My name is Staff Sergeant Latanya Bieland and I am from the food service section of Echo company first of the 130th I am a culinary specialist 92 golf and we cook we Provide food for the soldiers. We are here on our end


I welcome everyone to the 30th meeting in 2018 of the Delegated Powers and the Law Reform Committee. Before we move on to the main items of business as one piece, a business that committee must decide first, and that is a decision on taking business in private. The first item of business today is to propose that we take items 6 to 10 in private. These are consideration of the evidence that we are hopefully about to hear on the Transport Scotland bill, the Delegated Powers provisions in various bills and our future work programme. Does the committee agree to take these in private? Item 2 is slightly delayed, so we will move on to item 3, consideration of instrument subject 2, affirmative procedure. No points have been raised on the draft assigned colleges university of the Highlands and Islands Order 2018, the draft budget Scotland Act 2018, amendment regulations 2018 and the draft first tier tribunal for Scotland social security chamber and upper tribunal for Scotland composition regulations 2018. Is the committee content with these instruments? Does the committee wish to welcome the Scottish Government's prompt action in withdrawing and relaying the first tier tribunal instrument in response to our recommendations on 2 October? Agenda item 4 is consideration of instrument subject to negative procedure, and no points have been raised on SSIs 2018 292 293 and 300. Is the committee content with these? Agenda item 5, instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure, and no points have been raised on SSIs 2018 298. Is the committee content with this instrument? I'll suspend the meeting briefly. Welcome back. We'll jump back to agenda item 2 now, which is consideration of the delegated powers provisions in the Transport Scotland bill, and I welcome Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity. Welcome. He's accompanied by Brendan Rooney, the bill team manager, Cat Cwayne Roadworks policy adviser and Kevin Gibson, a solicitor for the Scottish Government. Welcome to you all. Do you have an opening statement, minister? I do, I have, convener, which may be helpful to the committee in considering these matters. The Transport Bill is a wide piece of legislation and takes forward a suite of measures to improve journeys for the travelling public across Scotland. It also makes some necessary technical improvements to quite specific areas, ensuring more appropriate financial flexibility and governance arrangements for some public bodies. The bill covers bus services, low-emissions zones, prohibitions on pavements and double parking, smart ticketing, roadworks and regional transport partnerships and canals. In framing the provisions within the bill, the Government has been acutely mindful of striking an appropriate balance between the use of primary legislation and the use of delegated powers. The delegated powers are considered appropriate in a number of places in this bill, mostly due to the complex and technical nature of the issues being dealt with. A level of technical detail will be required in regulations, which are simply not appropriate for primary legislation. The bill also deals with issues in relation to which experience of practical operations or advancing technology will affect how the law should operate. Flexibility is therefore also a key driver for our approach in a number of places. I would like to highlight that in many areas where regulations are being proposed, extensive stakeholder engagement is already taking place. The bill aims to take a collaborative approach to developing the detail and to ensure that secondary legislation is robust and informed by those that it will affect. The Government does not want to pre-empt that process or to stifle the chances of interested third parties to help to shape the measures. That is why the proposals before the committee have been framed in the way they have. Even where the Government has decided that policy objectives are most appropriately met through the use of delegated powers, we want to ensure that Parliament has the necessary detail within the bill supporting documents as well as evidence from an engagement with the Government to give informed and constructive scrutiny. Transport Scotland officials have given evidence to the lead rural economy and connectivity committee. The outline that the Government will endeavour to share its thinking on secondary legislation with Parliament as the bill progresses. I want to reiterate that to this committee this morning. I am aware that the committee wrote to Transport Scotland with specific questions on a number of proposed delegated powers and received a detailed response. I hope that that proved helpful in your consideration. I am keen to hear further from members today to see where I can build on that or work with the committee to address any on-going concerns that it may have. However, the Government is clear that the approach to subordinate legislation in the Transport Scotland Bill should be seen in the context of the breadth and complexity of the subject matter at hand. I am happy to answer any questions from the committee. On those delegated powers, the bill has more than 60 of them. That is quite a high number. We do not often see that number. I think that the last time I recall was the planning bill and we had plenty to say on that. Can you perhaps tell us why it is necessary to delegate that number of powers? I do recognise that it does appear to be a high number. It is a reflection of the significant range of areas that the bill is seeking to address. There are seven different areas and around 70 different sections to the bill. That reflects the complexity of the bill. In a number of those areas, there are technical elements that still have to be taken forward in order to ensure that the bill, once it is completed its parliamentary course, is able to be effectively implemented. The most effective way for us to do that is through the delegated powers. I think that the numbers are not reflective in us. Seeking to just take more delegated powers is because of the breadth and the complexity of the bill and the different areas that are contained within it that reflect the need for a greater level of delegated powers. That would normally be the case for a bill. The bill makes provision for a number of new criminal offences to be created. I am sure that, as a form of justice minister, you will agree that creating offences that criminalise individuals is a very serious and significant step. Why are those not in primary legislation? The principal reason for that is that the criminal offences relate to enforcement matters. That relates to, for example, in low-emission zones. For the enforcement of low-emission zones, it is slightly that number plate recognition systems would be used for that purpose. There are other technologies that could be used as well. However, the choice of what type of enforcement regime is taken forward by a local authority implementing a low-emission zone has not been finalised yet. Until that is finalised, it is difficult for us to then put in place the exact criminal offences that would apply should someone tried to circumvent or to compromise that enforcement arrangement. If it was using registration number recognition cameras, if they were to try to cover up their number plate, that would be a clear criminal offence in trying to circumvent the process, or if they were trying to stop an enforcement officer issuing a ticket for the purpose of, for example, parking in a pavement, that would be a criminal offence. However, until we have finalised the enforcement regime, which will be applied in these different areas, we are not in a position where we can actually make specific criminal offences. The other thing that will come along, which I suspect, having been unjust as previously, is that people will adapt their ways about doing things if they think that they can circumvent the existing enforcement regime. If