Recently you have wowed Japan and the rest of worldwide with your leadership on the coronavirus crisis. You have made amazing system of mask map and supplying them fairly and immediately. I have heard that there was a system that combined the wisdom of young civilians, software engineers. What do you think three key factors in your success of this mask map project?
The three factors are fast, fair, and fun.
Three “F”s?
Yes. The idea from the civil society as soon as the first map appears in 24 hours, we in the government started discussing whether it’s better for us to work wisdom instead of just for the people. Instead of for the people, with the people, this enabled a very quick response.
Within a week, we decided that we will use those maps, not our own website to offer the real time availability. This is very fast. This is also very fair, because if we said only Howard, only the first person, can be the vendor like a normal procurement, it will be unfair to people who cannot use a map.
For example, very old people who prefer to use voice assistance because they don’t see very well, or people who are on the Line platform, they don’t want to open a browser. They would prefer a chatbot. By providing the open API fairly to all social and commercial vendors, we stay neutral to all other possibilities. This is very fair.
Finally, it is a lot of fun. We worked with many professionals, who use a very chromatic approach to spread this communication. A very cute dog, for example, explained, “You wear a mask to protect yourself from your own unwashed hands.” This is very memorable. People will look at this dog who is really very cute.
Yeah, very cute.
Then think about not do this, not push, wear a mask to prevent from doing this. This whole mask map is based on communication. That’s fun. Because it’s fun, people will share it to other people on social media. The correct information spread wider than to false this information.
The idea of social innovation, you realizing that kind of system, brings a new way of thinking. What is the obvious difference between the old-style way of working and the new style of working, do you think?
The main difference is in social innovation, it’s everyone’s business with everyone’s help. In the old style is, for example, only the government’s business and only with the help by vendors, by people who are in a procurement relationship with the government. With social innovation, anyone can help because it’s everyone’s business.
How do you think that the relationship between company organizations or employers and individuals will change in this coming feature?
In the modern culture, many people are slashy, meaning that they are something, slash something, slash something, like I’m digital minister.tw/board member of radical exchange/digital future society member/ [laughs] console foundation member, and so one.
Although, of course, there are still companies and organizations just as a company will work with many people, each individual also work with many companies. It become many-to-many relationship.
I think it’s very different from the past. Maybe 20 years or even 10 years ago, the lifetime employment system is quite common here in Japan. Is it different from Taiwan?
In Taiwan, more than 90 percent are small and medium enterprises. Entrepreneurship and also this slashy relationship is much more common, but even in Japan because of teleworking.
This year, many people work through the Internet. That means they also have more free time either to take care of their family, or to contribute to the community, or if they want, work on another job. Tele-working also makes this easier.
OK. You said that it is important for everyone, regardless of nation or culture, to take various opinion in order to survive on the Earth as one team forever. I think terms like inclusion, or diversity, equality are bit too trendy. I think they are kind of get-out-of-jail-free card words. What does inclusion mean to you in your theory?
To me it means take all the sides. No matter how many color there is, I can take all the different sides. Taking different sides, this is easier to remember than diversity and inclusion, which is more abstract.
Good. Thank you. How did you come up with the idea? Did you have any experience to be conscious about inclusion or diversity?
Definitely. When I dropped out of high school in 1996 when I was 15…
When you were 14?
…there was a lot of exclusion that I experienced. I’m not of the age to vote. I don’t even have access to college libraries if they check my age. There are many places that are closed to people under 18 years old. It should be the same in Japan because I’m not yet an adult.
To me, I can already contribute a lot to science and research. Online, nobody know I’m just 15 years old. People worked with me on the merit of my ideas. I experienced the Internet governance which is inclusive as opposed to the democratic representation system, which for a 15 year old is very excluded.
Excluded, yeah. Did your decision to leave school at 14 shock your family? I have read your parents and grandparents were opposed to your plan to teach yourself at home and start a new business.
They are very worried, so I convinced the head of my school. They respect the head of my school. When she said it’s OK, they believe it’s OK.
Headmaster told your dad and mom that you were ok.
Was they very, you said anxious, worried, but were they very understanding to your decision?
