas, your stage having a workshop area, and also one main exhibition areas where there’s different companies, like booths, these sorts of things.

David Chang: Depending on sponsorship, we would have bigger booths. We would also like the public to be able to participate.

Justin Wu: Gauge, because SU, they do require the ticket price to be at least $950. Do you want to talk about the sponsorship?

David Chang: $950. Our concern is that $950 is a pretty high bar for a regular ticket.

Audrey Tang: Unless you’re doing blockchain, which...

David Chang: They can afford it.

David Chang: As far as our focus would be is we would like this to make it as accessible as possible. We don’t want it to be this high bar thing. Our idea is to be pursuing sponsors for this and giving out tickets to the sponsors for them to pass out, so young entrepreneurs, promising individuals. We think that’s a better model than setting it through ticket price.

Audrey Tang: Does SU have a policy for live streaming or against live streaming?

David Chang: I don’t think so.

Justin Wu: I don’t think, but we can...

Audrey Tang: Because that’s another way to make it accessible.

Justin Wu: Maybe we can ask about live streaming.

David Chang: We can ask Madonna about that.

Audrey Tang: You can perhaps have a tier where you don’t have to travel all the way to Taipei. We can give to engage in a live streaming and maybe a free tier afterwards where you publish the recordings.

Justin Wu: Some materials.

Audrey Tang: Then that becomes common education material. That’s a way to do social responsibility without hurting your bottom line because they will be after the event anyway. They pay for early access essentially.

David Chang: That’s an excellent idea. We’d have to check with SU with that, but we’re totally game for that. A VIP ticket would be geared towards you’d have much more closer interaction with the speakers. There’d be dinners, receptions, a VIP lounge area, but more direct interaction.

David Chang: Local speakers we would like, we’re all brainstorming ideas.

Audrey Tang: That’s ideal. [laughs]

David Chang: Gou Tai-Ming, Horace Luke, Bruce Cheng from Delta Electronics. I’m sure you recognize these faces, of course.

Audrey Tang: This is somewhat WCIT-level stuff.

Justin Wu: Yeah, kind of.

Audrey Tang: It looks very similar.

Justin Wu: Very similar because it’s also technology focused, and innovation focused. Our theme will be closer to what SU is like, using exponential technology to impact the humanity. We’re focusing more on the...

Audrey Tang: On the impact part?

Justin Wu: Yeah. Some technology but not a lot on that.

Audrey Tang: Impact oriented.

Justin Wu: Impact oriented.

David Chang: Education is actually a big topic that Singularity University also focuses on.

David Chang: This is how we’re first imagining in our heads. Also, this is based off of previous experiences with the TICC through our organizer. Look at capacity, Plenary Hall -- I don’t know if we need to go through this -- exceeding capacity, 3,000 with three different stages, each with about a hundred capacities and probably some workshops around those areas.

David Chang: Sponsorship opportunities. This is a rough scheme right now too. We’re also looking at a platinum scheme of $500,000 if you’re a platinum, gold sponsor, $300, $200, $100, $10, and different levels of access. We would give out a certain amount of tickets for that.

David Chang: Singularity University has made it a requirement to at least have 450 participants for this event.

Audrey Tang: That’s easy.

David Chang: 450, but of course, in the interest of everybody, we’d like to have more people come and join.

Audrey Tang: I guess the first few large sponsors will largely determine the scale and the general tone. I think SU had a, I don’t know whether it is a partnership or it’s something with "Business Weekly," entrepreneurship.

Justin Wu: They worked together on the GICU in 2015.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Justin Wu: That was the year that I went to SU.

Audrey Tang: It’s not a formal...

Justin Wu: It’s not like a formal, like a long-term partnership. It was more that year they got the GIC license...

Audrey Tang: I see.

Justin Wu: ...the global institution license. Each license is only for...

Audrey Tang: Good for one year.

Justin Wu: ...for one year, except for the country partnership, I think.

Audrey Tang: The country partnership is recurring?

Justin Wu: It’s like a long-term plan. That’s why it’s the hardest one to get.

Audrey Tang: How does it relate to GIC? Does it give you a free pass to run GIC afterwards?

Justin Wu: Actually, GIC is separate. They have different programs, where they have the global impact competition. They have the summit. They have a program called, the one I went to is called graduate the global solution program for GSB.

Justin Wu: Lastly is the country partnership. Country partnership is the hardest one to apply because basically it’s establishing a long-term relationship, establishing a local SU future brand.

Justin Wu: One other chapter in...

David Chang: Then they actually bring in SU faculty, too, or we’d establish it...

Audrey Tang: Like full timers, here?

Justin Wu: Like the full time, yeah. Basically starting a company, just bring SU programs. GICs are usually just for one year. Business Weekly did have a relationship with SU before, but the last time I checked, which was in 2016, the year after I came back, they didn’t have...

Justin Wu: In 2015, they spent all the marketing budget in that competition. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: It’s not like they’re renewing it for the foreseeable future?

Justin Wu: Right, right, because each year they probably have different focus that they use it on different marketing events.

Audrey Tang: Are there any other SU partners you are in contact with?

Justin Wu: There’s Deloitte. Deloitte Global is like a platinum-level sponsor of SU Global. We sort of talked to Deloitte in Taiwan.

David Chang: I do have a connection with Deloitte, which is a SU partner. Singularity University also stated that they also would connect us with someone who works in Deloitte Global, who would connect us with the greater Deloitte scheme for the sponsorship.

Audrey Tang: I see Google and SAP being the other two?

Justin Wu: Google is like the early investor, and this year they kind of didn’t.

Audrey Tang: Right, scaling down?

Justin Wu: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: What about SAP? SAP is all about impact now.

Justin Wu: I’m not sure the reason about SAP. It’s probably also like a minor investor. Because SU has the global summit, it’s like their flagship summit, in San Francisco each year. This year the main sponsor is Deloitte Global.

Justin Wu: I assume that the relationship between SU and Deloitte is like the tightest right now, compared to Google or...

Audrey Tang: Or SAP.

Justin Wu: ...or SAP, yeah.

Audrey Tang: Let’s see. Impact is great as a theme, even the GC-plus or the Global Entrepreneurship Network, that’s now rebranded, like in GC Taipei, we’re now enabling social impact with AI plus IoT.

Audrey Tang: Impact is definitely the right word of the year, [laughs] and next year for sure. You still have to distinguish yourself from WCIT somehow. Otherwise, it would be seen as a scaled-down WCIT and CompuTEX and InnoVEX. The question you always got to ask is how is this different from WTIC and the top tier, then computech and innovech.

Audrey Tang: A short answer to that question doesn’t involve the concept exponential would be great. Exponential, unlike impact, is not the word of the year in Taiwan. [laughs]

David Chang: Got it.

Audrey Tang: It was like, maybe, four years ago. [laughs]

David Chang: Got it. Four years, how obsolete.

David Chang: One of the other options, and the other idea was to actually make it an Asian region conference. This again, we also need to talk with SU a little more if this can work. To somehow have some type of coordination with Japan, with Southeast Asia, Singularity University branches, and to see whether there can be some type of coordination for the summit to make it an Asian region event, with Taiwan at the center.

David Chang: This, of course, all I’m planning right now.

Justin Wu: I have other SU alumni. Some of them are thinking about hosting a summit in Japan, in China, in Singapore, or like around the Asia Pacific region.

Justin Wu: We discussed one time thinking about is there a way that we might be able to collaborate. For example, the method we thought about is we have the event dates pretty close together. That way...

Audrey Tang: Like, "A Week of Singularity?"

David Chang: A Week of Singularity. [laughs]

Justin Wu: Singularity Summit. Throughout Asia Pacific, and then so that way we can come together and bargain with SU to ask for the best speakers that doesn’t normally come out for just one summit.

Justin Wu: This is still an idea on our minds, but maybe we can assemble a collaborating alliance.