you have that set in primary legislation and people are circumventing or finding a way in which they can get round it, then you have to go back to primary legislation, clearly to amend that. By doing it through regulation, it allows us to adapt our approach going forward if we are finding out their ways in which individuals are trying to get round the regime in order to make sure that they are not able to do so. In terms of the flexibility, is the flexibility that you want around being up to authorities about how they enforce, or is it flexibility on what the actual punishment might be? The enforcement regime, the flexibility is around what would be a criminal offence if you are trying to compromise the enforcement regime. There is flexibility there for local authorities and the bodies where the provisions are being made for, to be able to look at how they want to take forward enforcement. As I said, through the use of different technologies and how that adapts and changes. What we do not have flexibility around is whether there is limited flexibility around the fixed penalty that would be issued. For example, we have set out in the legislation that the fixed penalty that would be issued is limited to level 5 in terms of a fine through summary proceedings, so there are already limitations on that in terms of what could be issued. However, that is to deal with those who are trying to compromise that enforcement regime, which would be a criminal offence. Until we have finalised what the enforcement regime will be in these different areas, we need to take it forward under regulations. The area is identified by a law of mission zones, parking, prohibition and the written statement of roadworks. Can you speak to each of those areas and advise us on why it is not possible for those to be on the face of the bill with the enforcement regime? When it comes to low-emission zones, it links to the point around the type of mechanism that is going to be used for enforcement purposes. As I mentioned, that could be something like number plate recognition systems that are used for that purpose. If someone is to compromise that, we need to be able to be in a position where we can have a criminal offence for trying to breach that system. However, when taking that forward, it has not been finalised exactly what that enforcement regime will actually be. There is also the potential for technology to change as well, which gives us other options going forward. Taking it forward under regulation allows us to adapt to that change in technology as well. In relation to pavement and double parking, prohibition arrangements relates to aspects around enforcement of that and how local authorities will seek to enforce that. For some, it will be through fixed penalty charges that they will apply. However, the work that we are doing with local authorities and how they want to apply has not been finalised. That is why we want to take it forward on regulation so that we can adapt that as well. There is also the potential for new technology to deal with some of those types of things. The type of technology that is used by local authorities at the present moment for fixed penalties could be changed at some point in the future. We need to be able to adapt the regulations to reflect that as well. What would be in the fixed penalty notice, the types of details that would be in it, etc? Regulations give us that flexibility. In relation to the road works reinstatement quality plans, those are a new provision that has been created. They have never been there before. As it works at the present moment, the commissioner's work has largely undertaken on a mediated basis where they try to mediate agreement around where work has not been completed to the correct standard and finished to the correct standard to get the contractor to carry out further repairs or that it could be the road authority to carry out further repairs. One of the challenges that there has been is to ensure that there is adequate compliance with those things. There has been a view in the sector for some time that there is a need to make sure that the commissioner has the ultimate power to be able to find a contractor or a road authority if they are failing to comply with a notice that they have issued. The offence that has been created is part of a new framework that has been created to deliver those new types of enforcement provisions around the improvements that will be required through the commissioner's office. The backstop measure is that they will ultimately be able to issue a fine or apply for a fine to be applied to a contractor. The framework and how that will operate is new. No more backstops. I knew when I read that, I knew that that was going to probably come up, but hopefully this one won't be as complex as the other backstop issue, Mr Finlay. It's a backstop measure that gives them the power to be able to pursue if it's necessary, but because the framework has not been fully developed with the sector yet and how it will ultimately ramp up to that, our view is that it's best to take that in regulation because we can then deal with that at that particular point. The principle of that is that it's very easy to make the argument that technological change happens quickly and therefore we have to adapt to that and that you could apply that to a whole swath of government policy where technology is going to start to impact on it. It's just a concern that we move towards everything being done through regulation. I fully understand that. Taking powers through regulation is not something that we've undertaken lightly. It is in trying to strike the balance between making sure what can be provided on the face of the bill while at the same time also allowing us to have some flexibility to respond to those changes to help to support local authorities and other partners who are going to be responsible for enforcing them as well and to adapt their approach to that. I understand and recognise the concerns. If the committee has got views on how we can help to address that, those are going to be taken forward through affirmative procedures, but if the committee has got views on how we can improve how Parliament can have scrutiny of those matters, I'm more than happy to consider that going forward with the bill. Is there a danger that we can end up with a bit of a postcode lottery in terms of enforcement? No, because what will happen is that the method that local authorities wish to use in terms of enforcement gives them flexibility. What won't be different is what the penalty would be. There's clear consistency in how that will be applied. The criminal offence is here to do with supporting enforcement regime. If someone is trying to breach the enforcement regime, there are other forms of technology that could be used. There are means by which local authorities could go about enforcement. What we're trying to do is give the flexibility through regulations to be able to adapt to that and to support that and the choices that they make. Obviously, some councils could enforce stricter than others. If you're allowing that flexibility, I'm not saying anything wrong with that, but if you allow that flexibility, then clearly councils will take their own view on how they enforce either low-emission zones or pavement parking. What the criminal offences deal with is breaches of the enforcement arrangements. If one local authority uses a number plate recognition and another local authority chooses to use another mechanism for that purpose, if the person tries to breach that by covering up the number plate or trying to circumvent the system in some way, that's a criminal offence that they'll be committing. Local authorities may take a lot of different approaches on how they want to take forward enforcement, but breaches of that will still be a criminal offence. That's where the regulations give us that flexibility to adapt to that. I know that you'll be aware that the Scottish Government's written response to the committee indicated that it's reasonable to assume that the first emission standard specified in the regulations under section 144A of the bill will be