I think what they did at the time is make sure that I can continue to learn without feeling alone, without being isolated.
When the head of the school said it’s OK, you don’t have to worry about legal issues, what they did is that they suggested their professors because my place, my home, is close to the National Chengchi University, NCCU, and both my parents got their undergraduate and master’s degree from that university. They are literally my alum.
They suggested the professors they like when they were students. Some professors were still teaching at the NCCU, so I attended the class of the professors without getting a diploma because they trust their professor. When Professor [Mandarin] said that it’s OK, Audrey can come to my class without having a degree, then my parents are less worried because they have also attended his class.
so you got through with a practical way and you yourself cultivated your way.
Good. I think you always get closed to the socially vulnerable and the minority. How do you think you have developed this perspective? From your own experience?
Yes. Of course it’s from my own experience. Before I get the heart surgery when I was 12, I cannot run. When I was even younger, I cannot even get angry or upset because my heart condition.
From your heart?
Yeah. Because of that, I’m very vulnerable physically. After I got the surgery, I also spent a year or so recovering from the surgery. I was handicapped for the first 13 years of my life. That gives me a personal experience on being vulnerable.
Thank you. When you were in school before you become 14, did you feel any stress or find any difficulty to get along with your friends because you were hyper intelligent and maybe you’re different from others?
I attended three kindergarten, six primary school, and one year of high school. For 10 years, I changed to 10 schools. Every school, I only stay for one year. The main stress is really just to get to know my classmates because every year I’m a newcomer to the class.
Did they say any bad things to you because you are different I think from other ordinary children?
Of course young people when they are vey young, like when I was eight years old, the people who want to work with me already say that I’m a little bit like an adult, like I’m an adult in an eight-year-old class. It, of course, creates some difficulty. Then I just spend more time with adults, so that’s OK.
Ok, so you are not afraid of being different from others.
I’m not that different when I was eight years old from an 18 year old. If I spent a lot of time with people who are 15, or 16, or 18, then I don’t feel different. We talk about the same topic.
When I was 15 when I quit high school, I attended the class. It’s usually graduate-level class, so again, people are 10 years older than me. I feel very comfortable with the 25-year-old people.
The reason why I asked about these kind of questions, there is pressure to conform for Japanese children. So children rarely say how they truly think and try to be the same, same too. I’m wondering if the same things are happening in Taiwanese society?
Usually, yes. Usually, yes, but we now for the past 10 year or so have the experimental education acts that enable people who want to try different generation cross-discipline or different curriculum, they can apply. Up to 10 percent of Taiwanese student can apply for alternative education.
Good. Sounds really good. You said you couldn’t express your feeling, and it was very stressful. Now what makes you feel stressed, I wonder? You look always happy and you are yourself. Any stressful things are there?
Do you know now or when I was eight years old?
Now, now.
(laughter)
Sorry. I wasn’t clear about the question.
Sorry.
Now I don’t feel stress because I sleep well every night.
Eight hours.
I sleep for eight hours. Even if I feel a little bit of stress, if I sleep for eight hours, when I wake up the stress is gone.
Good. Usually people can’t get eight hours to sleep. That’s why people are stressful.
Yeah. I think if you set an alarm clock and you don’t get enough sleep, that stress will linger to the next day, which makes it even more stressful. Then you slept even more badly that day. This is like a debt. It’s like taking money from the future, and you need to pay the interest.
[laughs]
Many people sleep during the weekend for a very long time to pay back the interest. Over the long term, that is still quite stressful because a week is a very long time. It’s better if you can just sleep well each night.
You start a brand new day every day because of your sleep.
Ok, sorry I ask you about your teenage years again. Whose advice was the most helpful in your teenage years when you quit school or after going to Germany?
Germany, yes.
Whose advice was most useful or helpful?
The most helpful is definitely the head of my school when I was in high school when she said you don’t have to show up every day anymore, and I will cover for you she said, meaning that she will fake the record so that I will not get punished for not showing up to compulsory education.
It’s very helpful both in the sense of I don’t put my parents in danger from the police, but also in the sense that I think career public servants are the most innovative people. I still think so because the head of school is so innovative. She can even convince my parents. I really like public-sector innovation. That has a lifetime impact on me.
