On Wednesday 20th of November we invite Audrey Tang, Digital Minister of Taiwan, for a conversation on the civic-tech movement, radical digital transparency and the art of massive listening and co-creation.
Audrey Tang is a pioneer both in open source software and in politics. She is known for being an avid contributor to public software projects as well as being a great advocate for open government. As a civic hacker Audrey worked within the grassroots gov-zero movement to ‘fork’ the Taiwanese government and from her position as the Digital Minister since 2016 she has introduced radical transparency and online citizen’s participation into Taiwanese democracy.
About Audrey Tang
The road into Taiwanese government started for Audrey Tang as one of the civic hackers that played a role in the ‘Sunflower Movement’, which protested a controversial trade deal with China and the lack of public oversight. In the tense aftermath, the g0v movement established itself in Taiwanese government to help prevent a repeat of the protests and redesign the government to center on online collaboration and transparency. According to young generations Tang brings up a new page for Taiwanese society to challenge preconceptions and to boldly imagine social innovation.
Tang has been a long time contributor in the global movement of free software, promoting human rights on the global information network, and contributor in the hackathons to radically redesign government processes. She is a self-proclaimed ‘conservative anarchist’ who speaks about the future of democracy, develops fact-checking robots, and implements radically transparent governance structures.
A public interview
On the 20th of November, moderator Frank Kresin (Dean of the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industry at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science) will go into conversation with Audrey Tang on the radical innovations she has realized in Taiwan. What has made it possible for a hackers movement such as g0v-zero to transform governance? In the conversation we will touch upon the challenges that occur when implementing a radically open governance, surveillance technologies such as facial recognition versus technologies of freedom, and the connection between art and redesigning democracy.
Some further reading:
‘Reprogramming Power: Audrey Tang is bringing hacker culture to the state‘
‘vTaiwan: rethinking democracy‘
Read the reports about this event and watch the video recording:
- Audrey Tang – We have to keep defining what is the inter in internet by Chris Keulemans
- Four lessons from Taiwanese Digital democracy by David Klotsonis