consistent with the leading European emission standards. It also recognised that European standards for petrol and diesel vehicles have largely been accepted by stakeholders who responded to the consultation. We understand that the Government does accept that the emission standards are fundamental to the scope and operation of the low emission zones, but would parliamentary scrutiny be enhanced if the initial emission standard was set out on the face of the bill, with a power take in regulations to amend that? That's one option. The principal reason we've set these out and we want to set these out in regulations is because they are likely to change and could change quite quickly. What we don't want to do is to revert to primary legislation each time in order to amend and recognise that. The direction of travel at the present moment is for diesel is the Euro 6 standard and for petrol is the Euro 4 standard. That's likely to be the approach that will be taken by local authorities in the implementation of low emission zones. However, that hasn't been finalised just as yet and it still has to be finalised by all of the parties that will be taking part in the implementation of low emission zones. That's a part of the reason why we haven't put it on to the face of the bill, but the likelihood is that these standards are going to change and probably change quite rapidly over time and what we need to do is to be able to adapt and to address that through regulations and the regulation making pills gives us the opportunity to do that, while also providing the opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny. I appreciate what you are saying, but can you confirm that the affirmative procedure will apply for any subsequent changes going forward with the emissions under section 1.4A? Is the affirmative procedure that you are using for it? It's negative. It's a negative procedure that we've set for that. If the committee had a view that they felt that that would be better dealt with under the affirmative procedure, I'd be more than happy to give consideration to that and whether the bill should take account of moving to an affirmative procedure. I'd like to give it due consideration and to see whether that would be the most appropriate way in which to do it. If it helps the committee, I'm not unsympathetic to the suggestion, but I'd like to consider all the practical implications of any change that there was to the affirmative procedure. Would it be possible, then, Cabinet Secretary, for you to write to the committee if the bill is not amended in this way at stage 2 and maybe explain your reasons for why you're taking the decisions that you're taking? If it would be helpful, I'd be happy to write to you either way, whether we do it or not, and to advise you on that if that would be your assistance. Okay, thank you. We'll obviously be producing a report and you'll no doubt respond to that. Of course. It's an important line of questioning because, clearly, introducing this could affect a large number of drivers. I think that people need to know what's coming. Even through the negative procedure, there is still a notification process of that, but as I say, I'm more than happy to consider the committee's views on that. Okay, thank you very much. We'll move on to another section. That's section 29, which is about bus services. That creates a new power allowing ministers to make further provision about what may constitute a facility or measure. Can you explain to what extent these terms are already defined in the bill and why the power is framed to specify what may constitute a facility or measure? Okay, the provisions in the bill are designed to try to be helpful to local transport authorities in sitting up at bus service improvement partnerships and it allows them to look at how they can use best practice and how we can help to try and take a national approach in addressing these matters. The bus service improvement partnership model doesn't impose a particular obligation on local transport authorities in terms of what facilities or measures must be part of the scheme. Instead, what it seeks to do is to try to assist local transport authorities to choose whether to include particular facilities or measures in the circumstances that it is looking to apply at a bus service improvement partnership. In terms of the technical definition, I'll let officials give you a bit of background to their thinking around these terms, but, by and large, a facility would be something in the form of an infrastructure, so it would be a bus stop or bus lane being provided. Measures may be about providing additional parking facilities, etc., to assist. It's a broader term, but officials can give you a bit of background to their thinking around these terms. What is important to emphasise is that what we are not trying to do is to be prescriptive to LTAs on what measures and facilities should be contained within it. We are trying to be helpful to them and give them an understanding on the issues that they should consider when they are looking at putting a bus service improvement partnership in place. As the cabinet secretary said, the terms are not designed to be particularly prescriptive or particularly restrictive. The improvement partnership will be taken forward at a local level between the local transport authority and bus operators in the area, so there will be certain nuances that will be agreed depending on any individual partnership. What those regulations do is allow for illustrative examples of what kind of things that they might be talking about or agreeing on under the terms, facilities or measures. As Mr Matheson was saying, facilities could be hard infrastructure, such as bus lanes or bus stops. Measures might be traffic management or congestion, taking policies or schemes that help to incentivise buses and perhaps de-incentivise public car use. The regulations that are envisaged will give illustrative examples of those. Again, there is flexibility over time as those partnership arrangements bed in or are taken up across the country to look at how much direction it would be needed within regulations to give the parties involved in those partnerships more of a framework to come to their agreement on it. That is very useful, because I think that most people would not have a clue what the facility or measure was. I guess that it is spelled out somewhere in the paperwork accompanying the bill, is it? There is policy memorand and explanatory notes that accompany the bill giving a sort of layman's version of things. Obviously, when the regulations come forward, they will have the specifics of what underpins those terms. Okay. Speaking of regulations, do you think that cabinet secretary would be more appropriate for the affirmative procedure to be used for those? I think that, given that we are not seeking to be prescriptive, that would feel to me to be a step too far. We are not trying to prescribe exactly what LTA should be applying within a bus service and improvement partnership to try to help to support them in their decision making. In that sense, it feels to me as though affirmative would potentially be a step too far, that negative procedure would seem to be appropriate and proportionate. Thank you. Tom Arthur. Good morning, cabinet secretary. My question concerns section 29 of the bill, which makes provisions for ministers to direct local transport authorities in exercising their powers to make, or a very ticketing scheme. The delegated powers memorandum states that, in issue needs directions, a reason will be clearly set out. However, that is a political commitment that is not on the face of the bill. The committee in correspondence with the Government inquired as to why it would not be set out in the face of the bill that there would be a requirement to provide reasoning. In the Government's reply, it stated that it would be redundant, as under administrative law, the Scottish Government would be required to give a reason and justification. However, the committee's understanding is that under administrative law, there would be no requirement to provide a reason, unless there was