Oh, good. Is it the head teacher of Taiwanese high school?
No. The high school principal, the head of my school, Tu Weiping is the name. She is the head of that high school, that middle school.
Thank you. I have heard you learned the importance of the teamwork when you were in Germany. I wonder, what kind of experience did you have in Germany?
I played football or soccer.
Football?
Yeah. Not the American one, the German one, [laughs] football is something that is a team sport. Individual, of course, is important. Even more important is to pass the ball to the people at the right time. Of course, I practiced soccer quite a few weeks. Then they told me I can join a soccer team.
Because of that, I need to do a body check. It was discover that my heart condition has worsened. I haven’t played soccer after that. I went back to Taiwan for the surgery. I only played a year or so of soccer.
After your surgery, have you restarted?
No, I have not. I played a little bit of table tennis after the surgery but not soccer.
No soccer. Too hard for you?
Because for me, at the time, I was already dropping out of the high school. I don’t have a school team to work with. Table tennis, I can play by myself.
Do you like the team sport basically?
I learned about team sport when I was in Germany, but I didn’t have experience of team sport physically after the surgery because I dropped out of school and do not have access to the school teams.
So the experience playing football, is it connected to the experience now you are in the team or working with people?
Yeah, it’s easier to think about the whole picture. I don’t have to always be the person to score. I can be the person that just makes sure the right people get the ball at the right time. In that sense, yes, I don’t have this individual competition idea. It’s always the right people, like the power who make the map. When he gets the ball, I make sure he gets all the support he needs.
It’s like a strategy making working with people. When you return to Taiwan from Germany, did you have any sort of, “I want to do this in the future,” or, “I want to do this for Taiwan,” or any prospect?
I thought I wanted to learn about the education system more so we can change the education system to make it easier for people to be different and not get excluded from education and also reduce the individual-to-individual competition in the class.
Good. From your experience?
I have heard that you were greatly influenced by the hacker culture of the ‘90s when I think you were junior high school student maybe?
What did you learn from the hacker culture?
I think the most important thing that I learned when I was from, say, 12 to 15, before I dropped out of school but after I got the Internet, is learning about the ethics. If you search for hacker ethics…
Hacker ethics.
…you can find the six ethics. It’s on Wikipedia, and that is what I have learned.
Are there any teachers, or just you learned from…?
From the Internet and how the Internet itself works. For example, the first ethic says, “Access to Internet shouldn’t be available to everyone, should be universal.” The second one says that, “All the public information needs to be shared, radical transparency.” The third thing says, “We need to empower people, instead of centralizing power.”
The fourth things said, “One should be valued by one’s contribution, not by the age, degree, race, sex, gender position, or whatever other different labels or roles.” The five is, “We can create art and beauty on the computer.” The sixth is, “Computer can change our life to be better.” That’s the sixth ethics.
I think I’ll check it out. You seem to learn everything from your own experience. What does learning mean to you? Is it your life itself? What do you say?
Learning is to realize a common purpose. I call this PBL or purpose-based learning.
Purpose-based learning. People always missed the purpose to [laughs] learn, like just to aim to get high scores or feel like a competition.
That’s one sort of purpose, but that’s a very individualistic purpose. It is a common purpose, like how can we stop COVID together? You can learn more because it’s a lot of people learning together.
So there are difference between the individualistic purpose and common purpose?
You think…
The more common it is, the more you can learn.
Thinking about the common purpose, what are the new ability and qualities required of today’s teenagers? Maybe, they will work with different people.
The main required ability is to listen. I don’t just mean hearing as in listen. I mean, to empathize with other people because people all have unique perspectives. If you cannot empathize with one another, then it just seems like differences. If you can empathize with one another, then the common purpose will appear. You can all learn together. Empathy is the way to discover shared common purpose.
Oh good. Is empathy different from sympathy, more on purpose?
Sympathy is, “I share your feeling. If you feel happy, I feel happy.” That is sympathy.
That’s feeling.
If you feel sad, I feel sad. That is sympathy. Empathy is not only sympathizing with you but also, “I can take your side.” I can actually think about if I am you. If I am in your shoes, how will I make life better? I can share it with you. I’m not just crying with you, but I can empathize and think about your side of things.