Audrey Tang: I don’t see any country partners in Asia Pacific.

Justin Wu: That’s not the country partners, yet. There are the summits.

David Chang: They’re the summit part. They’re the summit organizers.

Justin Wu: The summit license and country partner license...

David Chang: ...two different...

Justin Wu: ...are two different...

Audrey Tang: You’re looking to both?

Justin Wu: To become a country partner is the logical way as you host a summit first, and if it’s successful, and SU likes working with you, then they will consider you to be a country partner.

Audrey Tang: Ah, OK.

Justin Wu: It’s like a way to test...

David Chang: It’s a requirement, a way to test.

Justin Wu: ...to test your ability.

Audrey Tang: I see. Then once you become a country partner -- I’m just making sure -- like for Canada, or for the Netherlands, do they have to run a summit every year, or is there a certain obligation?

Justin Wu: No.

Audrey Tang: No.

Justin Wu: You don’t have to...

Justin Wu: Pretty much.

Justin Wu: Pretty much, yeah, it’s like you proved that you’re capable, then, yeah, you don’t really have. You can, even let other companies do it or like elsewhere, whatever. Basically, you’re focusing on bringing the SCU programs to the local country.

Audrey Tang: I see that SingularityU Nordic is based in Denmark.

Justin Wu: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: But actually it seemed that is Nordic.

Justin Wu: Yes, if they say Nordic, yeah, yeah.

Audrey Tang: Do you know why and is it...

Justin Wu: They used to call Copenhagen, I think. SingularityU Copenhagen. What was the reason they rebranded to...I think it was because they wanted to combine their resources or something. Then, they were accepting teams all over the Scandinavian countries. So they just rebranded.

Audrey Tang: Then, are you looking towards something like that?

Justin Wu: A Singularity event?

David Chang: That would be kind of interesting.

Justin Wu: It would be interesting, yeah.

Audrey Tang: You will exercise your translation resources.

Justin Wu: Yeah, exactly.

David Chang: Exactly.

Justin Wu: This is something that, for example, after we successfully host the summit and then we can discuss with SU about...

David Chang: How to establish...

Justin Wu: ...how to establish maybe like a regional country model.

David Chang: It’s so hard to sell SU the idea of an Asia summit. It’d be cool if we can make it bigger, especially tied in the Southeast Asia. That’d be fascinating.

Audrey Tang: A few suggestions. Since this is a bootstrapping event and you’re not actually going to run in other summits, for sure, after this, like next year, right? This is mostly just to get SU to understand that kind of leverage you can get from the Singularity brand. This is like the single focus.

Audrey Tang: I would suggest that you mark it as either Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific, if you’re feeling adventurous, to the SU. Reason why is, first, because you’re partnering at least semi-officially with Asia Silicon Valley and you want to be the thought in the Asia Silicon Valley. Singularity University is one embodiment of the valley culture.

Audrey Tang: The counterpart, if it’s just Taipei or SU Taipei, it doesn’t make sense actually because it mostly will be seen not as a connector, but as an importer. But that will actually hurt your leverage position to get speakers from this region.

Audrey Tang: At least, SU Summit Taiwan, but looking toward SU Summit Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific it’s my first suggestion.

Audrey Tang: The second thing is it makes sense if you have existing connections to the innovation hubs or Impact Hub or whatever hubs around this region, it makes sense to let’s do it together, and at least spread some of the speaker invitation and speaker connection relationship work to such teams.

Audrey Tang: If you focus on Impact, you’re going to have three tracks. One easy way to do it is to have one...It’s basically a mojo of three events. We did that in Tomorrow Asia. We took the SC Insight Conference, which is every year in Taipei, and a Social Enterprise Conference, which is every year in Belgium. We basically merged their agenda together.

Audrey Tang: They’re going to run a yearly conference anyway, but we can use better graft together as though we choose Taichung, which is the midpoint.