specific context such as where a public authority departs from its stated provision. In the planning bill, there is a requirement on the face of the bill to give specific directions. In section 7 of that planning bill, where directions are given to planning authorities to exercise their powers, the cabinet secretary's views are on adding a requirement to the face of the bill to provide reasons for a direction to make a ticketing scheme to put the position beyond any doubt. I think that the member has raised an important issue. It is a matter that I have given some consideration to from the correspondence that we have received from the committee. I believe that, under administrative law, there is a requirement for us to be transparent about issuing a direction. However, I also think that it is an area where we should put it beyond doubt. I think that we should look at amending the bill to reflect that, similar to the provisions that we have in the planning act, to make sure that there is no dubiety around the position and the end of setting out clearly why that direction has been issued. The committee's probing of the issue has been helpful in formulating my thoughts around it. It feels to me that we should put it beyond doubt and make it very clear on the face of the bill that there will be a requirement for ministers to set out the reasoning for that. Despite the fact that I believe that, under administrative law, there is a requirement for us to do that. To some extent, we should just put it on the face of the bill so that there are no questions around the matter. Thank you very much for that answer, cabinet secretary. I am sure that something that my colleagues in the committee will join me in welcoming. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. That is very useful indeed. Thank you. Stuart McMillan. Thank you. Good morning, cabinet secretary. My questions centre around sections 51 to 53 of the bill. These sections confer powers to make regulations about the removal, moving and disposal of motor vehicles parked contrary to parking prohibitions, also such as section 42 in the payment parking. Such regulations will engage the right to proper tender article 1 or protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. You said in your written response that you will consider as the bill progresses whether there should be a requirement on the face of the bill to consult road users before those regulations are actually made. However, given the significance of those powers and that similar UK powers such as the Road Trafficking Regulations Act 1984 contain a consultation requirement, can you, cabinet secretary, confirm that the bill will be amended to include such a requirement? It would be fair to say that regulations in this area are an area in which we would routinely carry out a consultation engagement with a range of different stakeholders on how those provisions would be drafted and how they would be taken forward. I am very open to the committee's views on whether they believe that there is a need for something on the face of the bill to require ministers to undertake such a consultation, because it is a matter for any sort of transport type, traffic type regulation that we would take forward within the Government is that we would routinely have a consultation exercise for those matters, as a matter of course. However, if the committee feels that they would prefer to see something on the face of the bill making that very explicit and clear, then I am happy to give consideration to that. It feels to me as though, given what we would do as a matter of course, having it on the face of the bill puts it beyond any doubt. Obviously, with all the committee, we will take on board what you have just said there, and we will decide in terms of what we want to do if that is something that they want to make further recommendations to you on. On section 42, I know that this is not a delegated powers aspect, but on section 42, in the pavement parking, I chaired the cross-party group on visual impairment. As you be aware, it has been an issue that has been around for some years. Ross Finney, Joe Fitzpatrick, Sandra White and, obviously, it is now yourself in the bill. I know that in discussions, it does come up regularly in the cross-party group. It is very much welcomed that the fact is in the bill, and people are looking forward to that coming into force when the bill does pass. I just wanted to make you aware of that from the cross-party group. Thank you very much. I am very grateful for that comment. I am conscious of the a wide range of stakeholders who are very keen to see the provision enforced and provided within the legislation. It is an issue that I know that the rural economy committee has been giving very close attention to in the evidence-taking so far. I am keen to get as much parliamentary support as we can for the provision in the bill, because it will make a marked improvement for people who are experiencing difficulties due to pavement parking, particularly people with visual impairments. Thank you for that. My next question is about section 67 of the bill. That confers the powers on Scottish ministers to make a code of practice about reinstatement quality plans to be entered into resetting the Scottish roadworks register. It also allows regulations to make further provision about those plans, including the consequences of failing to comply with a code of practice and for offences to be created, for failure to comply with requirements imposed under the regulations. You indicated in your written response that the Scottish Government's view was that the bill did not authorise the regulations to contain provisions making an offence or imposing any other penalty for failing to comply with the code of practice. However, in order to put the position beyond any doubt, would you be willing to make this clearer on the face of the bill? I think that this is quite a complex area. Kate will probably want to give a few things on that, because it is an area where it is completely new, not just here in Scotland in the UK. Part of the reason for doing some of this through regulation making pills is to give us some flexibility to adapt to that as well. It is also a new area for the sector and how it will adapt to that and how it will respond to it, which is again reflective in the way in which we have framed it within the bill. I do not know where Kate wants to explain a wee bit more why we have taken this particular option. The reinstatement call plans are entirely new. We have a code of practice for how reinstatement should be carried out for undertakers, and we have a resultant inspection regime, but we have never previously put anything prior to that. That is bringing the focus back on how things are planned out and hopefully trying to improve things that way. What was the specific question? It is just regarding the written response from the Government. The Government's view was that the bill did not authorise the regulations to contain provisions making an offence or imposing any other penalty for failing to comply with that code of practice. It was really just that in order to clarify that and put it beyond any doubt that it could be considered on the face of the bill. The basic point is that a code of practice by its very nature is an advisory document. Unless we were to specifically allow for the regulations to create an offence or failing to comply with that document and adjust its nature in that way, the powers that they currently stand would not allow us to create the offence. It is by remaining silent on the point that we take the view that you cannot create that mandatory element to the code of practice. I am sure that we could think about whether there is anything to do to make it a bit clearer on the face of the bill, but given that it is the nature of what a code of practice is, it would need something a bit clearer than a general power to create offences in relation to a general power to make regulations about the code of practice. We need to be a bit clearer and more specific than that, to allow us to create an offence in the regulations of failure