But they’re still in the experimental mode, they’re not running around the city.
The one year of extension from competition is enabling development that would otherwise not happen.
Yeah.
Hey, it is. It’s a really interesting mix. The sad thing is that, I think a lot of people on an international scale don’t know about what you’re doing here.
Yeah. I guess you’re confronted very often with the same question, a need to tackle quickly on it.
Taiwan has a hardware history, and needs to be turned into a software future.
Not really?
Why not?
“Pünktlichkeit.”
Be punctual.
AIoT?
For social good. Yes, thank you.
Very good.
If you were the Wizard of Oz for a few minutes, if you could make something happen immediately, what would that be? [snaps fingers]
Nothing? OK.
That’s perfect.
As you showed me the picture of your teacher, I hope I have it here, I’ll show you a picture...Let me see if I have it. Yes, I do.
I lived here in Taipei, 1990, for a year. I lived with a Chinese family. At home, I found a letter of my father, he sent to me 30 years ago with the address of the house where we lived. Then I used Google and I found out where this might be, and this, I just went there and I found the house.
I knocked furiously a few times and they were actually there, with 80 and 82. Isn’t that nice? It was a really, really wonderful moment for me. They were totally surprised, like, "Who are you?" Then, "Oh, yes, you lived with us."
It’s such a long time ago. It was really wonderful, yeah.
Yes, I did. I worked here with a German company to just earn the money I needed for staying here. I was at Shida, learning Chinese, because I always wanted to become a foreign correspondent. Which didn’t happen, unfortunately. But other things happened.
I haven’t really had the chance to use language. I can say that I don’t eat meat, and things like that.
It’s very useful, it is. I can read stuff. But I can’t really speak. I could when I came home after the year. But nowadays, it’s difficult, because you really need to practice and live the language in a way which I haven’t.
Yeah, it’s really sweet, yeah. I found it really sweet.
Maybe to be transparent about what I’m going to do.
I’m going to do a little story on the hackathon and the collaborative government issue, because that’s really interesting for German readers. I might be doing a portrait for our magazine, our digital magazine. According to, first of all, the second thing, I might also be using the shortened version of our interview for a digital publication.
We have different channels that I will be using to publicize what we have been talking about, if this is OK with you.
I can use that to work out other formats in a way. Do I have the chance to maybe use some photos?
Perfect, OK, yeah. Wonderful. I would like to do a selfie with you, of course.
I think other photos of you will be available as well.
Perfect.
OK.
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
That was really an interesting conversation, I loved it.
