How Audrey Tang is using “very promising” distributed ledger technology to help government listen to its citizens at scale.

Decrypt
Date: Mar 29, 2020
By: Robert Stevens

Taiwan is still figuring out how to “do” democracy, the country’s Digital Minister, Audrey Tang, told Decrypt. Taiwan’s democratic era only started after the country came out of martial law in the 90s—its first election was in 1996—making its constitution one of the first written in the Internet era.

“In many other parts of the world, democracy is part of their culture, part of their tradition. To change it, you have to learn about hundreds of years of proud republican tradition,” she told Decrypt. But in Taiwan, “The people who designed the democracy systems are all still around and very active,” she added.

Tang, the 38-year-old radical who’s leading Taiwan’s drive for technological innovation in governance, said that researching how blockchain can improve governance is a “top priority”. 

“Ledgers”—Tang prefers the term to blockchain—“are very promising. [They are] a cheap way to build accountability and some sort of legitimacy across sectors,” she said, which makes them particularly useful for governance.    [FULL  STORY]