to comply with the code. If the committee uses on this, if they feel that there is a way in which we could enhance clarity around us in the face of the bill and if there is a way in which we can reasonably achieve that, we will be happy to look at that. I have one more question. It is not a delegated problem. Can I just ask on the code of practice thing? Why did you decide to go down that route rather than something a bit tougher? The way that the quality plans work for them to be effective, they really need to be developed through industry. Industry absolutely has to buy in, otherwise it becomes just a box-ticking exercise. The best way, the most effective way of doing that is through a code of practice that is nationally applied and that applies to everyone who has to provide those things. The code of practice will have to be changed and adapted as time goes by. Because it will be highly technical in terms of, as a document, a code of practice is the most practical way in which to take it forward. Thank you. It is a question regarding the roadworks and what is in the bill. Clearly, if there is an improved dialogue between the undertaker for roadworks and bus operators, then if there was better planning, if there was better dialogue and a longer term planning for those non-essential and non-emergency roadworks that are required, then I do not really see that in the bill and I know that it has been raised with me by bus operators. It certainly is a serious concern and it also ties into comments from Mr Rooney a short time ago when Mr Rooney said that about incentivising bus usage and de-incentivising car usage. If bus operators, if they have to, at the last minute, change bus routes and if there is very little dialogue with them, then there is no incentive for people to go and use buses and get out of their cars. I think that you raised an important issue around the impact that roadworks can have on the quality of bus services that has been provided. I know that it is an issue that the bus industry is concerned about. It is significant that roadworks are starting without them being notified and then it can have an impact on their journey times and having to take diversions. Passengers have not been aware of that as well. There is a role for the LTAs in those matters. I will say a bit more about some of the work that has been going on to try to address some of those issues and to get greater co-ordination around those issues, but it is an issue that has been raised with me by the bus sector as well. It is not related to powers, but we have a really good system in Scotland. We have a national roadwork register that the advanced notification of planned works has to go into. One of the things that the bill does is make the timescales that that information has to go into much shorter so that everyone can have it. The information ports over to a public-facing website, so that any bus company, supermarket or any member of the public has access to that information when those roads are going to be closed, contact details of who to speak to, about diversionary routes and so on. By tightening that, it makes it better for everyone, including bus companies. The other thing is about emergency works and things. Other parts of the bill tighten the commissioner's inspection—it gives him the inspection function, but he does not have one at the moment—it gives him better powers to investigate those things. If there is a genuine gas escape or a water leak, that could be notified as emergency. If it is perhaps not genuine, there will be additional powers for the commissioner to be able to investigate that and address it. I know that it has been raised with me that that short notice is certainly for non-emergency works and the confusion that it causes and the hassle that it causes not only to operate but certainly to bus users. I will examine further what is in the bill and continue the dialogue that I have with bus operators in my constituency. However, I know that the fact that it is still being raised by the industry, clearly there are still some concerns there that it could be tightened a bit further. Is there any roadworks that will take more than 10 days or will involve road closure and need to be notified three months in advance? That information should be in the public domain for at least—there will be occasions where, for co-ordination purposes, that timescale has to be shortened, but the norm is that that type of information should be in the public domain three months before the works happen. With the website now the way it is, historically that was not available, but with the public-facing website, if you know what your bus routes are, you know where your own house is, what is going to affect your own commute, you can look in this and see what is happening. Obviously, if it is something that is planned much shorter, if there is an emergency pothole or whatever, you cannot have those long timescales. However, for planned works, the ones that take over 10 days or have road closures, it should be there three months in advance. Just on a wider point, tomorrow evening in my region I have a public meeting about busses, because of the withdrawal of a whole swath of services. What is there in what is being proposed that I can tell the people tomorrow night that things will change? Bus companies have withdrawn services. The public have had very little say on that, and they have no power to change that. What hope can you give to people? Some of the provisions within the bill give the powers for LTAs to have bus service improvement partnerships put in place, working with bus service providers, which can look at specific routes. It gives local authorities as well as LTAs the opportunity to look at franchises in place. It also gives them the power that, in certain circumstances, they wish to deliver a bus service themselves, so that they can then deliver a bus service directly to themselves in an area. It expands a range of options that LTAs have around addressing those types of issues. In some cases, they are working with operators, but also in certain circumstances giving local authorities the powers to be able to deliver bus services within those areas themselves. With the financial, wherewithal to do that? There will always be a financial limitation to those types of matters. There is no additional funding provided for that purpose. It is for local authorities. For example, just now, in my local authority area, there are certain routes that they choose to subsidise because they see them as essential services. They work with bus operators to maintain services to some of those communities, because otherwise they would not be commercially viable. It could be in the future that, as a local authority, they choose not to provide that subsidy but instead choose to use that resource for the delivery of bus services directly themselves if they choose to do so. They have the option in which to choose to do that, but that gives them a greater range of options than they have available to them at the present moment. OK. Any other questions from members? No? Thank you Cabinet Secretary for your time this morning and your officials, and I'll move the meeting into private session.