Justin Wu: Geological midpoint.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. And engaged the two already very experienced. They’re running this for six years or seven years, to sort out the agenda, and then add to it, of course, our own agenda around sustainability development goals, and then that became the triangle of agenda setting. Then, everybody only has to do one third of the track.

Audrey Tang: If you’re going to have very distinct flavors to each of the breakouts or each of the tracks, I would encourage you to find agenda setting partners.

Audrey Tang: On the other hand, if all the three tracks are going to be very similar, then don’t bother about it. I think this kind of coalition or a merger of small conferences is the easiest way if you only have one year to fund because then you can leverage people we find every year. So that’s another thing.

Audrey Tang: The last thing is, again, about branding. It would help, usually, if you run it in GEC+, in GEN, we run it as part of a larger exhibition, the innovation that I mentioned exhibition. The reason why is that, then it shares the promotion costs. You get promotion for free. You don’t have to bootstrap in your brand from scratch, which is always difficult.

Audrey Tang: The last time that people hear anything about Singularity large scale event is SU pointed out maybe three years ago. It’s not like that you can refresh everybody’s memory this quickly. If you partner with a large event of similar size or a larger size, then you leverage the promotional ability of that event.

Audrey Tang: Of course, if you partner with media-based events they always give you free media, that’s what you have. [laughs] Around fall, Business Weekly has its own yearly summit, but every other media also has their own yearly thing going and partnering with them is easier, far easier than private sector or even some of the public sector events.

Audrey Tang: They will see this as absolutely win-win solution. Your role at this stage is also like a media. It’s much more like a media, than something...

Justin Wu: Yeah, promotion.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. Partnering with something that is value-aligned, focus on impact as your main media delivery would be a great addition. They will also help you to get sponsorship, aside from the existing SU connections and speakers. They all connect with speakers anyway.

Audrey Tang: That’s the three suggestions I have, but I think this is a pretty valid plan. With less than one year of funding, you’ll have to dedicate a lot of time to it.

Justin Wu: We’re already planning on dedicating a lot of time.

David Chang: A part of Crossroads resources will be dedicated to this.

Justin Wu: Pretty much. We’ll make this happen. About having an Asia-Pacific conference, our initial approach with SU was to host an Asia-Pacific summit, but according to their rules, they wouldn’t allow it. A regional summit has to be by country.

Audrey Tang: Only partner can be regional?

Justin Wu: Partner, yeah, possibly regional.

Audrey Tang: I mean Nordic.

Justin Wu: Yeah. We can use that as an argument. "Hey, you give the Nordic."

Audrey Tang: Maybe just Taiwanese.

Justin Wu: We also mentioned that we’re in discussion with other alumni in other countries who wants to host the country summit. SU knows that we may want to collaborate together to an Asia-Pacific regional...

David Chang: We’ll see if they can bring over some of their influencers from Southeast Asia to come join the summit, even in a...

Justin Wu: Yeah, yeah, possibly.

David Chang: ...informal capacity or somehow.

Justin Wu: Like a joint program or something like that.

David Chang: Exactly, as a guest. That would be good.

Audrey Tang: The French people run this Night of Idea thing. They have the Asia-Pacific, I don’t know, Hong Kong or Taiwan or any nearby countries, to actually having this in time because the time zone’s close. It’s mostly about sharing promotion resources. Of course, due to live streaming and things like that, it’s also possible to pick up a thread from one forum and carry it to the next.

Audrey Tang: That will require a lot of telepresence design and things like that. It complicates matters. It’s easier if it’s time and space distinct, like over a course of three weeks or three weekends and things like that.

Justin Wu: Ideally. We even thought about maybe having like a telepresence interaction. One stage in Taiwan and one stage in Japan where the speakers...

Justin Wu: A panel over the Internet.

David Chang: Yeah, that would be good.

Audrey Tang: You can invite Sophia.

Justin Wu: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: Or each country can bring their own Sophia.

Justin Wu: Their own Sophias.

David Chang: Exactly, yeah, that would be cool.

