KPMG IMPACT Podcast

Social innovation in Taiwan with Minister Audrey Tang

Time: 26.28 minutes

Participants: Ruth Lawrence, Senior Executive, KPMG Impact, KPMG Australia and Audrey Tang, Digital Minister, Taiwan

Welcome to our KPMG IMPACT podcast. So, I mean sustainability, as far as I remember, it just runs in the family. I’m Ruth Lawrence, a senior executive with KPMG Impact, a global initiative designed to build a more sustainable and Ruth Lawrence: resilient future. Fantastic. So it sounds like it’s been a very long journey Before we begin our conversation today, I’d like to and it’s part of your DNA. What opportunities have you had acknowledge that many of us listening to this, and to work on the Sustainable Development Goals in your meeting today, are actually on the land of our First current position? Nations people. And I’d like to pay my respects to Audrey Tang: elders past, present, and emerging leaders, and recognize their continuing connection to land, Yeah, so I often say that digital, which in Mandarin is a wordplay waters, and culture. ‘Shùzì de’ also stands for plural. And plural means that we have many different values — societal values, environmental values, KPMG Impact is highlighting the Sustainable Development economic values. However, the digital technology enables Goals in our podcast, and today I have the great pleasure these different values to make account to one another, so that to speak to Minister Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Digital Minister. we can see, actually we do share many common values around We’re talking about social innovation in Taiwan, how we see inclusion, innovation, and sustainability, of course. innovation solving critical social problems, promoting economic growth, and offering new ways to address the UN Sustainable So my main contribution, I guess, is to make sure that no Development Goals. matter if you’re registered as a co-op or as a university with the Universities Social Responsibility programs, or a listed Minister Tang, I’ve heard that you’re enthusiastic about the company with CSR or GRI reports and so on, all the different Sustainable Development Goals. Where did that passion organization types use the same 169 as digital targets as a start? shared vocabulary to make accounts to one another.

Audrey Tang: And, so, on the Social Innovation database, which lists more than 500 organizations, I offer them my office hours where Well, it goes way back. When I was 6 years old, my mom they can meet me every Wednesday for 40 minutes at a time co-founded, with a few other homemakers, the Homemakers’ for on-the-record conversation of how to collaborate with other Union [Homemakers Union Consumers Co-op], which is one of sectors, friends, and also running the presidential hackathon, Taiwan’s earliest environmental protection foundations and they where the top five social innovation ideas gets a trophy from advocated for low carbon life, green consumption, green diet, the president. That’s a projector that projects the commitment green energy, and so on. from the president, saying: Whatever you did in the past 3 Around the turn of the century, we switched to a co-op lifestyle, months will become presidential problems for the next 12 where the Homemakers’ Union Consumer Co-op did this, months as a national policy. like, purchase to the agricultural land, that is, committed to Ruth Lawrence: the pollution free and low carbon way of farming, sometimes organic farming, and so on. And nowadays I cook also myself, There’s a lot of information there. Can you tell us a bit more and I make sure to use such material. about the hackathon? How many have you had up till now?

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The KPMG name and logo are trademarks used under license by the independent member firms of the KPMG global organization. Audrey Tang: And using these systems, which enabled more accurate prediction of weather models of the, for example, water levels Sure, yes we’re on our fourth year now and each year, as I that causes evacuation needs, and then we send automated mentioned, five champions are selected. And the selection warnings, including earthquake warnings, and so on. That then process itself, I think, is very interesting, which is only possible powered, during the COVID [COVID-19 pandemic], the mask using digital technology, because each year we have more availability map, which is essentially also a distributed ledger. than 200 different ideas, each corresponding to one or more But instead of mapping the water or air pollutions, it maps of concrete SDG [Sustainable Development Goals] goals. And whether some pharmacies still have masks in stock. then, because no jury panel is an expert in all 169 areas, we make sure we work with collective intelligence. And, similarly, the Advanced Warning System, which runs on SMS, became the digital quarantine system which warns when So, our national participation platform, the joint platform which people doing home quarantine left their home more than 50 lists more than 10 million visitors in a country of 23 million, each meter radius. They and the local medical officer receive an visitor get a 99 tokens. With this token they can vote for the automated SMS and so on. SDG projects they’re interested in. This is a new way of voting called quadratic voting. And this is a mechanism designed to So, I think it enable[s] us to fight the pandemic successfully make sure if you really like a project, you can vote more than 1 without lockdowns, and fight an infodemic successfully that vote, but it’s going to cost you more. So, with 2 votes that costs this information crisis with no takedowns, thanking to these 4 tokens, 3 votes 9 tokens. So, with 99 tokens, one can vote for public infrastructures, digital ones that has people’s brought 9 votes, which is 81 tokens. But not 10, which would cost 100. input. And people already understand the cyber security and privacy parameters of these [ideas]. We’re not declaring [an] And then with 18 still left, people are motivated to look for emergency state or inventing new data collection points during some synergies with the project they just get voted, and maybe the pandemic. they do 4 votes, which is 16 tokens. And there’s 2 tokens left and they’re more motivated to look to another 2 SDG targets. Ruth Lawrence: And in this way we make sure we popularize the idea of synergies between the SDG targets. And people end up doing Wow, that’s very interesting around the pandemic and it maybe 7 and 7 and so on, so people on average vote for like that new software. What do you think was key for your 5 or 6 different goals, different targets with the 99 tokens that population to actually embrace that software and use it they have. and make it successful?

An the upshot is that when we select the top 20 for the Audrey Tang: incubation, everybody feel they have won, unlike the older Well, because they’re related! And this is what we call a voting methods where maybe 49% of people feel they have people-public-private partnership. lost. The people, the social sector, came up with these ideas in the Ruth Lawrence: first place and the public sector endorsed these ideas. Instead It sounds like a very innovative voting scheme an