Thank you director and chairman son So we will now start our very exciting panel discussion the panel discussion will be moderated by Professor and dr. Kaori Hayashi of the Institute for AI and beyond and Of graduate school of interdisciplinary information studies of the University of Tokyo, so professor Hayashi, please Hello everybody, and my name is Kaori Hayashi of the University of Tokyo And it is my honor to be moderating this exciting panel discussion today And let me begin by introducing our three exciting panelists first digital minister Audrey Tan of Taiwan Hello, welcome to our symposium Minister hello We are all hello. We have all very grateful and excited to have you join this important occasion for us Minister Tan is famous in Japan and the world for her work Among other things in Taiwan's fight against the novel coronavirus through the use of digital technologies Minister Tan is also well known in Japan for her books such as the future of digital innovation or digital to AI no mirai o kataru our next speaker We also have Sputnikko who is associate professor in the department of design at Tokyo University of the arts And Sputnikko is an artist designer who is known her for her film and multimedia installation works that explore the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies Her works have been featured in such venues as the Milan international design Triennale and Mori Art Museum and Last but not least is Dr. Yoshihou Ikeuchi Associate professor at the Institute of industrial science of the University of Tokyo and a member of the Institute of AI and beyond Dr. Ikeuchi heads biomolecular and cellular engineering lab which studies mechanisms for new neuronal development and related brain disorders Using unique in vitro systems So before starting the panel discussion, I would like to ask each panelist to give a brief Initial statement about their interests in and concerns for AI So first Minister Tan, please give us your statement very happy to be here and I will start by reciting my job description as Taiwan's digital minister it goes like this When we see the Internet of things, let's make it a Internet of beings When we see virtual reality, let's make it a shared reality When we see machine learning, let's make it collaborative learning When we see user experience, let's make it about human experience And whenever we hear that a singularity is near Let's always remember the plurality is here the plurality enables us to work on everyone's problems with everyone's help And that's the idea of collective intelligence During the pandemic, there was in Taiwan, and still are in Taiwan many availability maps for the mask, the PPEs first sold in pharmacies and then at convenience stores But it's not an idea by the government It's not even an idea by the business sector It's by civic technologists In the G0V or GOV0 community there were more than 100 different maps all over Taiwan catering to, for example, the elderly people who are more willing to use chatbots the more young people who are OK with automated navigation to the pharmacy that still have those masks available even to people who are not very old and like very, very young and in a language that they can understand, for example through this very cute Shiba Inu spoke stock that caused all the young people to spread the idea that if you wear a mask, you protect yourself from your own unwashed hand And the result of trusting the citizens with real-time open data enabled each and every one of us to think of better ways to distribute the PPEs, to use it better and also disseminate this knowledge That's collective intelligence And when the collective intelligence shows tensions in the society when people have different positions, that's where AI can help In Taiwan, we have already institutionalized the use of a system called PULIS which is AI-powered conversation What you are looking at is a real conversation in 2015 when people talked about the UberX phenomenon of people driving without professional driver's license, strangers and charging them for it But instead of fighting among the polarized ideas on the more anti-social corners of social media AI, in particular, this social sector-operated AI called PULIS showed everyone how much of a resonance can people bring from our initial positions So where there are, of course, a lot of ideological differences The AI, through the use of clustering algorithms, showed people actually we have much more common in ourselves with our neighbors on important issues like insurance, registration and so on on the UberX phenomenon and we very quickly put that into a new law and Uber worked with multi-purpose taxis in 2017 and this shows us if we deploy AI in a way that assists our collective understanding then it's like my eyeglass, it helps me see but it doesn't compete with me in seeing It is accountable in the sense that if it is broken I can fix it myself or anyone can fix it and once it's aligned and accountable this way then it adapts itself to the societal needs empowering everyone in the society without resorting to what I call authoritarian intelligence which is a central planning that deprives the society of the democratic control So that is what I mean by assistive collective intelligence and I look forward to have the panel discussion with the two panelists Thank you Thank you, Minister Tanda, it was a very wonderful and inspiring statement Next, I would like to ask Sputniko to give your remark Okay, thank you I'm going to go through my slides Oh, hi everyone, I'm very happy to be here and I'd like to first introduce who I am and what I do Can the slides go on, please? Can you go next, please? So I'm an artist but actually I have a computer science and mathematics background Could you go up next, please? So I studied maths and computer science at the Imperial College London and after graduating, could you go next, please? I studied design in the Royal College of Art in London and after studying design, could you go next, please? I became an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab So I taught at the MIT for four years and I had my own research group called Design Fiction Group Could you go next, please? And then after that, 2017, I came back to Japan after a few years and I became a project associate professor at the University of Tokyo in student industrial science Could you go next, please? And currently I am an associate professor at the Tokyo University of Arts in the Department of Design Could you go next, please? And other than teaching and also showing, creating and making works I'm also giving talks, lectures For example, I became a TED Fellow from 2019 I'm also a young global leader at the World Economic Forum from 2017 Where I gave a talk in Davos, thank you And my main research theme is called speculative design And that's this idea of design which was first coined by Professor Anthony Dunn and Fiona Rabie in RCA in London And this is a design that asks questions about the future So this is a design to stimulate discussions about the social, cultural and ethical implications of technologies Could you go next, please? So one project I did in this speculative design theme is that this is a project called menstruation machine So I designed a machine that allows people to experience the whole process of menstruation And the reason why I designed this machine is that half the population of this planet goes through menstruation Bleeding, pain, all this really nuisance But I was really concerned with the fact that menstruation in society is often treated as taboo Something that we shouldn't be talking about, something that should be hidden And I was really frustrated that it's affecting half the population of the planet It's giving so much trouble, but why can't we talk about this? And why can't we talk about this to think of ways to make it easier, make it better? So that's why I designed this machine that allows everyone to experience this process and talk about it Could you go next, please? So I created the machine and I also made a video which is on YouTube And when I posted this video on YouTube, it became really viral And then it ended up being exhibited in New York MoMA or Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo This is a show in Germany So this is the kind of way I'm working that I do I design about technology and I try to ask questions about the future Could you go next, please? So one issue I like to bring up in this panel discussion is that although AI is amazing, it's bringing so many amazing progress, development There's some really concerning topics about the AI And one issue I like to bring up is this issue of bias So artificial intelligence, basically the aspect is basically it learns from the present and the past data You know, machine learning is all about learning from data which means that it also could learn from the biases that exist in present society So this is a scandal that came up in 2018 And Amazon, they were trying to develop AI for hiring But actually Amazon in the past, they didn't hire that many women They were