Trying to being others to understand them.
To take the other side’s perspective, that’s empathy.
Now, there are many choices and too much information. What do you think we help children to make the right choices?
For themselves or for other people?
For themselves.
Oh, for themselves. It’s very important to make sure that when people make the choices, they take into account what effect it has on their own future and on other people’s future. If I make a choice, for example, to use a touchscreen, that’s resulted in me being addicted to the touchscreen.
Not only it makes me sleep less every night, it will also make my classmates or people who are near me also get distracted, because while they may be listening to one another, and we’re having dinner together or something, if I just get addicted to my phone, then it also distract everybody on the table. This is just one simple example.
It shows that each choice we make have a effect not only on other people but also on our own future. When we make choices, make choices that will make it easier to choose new things in the future and not choose things that will make it harder to choose new things in the future for yourself and to other people as well.
Good example like the touchscreen making things change. According to one survey, there are a few children in Japan who think they can change Japanese society. Regarding to the future of Japan, their pessimism is very strong and having reasons such as anxiety about finance, social security, the economy and employment, blah-blah-blah. How can we encourage children with their pessimistic fears?
If you are pessimistic or if you are depressed, it means that you can think in the whole picture. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. People who are very excited or very optimistic tend to focus only on the thing that excites them. One needs to practice both sides. It’s like a pendulum.
Sometime you are more excited than you can create more, but sometimes you are more depressed. That means that you can learn more. Both sides need to happen. For me, for example, I will create during the day. When I was alone and sleeping, I’m usually in a very depressed state, meaning that I don’t want to do anything. I just make the information in my mind work with themself, and I don’t make judgments.
One thing about being pessimistic or depressed is that you don’t make judgments at that time. Only when people are excited and focused will they say, “This is good, I will chase it.” If you are depressed or pessimistic, you wouldn’t say something like that.
When that happens, this is the best time to take all the sides and listen to other people’s stories. If people make complaints, for example, and you feel their pain, then you can practice empathy, and before long, your empathy will lead you to create something to make the situation better. It’s pessimism through empathy into the joy of co-creation, and this is how this pendulum swings.
Oh good. To practice feeling empathy, do children have to see more people, like outside of school or in different ages?
No, it’s about the quality of listening. For example, when you interview me, you let me speak my mind. Anyone can do that, this is basic journalism training. You can ask a open question, and you say nothing.
The other side will speak, for example, for five minutes, and you don’t distract or disrupt them, you just nod your head and check your understanding. Then, after five minutes, sometime you will say, “Um, do you mean this?” or something, so you check you have correctly understood my words.
This is called active listening. This is a basic skill of journalists, and I think anyone can practice active listening. That will make empathy better.
Apart from my job, [laughs] I always don’t try to listen people very hard, but I need to [laughs] I think. All the people can be a journalist to listen other people carefully to practice empathy, right?
A Japanese parent seems to be confused and want desperately to know how to adapt to the changing of time. What do you think parents can do for their children in the present-day society?
This question is I like asking what should government do for the people, but I don’t think in that way. I don’t work for the people, I work with the people, so if parents work with their children, then both sides are like adults, and they can share a common purpose and learn from each other.
If the parent think they should everything for the children, then the children cannot be peers with their parents, and therefore, they cannot co-create, because they have an imbalance of position. Working with your children, not for your children is very important.
This is called the Pygmalion effect. If you treat children like your friends, then they become more mature. If you treat them like a baby, they become less mature.
To make children independent, the parents have to try to be equal to…
Yeah, to work with the children, not for the children.
Parents tend to think they have to do something for children. [laughs]
I know. In Japan, like in Taiwan, even when children are already 18 years old, like technically they can vote in a referendum or something, still many parents think, “I should do this for my children.” If they switch their thinking saying, “I can learn with my children,” then the parent will be less anxious.
The education is a kind of virtue in Japan, [laughs] I think. We have to change our thinking.
At least for the children who are around teenagers, because teenagers want to feel like they are a adult. When somebody is 12 or 14, they want to feel they are already an adult, it’s called puberty. If you treat them like a baby, they will fight against you. If you treat them like a adult, then you can learn from them.