Justin Wu: But it got kind of awkward.

Audrey Tang: You have to script it really well.

Justin Wu: Yeah, you have to script it really well.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. Anything else I can be of help?

David Chang: As far as seeking sponsorship through the central government, what would be a good path to start navigating that scene also, to see who would be interested? Of course, MOST might definitely be the target, but also National Development Council. Any navigational guidance regarding that part?

Audrey Tang: That all have to align with the theme of the year that they want to push, right? MOST is all about research grade AI scaling into the industry, that’s their push for the brand for the next year.

Audrey Tang: If you’re having one track dedicated at showcasing Taiwanese partnership with oversea, including but not limited to the tech arena for AI based innovation, then of course, they will be very interested and will give you more speakers than you can handle.

Audrey Tang: That’s MOST. The MOEA will become the startup agency starting next year, so their focus will be early stage startup, startup ecosystem, social entrepreneurship as defined by SDG, impact-based investment and connecting CSR resources to startups.

Audrey Tang: It will be very startup focused.

Justin Wu: Startup focused. OK.

Audrey Tang: It’s for the first time that startup becomes a single agency’s business instead of spread among...

Justin Wu: They have a startup agency right under MOEA?

Audrey Tang: That’s right. There’s a reform of the SME department, but now they will become a 署, meaning that it’s a full-fledged Administration, rather than just a 處, which is a department. So a full-fledged Administration for startup and entrepreneurship. It’s going to be called the Administration for SMEs and Startups.

Justin Wu: I see.

Audrey Tang: Startup is going to be the new word in this. It used to be the usual word in international development -- "MSME" meaning micro, small and mesium -- but startup is not actually micro. Startup is maybe exponential in growing.

Justin Wu: Its own track.

Audrey Tang: It’s on his own track. They will very much like to highlight that. The main policy tool the MOEA have is the Sandbox, which is basically giving startups a way of challenging existing regulations and give them essentially regulatory monopolies by having them proposing for limited time period, they’re going to break some rule or some law even.

David Chang: Is that the one in Linkou?

Audrey Tang: In Linkou, that would be space-based. It’s not just the Startup Terrace. Sandbox is all over the place. You can have a startup says, "I’m sharing private parking lots," or a startup that focus on financial inclusion by using mobile banking and things like that.

Audrey Tang: End of this year, we’re going to have startups that focus on maybe drone delivery with the Unmanned Vehicle Sandbox. People will experiment with a lot of autonomous vehicle technologies. All of this is MOEA’s business. We designed an unmanned vehicle sandbox. It’s not sent to the Ministry of Transportation, but rather to MOEA, so they can handle ships and drones and cars with the same program.

Audrey Tang: In MOTC would be very different track. You can propose some hybrid models and just go straight through MOEA process. That’s what they will want to highlight. It’s a startup, but not like traditionally growing-for-10-years startup. It’s a startup that has a wide impact by breaking some...

Justin Wu: Disrupting technology.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, breaking some laws.

Justin Wu: Yeah, they’re disruptive.

Audrey Tang: Disruptive startup but for such a good. That’s going to be the theme for the next year.

Justin Wu: For next year, starting January.

Audrey Tang: Starting January. If you’re going to pitch to MOEA, around fall, that’s when the first cohort finishes for Fintech, but it’s also the first cohort to start experimenting with unmanned vehicles and 5G deployment.

Audrey Tang: If that gives them an international stage to show Taiwan as disruptive innovation for such a good, which is a very SU message, then maybe they will be interested. Make it not just about incremental growth. Make it about breaking the rules for the common good.

David Chang: For the common good.

Audrey Tang: That’s the MOEA pitch, which is very different from MOST. That will connect it to the current ASVDA program. Far as I know, they’re more about connecting resources and especially talents. The next year’s push is going to be the new Economic Immigration Act, again a very Crossroads thing, but not necessarily a Singularity University thing.

