Thank you for having me, Minister.
Sorry.
How do you spell your project?
You won’t find the Facebook page, sorry.
You won’t find the web page because we took it offline out of concern.
I saw it on Twitter.
Great. We work on what’s called the —– Project. We’re currently deploying it around the world to fight hate speech, misinformation, and calls to violence. We use a system and an AI. We’re very close to getting the AI to work and be better, and be able to automatically flag hate speech and send it directly.
We work with Facebook, Twitter. We’re close to getting Audacious funding, if you’re familiar with Audacious. Then the coup happened. We think that all of our people are in danger. Eventually, once the military takes full control, they’re going to turn their attention to anyone who annoys them. Taking their lies offline is going to annoy them.
What we’re hoping is, something quite audacious, to bring as much of the company out of —– as possible. I don’t know how to do this, because I’m just an IT guy who just happens to be in —–.
You were based in…
I spent two years there. I just happened to be here when the coup happened. I was planning to go back, but now I don’t think I can ever…
I see, so you came here for a visit?
I came here for business reasons. I run my own company, but it’s not in human rights thing, so it’s…We want to bring as many of the people out of the country as we can. We think Taiwan is one of the best fits. Of course, we’re getting a lot of funding to save, because human rights defenders do have channels for funding.
Of course.
The problem is visas. When I heard about you, I thought, “Well, there’s someone who cares a lot about social impact and might be able to help our cause.” Is there anything…?
You’re saying there’s a list of people, because we don’t have a refugee act here. You would be going nowhere without a local sponsor for their visa. While, of course, we have, for example, the Gold Card, but it takes time.
They wouldn’t…
They wouldn’t?
I don’t know.
Our Gold Card is available to anyone who has the potential to contribute to science and technology.
Oh, OK, that would be great.
That’s how many people who just discovered TaiwanGoldCard.com can get their Gold Card, specifically the Ministry of Science and Technology one. Because you’ve done a AI system, then you have the potential to contribute to science and technology in Taiwan.
Yes, we do.
It’s not like you have to earn a high percentage in salary or anything like that. Long as you have the potential to contribute, then you are eligible. You can get a Gold Card from overseas. Once you have that ID, it’s as good as a residential certificate. Then you can stay here.
This would be a lot of people though.
Sure. We need to see these are actually the people that work on the project and things like that.
Of course. What would you recommend I do for the next steps?
Check out TaiwanGoldCard.com, which is not a government website. It’s done by the people who have get Gold Card themselves. There’s a active community here, and they can probably help you of getting the right messages across, because they can share how exactly they got a Gold Card.
If we needed this to move fast, is that possible?
When you say a lot of people, how many are you talking about in the team?
Right now, let’s say, about 35 people have passports. Our entire company is almost a hundred people, but I don’t know if we’d be able to bring over that many.
I understand the situation. On average, in normal times, it’s 30 days is the usual processing time for a Taiwan Gold Card, but I can’t promise that it could be fast tracked.
Of course. You recommend the Gold Card is the next step?
That’s one possible step.
Of course. Like I said, we work with human rights defenders all over the world.
I understand.
The company itself will..
I presume that, since you’ve worked with Twitter and Facebook, they’ll be willing to attest to these people’s mission?
I’m sure they would. They’re willing to even sponsor money. They’ve donated in the past.
That’s awesome. In that case, our Ministry of Science and Technology would be the ministry to talk to. There’s contact numbers and all that on the website.
Minister of Science and Technology.
Minister Tang, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
Glad to help.
I’m sorry, to intrude on your…
It’s fine. Please give your email to ST and we’ll work out the privacy-preserving part of our transcript to be published.
Absolutely, of course. If it could be everything except maybe the name of the company?
Of course.