Like friends.
Overall, what does working mean to you? Will you work forever? [laughs] I don’t think you will retire…
I have already retired from the business sector, so I’m just working for fun now. I’m working to make it more enjoyable for the public service to serve the public service. I call myself a public servant for public service.
I work with the government, I work with the people, but I make sure that the public servants can make their work more enjoyable. This is important, because otherwise, the truly talented people will not work in the public service. They will prefer the commercial sector. They will prefer the social sector.
If everyone who is talented think, “Our public service is very boring. I don’t want to work in the public service,” then the public service would not retain the innovation. For the public service to innovate, we need to make our work fun, so I work for fun, but I work with people.
You are the model of enjoyable public servant. Maybe no one like you in Japanese government here.
There is a comic book called the “One-Punch Man,” “Wanpanman,” a Japanese comic manga that says there’s a superhero who said he doesn’t become a superhero for the heroism. He is a hero for fun, so something like that.
That comic book is very good because it shows when someone enjoy what they are doing, they can do this longer. If you do this out of duty or out of passion, maybe you will get bored or maybe you will burn out, but if this is fun, you can keep doing forever.
Many children think it’s difficult to find out what is enjoyable for them or what is good at. How can they find out what thing is enjoyable in their life?
By doing nothing.
[laughs] Doing nothing?
Yes. If their schedule is already very full, they do not have time to explore what is enjoyable. If they do nothing for a week, for a month, then they will get bored, and then they will get curious.
Then they will get enjoyable experience from something that they truly want. If you want to find what you enjoy, just try to do nothing for a few weeks.
Will they be forced to explore something enjoyable?
Because people don’t like boredom. For the first few day, maybe you just sleep all day, but after that, you will get bored, and then you will find something enjoyable.
By themselves.
I’m wondering, if Taiwanese children are more free or allowed to think about many things compared to Japanese children? I think Japanese child seems to be more pressured in…
To do a lot, yeah.
Taiwanese parents are being changed?
Yeah, they are more comfortable to have their children, especially young children, to just enjoy and do nothing.
How about the education system? Do many parents want their children to go to a good university or…?
Yeah, but if you are enjoying what you are doing, you will learn very quickly. It is better for your academic record, because now at the university don’t really test memorization anymore – anyone with a smartphone can remember things perfectly.
Most university now test your problem-solving capability, how you work together as a team, and things like that. For that, if you are not enjoying what you’re doing, difficult to learn that.
It’s good. Still, Japanese university want to check our memory [laughs] or knowledge.
Soon, I think AI, assistive intelligence, will make it not very useful.
I see. Finally, what your message to Japanese children who will read this interview in the book?
Try sleeping eight hours every day, and do nothing for the other 16 hours.
[laughs] That’s actually many hours, so no studying?
Try it for a while. I’m not saying do this forever, but try it for a few days.
Then, you say they’ll find out their way to…
Yeah, and they will be curious and then enjoy.
Thank you. There’s three people from the publisher, and I think they want to ask you some questions.
OK, but I don’t have a lot of time. I only have maybe five more minutes.
Five more minutes. Yeah, [non-English speech] .
I just want to making sure that I appreciate time. I would like to ask you one question, just one question. Are you interested in making a picture for children, or a picture book, a children book? You will have the image about the picture?
About making pictures and materials for children to learn. Is that the question? I cannot hear you very well.
Not very clearly.
Yeah, or maybe you can type it to the chat box.
He’s wondering if you would be interested in sharing your ideas in a form of a picture book.
A picture book, like a manga or something. Yeah, I already relinquish, like abandon the copyright of my writing, and for the video of the interview, it’s in the Creative Commons.
There is a rap band called Dos Monos in Japan that took my interview video and make a civil rap song. It means that for the multimedia creation, you don’t have to pay me royalty, and you don’t have to get my permission. I already said it’s OK to remix it.
[laughs]Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Do whatever. Thank you for the very good questions.
Thank you for giving us this precious opportunity. I’m praying for your health and growth. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Arigato gozaimashita.
Arigato gozaimashita.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.