Audrey Tang: I don’t know how you’re going to [laughs] spin the message so it connects to SU because the new economy immigration is not about people going to Taiwan for some education and they remain, become maybe midlevel skill workers and get a permanent stay after only five years.

Audrey Tang: It’s targeting the 70s percentile of people, which is great for Crossroads, but not...

David Chang: Yeah, great Crossroads, but...

Justin Wu: This like ASV, Asia Silicon Valley.

Audrey Tang: This is an NDC plan. ASVDA is NDC mostly. If you’re going to pitch to the NDC, that will have to be an amplification of the new economy immigration plan. But how exactly to connect that to SU, I don’t have a good idea.

David Chang: Open up channels for talent from Silicon Valley SU to Taiwan somehow. I don’t know.

Audrey Tang: Somehow.

David Chang: Some way or another.

Audrey Tang: A way to frame this is that we provide the best environment, that’s a MOEA message, for disruptive innovation to happen. Meanwhile, you can also join this very exciting, like the Microsoft AI Lab or whatever lab that international and at least Silicon Valley companies is setting up in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: If you’re in Southeast Asia and your country doesn’t have a Google R&D center, [laughs] , come over and you’ll need the new immigration act to join the hub of Asia.

Justin Wu: Also one way for Taiwan to attract talent.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. I think that also works well with the Ministry of Education’s, by 2030, Taiwan becomes a bilingual English...

David Chang: That’s actually what I want to talk to you about.

Audrey Tang: ...country. They start in kindergarten. So by the time that this child becomes a college student, Taiwan will be ready for it. You can’t just make all the adults learn English overnight. We don’t have that technology yet. Maybe in "Matrix," but not the real world. [laughs]

David Chang: Exactly, just download it.

Audrey Tang: That’s a slower message. I would say maybe just piggyback on the international R&D center, the hub, what AIT has said, what Wall Street is for finance in America, Taiwan is quickly becoming for AI in Asia. That is a very good branding anyway and people go to Taiwan for participating in the AI, not necessarily on the 99 percentile, but also on the 70s percentile.

Audrey Tang: A lot of AI is now in embodiment and how to merge it into the real world. That requires a lot of new immigrant economy workers. That’s the message if I’m to propose to the NDC, but I’m not 100 percent that it is a very Singularity thing. Maybe not.

Justin Wu: As long as there’s AI, I’m pretty sure we can tie in. [laughs]

David Chang: Excellent. Another initiative that Crossroads is doing, do you know Professor Chen, Louis Chen?

Audrey Tang: No.

David Chang: He’s also a professor at Taipei Tech, a professor of law and IT. We are actually working with Karen Yu, also to talk about this bilingual initiative. One, we’re actually having lunch with the Swiss and Canadian ambassadors or consulates on October 31st, to discuss their models on how a bilingual nation would look like.

David Chang: I’m not exactly sure if Swiss and Canada are the best models for Taiwan, but at least we can ask them some questions.

Audrey Tang: They’re pretty reasonable, especially with four official languages.

David Chang: Four official languages, maybe the background history is slightly different, but we’ll see if we can learn anything on that too.

David Chang: The other part of that is a legislative hearing that we hope to also gather coalition and use this opportunity as a chance to gather the voices of the foreign community, especially the teachers here, the educators, but also tie it into a greater nationalization movement. If we’re really talking about bilingual, it’s not just about education. It’s actually about the greater environment as well.

David Chang: We’re hoping to provide some recommendations policy wise from there. Third, which is the part where we’d like perhaps your involvement, is we would like to form an alliance of organizations, educators, but also influencers, policymakers, but also to set up a structure, which would actually, perhaps -- and this is where we’re brainstorming right now is to set up a program that actually brings high quality English teachers into Taiwan.

David Chang: One of the things, after our studies and the interviews, is figuring out that there seems to be a lot of so-called English teachers in Taiwan, but they’re not actually true English teachers. They just have a foreigner’s face and apparently they can teach English.

