Premier Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday confirmed that 35-year-old Audrey Tang (唐鳳), a tech prodigy and former adviser to BenQ and Apple, is to join the Cabinet in October as a minister without portfolio.
Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) first broke the news yesterday morning, which Lin confirmed in the afternoon, when he was asked about the appointment by reporters on the sidelines of the 2016 Taiwan Sustainability Summit in Taipei.
Lin said Tang’s achievements in the digital industry and open government projects have been recognized worldwide.
“Our hope is that by inviting her to join the Executive Yuan team, she could contribute in the said fields. Her role as a minister without portfolio will be different from the others: Instead of participating in drawing up bills, she is expected to assist government agencies in building communication platforms for all kinds of public policies and putting government information to good use,” Lin said.
Tang has been called an Internet prodigy who taught herself computer programming when she was eight.
At 16, she launched a start-up computer company and “retired” at 34. Since then she has been an active member of the open source community and a major contributor to g0v.tw (零時政府), which seeks to improve transparency in government and dissemination of public information, and vTaiwan, a platform for the government to solicit and integrate public opinion and promote communication.
Tang, who is currently abroad, confirmed the appointment on her Facebook page.
She said that from 2014 to last year, she served as an adviser to the Executive Yuan’s plans in making virtual-world regulations, and is a committee member of the National Development Council’s open data advisory committee and of the 12-year education course development committee.
“I have also been collaborating with the French ministries of foreign affairs and economy, Paris’ city government and Madrid’s city government on digital governance,” Tang said on Facebook.
She said that after becoming a member of the Cabinet, she expects to be “a civil servant of civil servants, that is, through the use of digital technologies and systems, to assist the government in solving problems and to enhance communication and cooperation between government agencies and civil technology and community,” she said.
“My presence [in the government] will not be for certain communities to have easy access to the administration, nor will it be for ‘policy announcements’ on the Internet. Rather, it will be a ‘channel’ for the better combination of wisdom and power,” she added.
Tang’s appointment will not only significantly lower the average age of the Cabinet, which has been criticized for being too old, but also mark a milestone for gender equality. Tang was born male and did not change her gender and name until 2005.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS