On Nov. 2, Minister Audrey Tang attended a video conference with the EU ’s High-level Multi-stakeholder Event on the Future of the Internet. She discussed Taiwan’s use of common good innovation and national collaboration to promote democratic governance and digital development.

According to Tang, Taiwan has considerable experience in fostering national collaboration and utilizing the communitywide knowledge in overcoming challenges related to public issues. For example, during COVID-19, civic groups and the government collaborated on researching and developing the 1922 SMS Contact Tracing System ,which issued timely notifications warning the people of potential health threats. It also used distributed storage architecture, an example of privacy-enhancing technology, to safeguard cybersecurity.

During the conference, Tang elaborated on other advances such as the 2018 Presidential Hackathon, when government departments and private sector digital experts collaborated to present innovative solutions for sustainable development issues like disaster mitigation, relief work and climate action “Every year, five outstanding teams are selected and related government agencies implement their innovative solutions,” she said.

Tang said one of the central tasks of the Ministry of Digital Affairs is promoting data altruism. This involves encouraging individuals or parties with information to sharenon-personal data as a way of boosting participatory policymaking and enhancing good digital governance.“Through national collaboration,” Tang said, “it is also possible to transform these measures into innovative applications needed to meet various societal needs.”

The purpose of the conference is to explore ways of realizing the vision outlined in the U.S.-led Declaration for the Future of the Interne.t As such, the European Commission, European External Action Service and Czech Republic, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, invited stakeholderS from around the world to participate and share solutions in a physical or virtual format.

Tang was also joined in the Ministerial Roundtable: Digital for the Common Good, which was chaired by Petr Ocko, deputy minister for digitalization and innovation at the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade. Other attendees included Roberto Viola, European Commission director-general of communication networks, content and technology; Peter Harrell, senior director for international economics and competitiveness on the U.S. National Security Council; Paul Ash, the New Zealand prime minister's special representative on cyber and digital; Jan Hjelle, Norwegian director-general, Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Department of National IT Policy and Public Governance; and Henri Verdier, French ambassador for digital affairs.

Taiwan was one of more than 60 partners from around the world to sign the Declaration on the Future of the Internet. It paves the way for values-based cooperation, with countries sharing similar visions jointly undertaking to build the Internet into a resilient and trusted framework protecting human rights and personal freedoms.