David Chang: We would like to establish a program that actually provides certain standards for English teachers. These teachers placed throughout schools, but also for workplaces. One of the problems which got brought up was, "Hey, if you’re going to teach a company to go global, your consultant, your marketing agency, you do it, and it’s a one-time thing."

David Chang: I’ve been telling companies, unless they want to keep paying for your services, once that is over, is over, and then you’re stuck back to zero.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. It’s like any other advertisement agency.

David Chang: Exactly. The idea is to have to teach them how to fish instead of fishing for them.

Audrey Tang: Like a cultural teacher.

David Chang: Exactly. We’d like to set up an alliance that actually does provide these programs for companies and workplaces to see how this initiative might work. Of course, while we were brainstorming, we said, "Yeah, we’d love to talk with Minister Tang about this." Of course, as we roll out, we’ll keep you up-to-date about how everything goes.

David Chang: We’re thinking from a more gathering the foreign resources in Taiwan, as well as trying to make this into a bigger coalition.

Audrey Tang: Let me just check my understanding. If it’s just for kindergarten or primary schools, the teacher doesn’t have to speak fluent Mandarin or Taigi, right? If this is for a business, then they have to be fluent in both languages.

David Chang: Yes. They would have to be fluent in both languages. The standards would have to be rigorous. Yeah. We do come across, and that’s the saddest thing is we do find these talents in Taiwan already, but sadly a lot of them are leaving.

David Chang: Of course, we have to tie this program and this initiative with perhaps the Gold Card. We have to tie it in with some type of, "Hey, come here and we will give you the rights to stay."

Audrey Tang: No, Gold Card is perfect. It’s designed for it.

David Chang: Exactly. So probably tie this in with the English teachers. Of course, we have to see what English is or whether they’re good at coaching for marketing or branding, whether they’re good at teaching in elementary. We’d have to distinguish between those teachers.

Audrey Tang: First of all, it’s a good idea, but the kindergarten and primary school one was chosen as a main strategy mostly because it’s something that parents really want, a response to a real social need.

David Chang: It’s good idea. You have to start young.

Audrey Tang: They’re already petitioning against the current ban on all English kindergartens. It’s good to start from that. I do agree that with the current kindergarten semi-nationalization plan, nobody really knows how much parents are willing to pay for this kind of service.

Audrey Tang: It’s not a very go hearty [laughs] plan. I totally understand why you would like to carve out a second route of employment. Maybe they can even do both if they’re sufficiently talented. Lifelong kindergarten, why not.

David Chang: That sounds like a great idea actually.

Audrey Tang: It’s actually a book.

Audrey Tang: From the MIT professor that did Scratch.

David Chang: Got it.

Audrey Tang: If you market it not as a branding or as a MarCom, which would require such a diverse skill set on the part of...They have to know not only pedagogy and Mandarin or Taigi and English, but also MarCom, which is its own discipline. I would stick just on maybe just cultural translator.

Audrey Tang: This is easier to reach target. There is existing demand and the cultural translator or ambassador or whatever main goal is not to personally provide any translation service or anything like that, but rather be ambassador and lower the uncertainty and doubt for existing Mandarin or Taigi oriented large companies to start working maybe in the New Southbound Policy.

Audrey Tang: There’s Australia. There’s New Zealand, which is all English as primary language, and of course Singapore and part of India. It’s not like if you go in New Southbound, you have to suddenly learn seven languages. English will actually cover a large part of it. But someone has to deliver the message.

Audrey Tang: Someone has to connect them with their counterparts in the New Southbound English oriented countries. It will also serve as an ambassador to the NSP, the New Southbound Policy that Taiwan can actually offer a lot of system integration and things like that, that Taiwan are really good at, just because the language barrier never really offered it.

Audrey Tang: Then, their training need to be kind of like diplomats, not too deep on any particular thing, but with a very empathy oriented way around the cultures.

David Chang: Lowering anxiety.

Audrey Tang: Lowering anxiety. If they themselves come from New Southbound cultures, that’s even better. That’s the maybe 80 percent here that you’re looking for.