very male dominated hiring So the AI actually learned from the past data that okay, maybe it's a bad idea to hire women So Amazon found that this AI tool was actually discriminating against women when the resume had anything to do with female or women So Amazon luckily discovered this bias and they stopped using this AI tool But I think it's a lucky thing that they discovered this And I'm very scared that because AI is such a black box And especially in Japan when gender gap is not very great in Japan I'm not sure if many people would discover and realise this kind of bias existing in AI Could you go next please? I'm sorry, I'm a bit overdone Another issue is that similar things is happening with racial bias So this is a scandal that came out where in the United States they're using this AI called Compass to analyse the probability of a criminal committing offence again And they found that this AI is giving a harsher verdict to people of colour So this AI was thinking that black people has a higher probability of committing offence again Which really affects the amount of prison sentence, the bail that black people get compared to white people and this is a big issue Could you go to the next slide? Sorry to go over time but the big thing I'd like to really ask today is that Okay, AI is great but how can we make AI bias free? And how can we make AI that solves many issues that we have in the world of inequality Gender bias, racial bias and also things like climate change or sustainability And I really hope that Beyond AI can become an institution that really thinks about how to solve these difficult issues we have today Thank you very much, sorry for the time Thank you Thank you, Sputnik, it was very inspiring and also provocative statement You brought up some sort of dark side of the technologies And yes, we will discuss that later And finally, Dr Ike, would you please? Thank you very much Thank you very much, I'm so excited to be here And also I'm really excited to be part of Institute of AI and Beyond to do research Could I have the slide please? So let me introduce myself briefly I summarized my resume in three lines First, I was doing PhD student work on genetic code and protein synthesis Which is really fundamental process and machinery for all the life on earth And it is very interesting And it uses a lot of digitalness and analogness to make the life able Be able to live And it's really interesting, but I will not talk about in detail But I realized that very fundamental machinery, even very fundamental machinery Is repurposed in different ways And such as forming neurons, shape and connections So therefore I moved my interest to this shape of neurons And did my post research in the United States But then I came back to the Institute of Industrial Science in the University of Tokyo And then I started doing this new work on making neural tissues from human IPS cells Can you go next? So our brain is, you know, as you know We have different regions within the brains and they execute different functions And very interesting thing is that those different regions are connected And then they can function And this is really interesting and unique part of our brain But not similar in any other tissue or organs in the body And in biology as AI is growing and it is used and it's very exciting But at the same time, also stem cell technologies are really evolving And that is making it really exciting time now And as you probably know, human IPS cells can be generated from cells in our body And which is called reprogramming And that reprogrammed cells can become anything, any cell type in our body Including neurons, neurons are the cells that makes our brain And they're connected and then they process information Not only that, we can make three dimensional mini tissues And it's something called mini brains and we call it organoids in the field And those mini tissue can be generated and including brain mimicking tissues But as I mentioned before, brain is really connected and that makes it function But the current technologies of organoid for brain Is to make a single region or a few regions separately So we decided to make a way to connect them each other in a tissue culture chip That is shown here, which is developed together with Fuji Sensei And by that, as shown in the right bottom in the black dark background You can see that the mini tissues that are about one millimeter Is connected each other by their own extensions that are called axons And we think that it's mimicking connections within the brain Could you go next? What we demonstrate with this is that if you didn't connect, which is shown on left You can see the activity of neurons are quite periodic, simple And not so complicated But if you connect it, we're quite surprised But they really show complex and intense activity And actually, we think that they can memorize some sort of simple form of information For short term So we would like to make it long term memory And we would like to know why they can really memorize some sort of simple information So with the Institute for AI and beyond We would like to understand more by asking three questions below Can we know more about circuits in the brain from this in vitro system? We also want to ask questions, can we make them function with the help of AI? And also, this is very exciting to be in the group of other people who studies AI So we would like to ask the last question of can we or can the research inspire AI development? And we're doing this with very talented research associated Tatsuya Osaki And we would like to recruit more people I would like to introduce the last slide of, can you go next? With the little bit of interaction with society So as Spock Nicholson mentioned that RCA does a lot of speculative design And it's really well known for it And the Institute, I mean IIS and RCA set up a new lab that's called Design Lab Which facilitates the interaction between scientists and designers and students all together at the campus And so they form small projects And then they try to come up with the usage of our technologies into deployable products And here I'm showing three different examples Which I'm not going to be able to go into details But through the interaction with the non-scientist people or intermediate people We can know what people really want from a technology or what is lacking at the current technology or society And through the interaction we're so inspired and we can apply those ideas into the research And we can accelerate the research and we hope that will be helpful for the society And that's it from me, thank you Thank you So thank you Dr. Takeuchi for your very fascinating presentation Now we move on to our panel discussion And may I ask Minister Tan first to kick off our discussion by offering your responses to the statements? Certainly First of all I think about the bias issue all the time for being a non-binary transgender I'm always being biased against Very seldomly biased for anyway And so this I feel very clearly And I think about the mask availability map about how it looks fair when I first see the map on my phone It looks like the pharmacy distribution is almost perfectly lined up with the population centers So I feel very good about it But just a week after a member of the parliament VP of data analytics of Foxconn before she went into the parliament MP Gao Hong-en interpolated our Minister Chen Shizhong saying You didn't take into account the public transportation times that the rural people need to take to reach its near pharmacy So even though it looks like the same distance on the map It's not the same time in terms of the cost or opportunity cost for the rural people So it's actually biased against them And because we share the open API updated every 30 seconds Minister Chen Shizhong our Minister of Health were able to simply say Legislator teach us And I think this quote is very important because it shows that in an evidence based culture Any bias as soon as it's discovered have nowhere to hide The bias may already be as Sputnikko put it in the mind of the planners But the AI and its visualizations if democratically