In order to promote diverse applications beneficial to society and achieve a sense of innovation for all people, the Administration for Digital Industries, Ministry of Digital Affairs (ADI) hopes to utilize information and communications technology (ICT) to advance the general welfare and social development. ADI is now openly soliciting more than 100 proposals from the public for innovative ICT services beneficial to society and is cooperating with various sectors to provide innovative consultation mechanisms to encourage the implementation of services and achieve their sustainable operation.

With the development of 5G, AIoT, AI, and low-earth orbit satellites, ICT applications are flourishing in many fields, including healthcare, transportation, education, and agriculture. To encourage individuals, organizations, companies, and corporations to propose ICT application services that innovate for the benefit of society and have high social value, ADI engages in software and hardware integration and cross-domain collaboration on application services.

Digital Affairs Minister Audrey Tang said that the first phase of the initiative aims to call on the public for ICT services with social impact and innovations beneficial to society. ADI will also offer various incentives and consulting services, including technical and application consulting and one-on-one mentoring. Later, ADI will establish a quadratic funding mechanism to verify the operation of proposed services and use a fundraising platform to determine the level of public support. In this way, good proposals for ICT services beneficial to society will be supported by the public and implemented and operated in a sustainable manner.

The call for proposals also seeks applications and services that use ICT data. Participants are encouraged to present applications utilizing non-personalized data. This encouragement is intended to enable good services to rapidly disseminate information using various incentive mechanisms and to allow both participants and the public to take part and trust their respective data. ADI will evaluate the social impact of proposals using social return on investment (SROI). In this way, good proposals that aim at the common good will be able to benefit and spread in society. Finally, ADI will assess proposed services for viability and sustainable development. ADI will help pool inter-agency resources and private sector investment to support the sustainable operation and development of new ICT services.

In the United Kingdom, there is already a successful food rescue app that helps distribute surplus food to the community. This not only prevents food waste, but also helps disadvantaged people in the community who are struggling financially. The social value of such a service is high, as it enables the needs of disadvantaged groups to be met.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations are closely related to people’s lives and represent an important direction for Taiwan to pursue in the international arena in the future. ADI will support the use of innovative technologies to promote social development and hopes that the government and the people will work together to achieve the SDGs.