Audrey Tang: If you do branding, MarCom, international marketing, that’s like 95 percentile. It will probably compete instead of collaborate with existing agencies doing precisely the same thing.

Audrey Tang: NSP is easier. It’s a new market. Also, it makes it align well with the people with a much more saturated market trying to expand to the Indo-Pacific Oceans, which is literally a "blue ocean strategy". [laughs] That alignment I think would work there.

David Chang: That’d be good. That’s actually really interesting idea. Overall, yeah, we are still in the midst of trying to set the standards.

David Chang: One of the biggest problems is exactly because there doesn’t seem to be any certifications or standards. If we can have this organization, this alliance setting these certain standards and certifications about who can do what, I think that would be a good start.

Audrey Tang: Very much so.

David Chang: We’ll keep you up-to-date, but we would love your support and...

Audrey Tang: Yeah, if you have some examination, I’m happy to take it.

Justin Wu: To become an English teacher.

David Chang: If you pass it. If you fail it, then it’s too hard.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, happy to be there.

David Chang: Got it.

David Chang: Great. Do you have any questions?

Justin Wu: No, I’m good.

David Chang: Do you have any other final...

Audrey Tang: Yeah, we brainstormed about the E-Taiwanese thing, I just want to update you on that. The incentive for foreigners. We’re now thinking the main selling point is actually people who stay for some time in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: One of the largest things that we can give them is to give them an ID number that has the second digit that is a number, not a letter, which would instantly enable the rails tickets and movie tickets.

David Chang: Yeah, that’s a long time coming.

Audrey Tang: Maybe 10 percent of people you say are leaving will not leave just because of this single thing. [laughs]

Justin Wu: They’re not bugged every time they reserve a train ticket.

Audrey Tang: Instead of layering many messages in one, maybe we just focus on what’s actually the pain point of the people who currently are staying at least, maybe, a few months a year in Taiwan and make their life easier. That would necessarily include migrant workers and things like that, but that’s OK because we also want to make their life easier and friendly.

Audrey Tang: We need to send a warmer message. It’s less about attracting top talents and handing them gold cards. That will be a better foundation to win the hearts of people who are already in Taiwan for school, for entrepreneurship, for fun, for surfing.

Audrey Tang: This is so that the community will not think of it as something like the initial Gold Card or startup visa, as only profiting maybe one percent or five percent of the expats. I hear from the Forumosa and other forums that some people think it’s still too hard and that there’s some kind of relative deprivation, or relative exclusion. They were not that excluded to begin with -- but because we focused on only maybe five percent, people relatively they feel excluded. It’s a better this time if we start with the most inclusive of all and then just gradually new messages.

David Chang: Can you give the middle...

Justin Wu: Now I think of it, it ties in with the SU mindset because right now, with Trump in the office in US, SU is a bunch of liberals in California, in Silicon Valley. They’re also really in favor of including immigrants in the country.

Audrey Tang: That’s great. Good to hear this.

Justin Wu: The type of technologies we’re using, like the digital residency program.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, and the New Economy Immigration Act.

Justin Wu: We’re including immigrants through a digital technology online training. It ties in with what SU is about.

Audrey Tang: That’s good. It’s good to pitch to SU...

Justin Wu: Maybe you can also share during the summit.

Audrey Tang: OK, happy to. Cool. "Immigrants, we get the job done!"

David Chang: Seriously, they do. Sorry, regarding the E-Taiwanese part about the numbers with ARC matching, when do you think those changes can be turned out?

Audrey Tang: You mean rolling out?

David Chang: Yeah, rolled out.

Audrey Tang: We’re still in discussion about the timeframe.

Justin Wu: All right.

Audrey Tang: More inclusion is the best message. We’re still thinking about when exactly to roll it out as not to compete with other political messages.

David Chang: All right. I think that’s interesting. Thank you as always.

Audrey Tang: Very good to catch up with you.

David Chang: Always good, always good to chat.

Audrey Tang: OK, cheers.

David Chang: Thank you.