controlled Allow the society to have this sort of feedback And it's always constructive in the sense that every MP or every civic technologist can offer a better way To organize the distribution and we did fix that just 24 hours afterward So such a feedback system I think is paramount if we are to use AI as assistive intelligence Thank you So I think the word if democratically controlled is something that we can dig into deeper So Sputnikko would you have something to say to me? Yeah I agree with Minister Tang about the feedback system But sometimes I often worry that the commercial incentive can be extremely strong Especially in technology So to develop to the desire to develop something very efficient Something very fast is very strong And I think we really need to have a strong force How can we build a feedback system that can be checking on this? Because we like to know maybe it's a good way to think about a tool where normal people could suggest biases Or evidences that where AI is working against them But often times you need to be pretty educated to be able to spot these evidences So I sometimes think like maybe a research institution needs to really fund that effort To check on this really fast development of AI and capitalism I don't know I wonder what's your thought on that How do we check and how do we create a sustainable feedback loop of tech and capitalism and checking where it's going? Yeah I think our current forms of democracy which was designed for an analog system And at most radio and television system really prioritizes this dissemination But not so much the feedback The bit rate of democracy if it's constrained only to voting It's just maybe four bits every person every four years And that's very very small amount of bit rate in terms of democratic control So my work on collective intelligence is almost always to increase the bit rate So that anyone who see anything wrong with the AI that's deployed in the society Can just go to our national participation platform, join the GOV, the TW Which has more than 10 million people using it so half of the country mostly And we have more than one quarter of petitions by the people who are not even 18 years old So the people who are learning this is not thinking about pay I have to wait until I'm at the age of vote Or when I'm digitally literate or media literate Rather their civics class teacher shows them by giving them assignments on starting popular petitions Saying that in order to understand data stewardship in order to understand bias There's no escape from operating your own for example air box that measures air quality That rides into a distributed ledger and then data stewardship will make sense Which is why we don't call it literacy anymore, we call it competence Literacy is when you're listening to radio or watching television Competence is when you are a producer and actively setting the agenda for the society Which is day to day not once every four years Yes, thank you very much So my question would be that how would you nurture this kind of competence Or what is your thought, would you give us some thoughts about what the ideal education for the kids Is to be able to empower them to be able to participate in such a democratic system Yeah, first of all we heavily prioritize free software in a sense of freedom in our basic education system This is not just to avoid vendor lock-in But it's also to make sure that they are empowered instead of feeling a sense of helplessness When the machine's algorithms turn against them Indeed if something is free software it means that every student is free to fork Meaning taking it to another direction without violating copyright or other so-called intellectual property laws And this is I think number one It's very important to have the agency over the software and think in terms of code Not in terms of the algorithm It's like the central planner's way of thinking about society and code is something that everyone can change And that's the first thing And the second thing I think also equally important is to make sure that when the society detects such a bias The discussion takes place in a public infrastructure In for example real world we have a conversation like in this panel in an academic setting Or in a public park in a public library in a town hall These are all public infrastructures in the commons But in the online world if we do not have the sort of participation infrastructure like the joint platform Peril is PTT which are open source and social sector operated Then we're confined to the economic sector capitalism surveillance capitalism Operated corners more like nightclubs and pubs and drinking places Which do not actually foster public deliberation They may have private bouncers and sell you addictive drinks and it has its place But that place is not public deliberation about the results or the loss of agency to central planning AI algorithm So have a public infrastructure intentional invested by the social sector and the public sector is also equally important Very interesting The strengthening of the free software availability and the public infrastructure are the suggestions Are you persuaded? I have a question about the Polis tool that you just mentioned Because communication is another big issue I'm interested in Because communication these days like fake news or extremism is much easier to spread online And you just showed just now in the presentation you try to design a tool That where AI is used to try to find similarities between people with opposing opinions Is that what you said? I'd love to know more about this because Sure, right, the design is very simple You see your friends and families not nameless trolls on the system It's by payments clustering so people who feel similar are grouped together And the main contention points discovered via principal component analysis are projected into two dimensions that are dynamically updated So the way we input into the system is by looking at one statement 140 characters So tweet length and for example this was my contribution in 2015 I said I think passenger liability insurance is very important It's my personal feeling there's no right or wrong but you may agree or disagree If you do agree you move toward me if you disagree you move farther away from me It's like a open space technology but there is no reply button When there is no reply button there is no room for troll to grow It doesn't incentivize trolling and before long people discover that we actually agree with most of our neighbors Most of the time on most of the issues simply because we simply agree to disagree on those ideological differences Because they do not sell addiction This is a free software platform that prioritizes a more nuanced understanding come of feelings And by focusing on feelings not interpretations it makes us more pro-social How do you feel about the design of the current major communication platforms like Twitter, Facebook And what happened recently with the United States capital riot where it seemed like there were many conspiracy theorists like QNHON Spreading online and it was creating a lot of Havoc online How do you feel about the current design and what are the improvements that could be done? In Taiwan we have this idea called humor over rumor And indeed the cute Shiba Inu is part of the campaign to make sure that whenever there is a trending misinformation People just reported much like we flag spam from our inbox And the situation of the current generation of more anti-social corners of social media It's like an inbox that's almost all spam and just a little bit of it's meaningful communication And that's of course not tenable But I remember that because I guess old enough to remember Bill Gates also used to say Email will be broken very quickly if we do not have the postal stamp and charging them for it But it's not soft like that not through commercial incentives But rather through people volunteering to flag things as spam And for international networks like Spamhouse to signal a untrustworthy spammer So that its email moves to the junk folder rather than to the inbox And so similarly in Taiwan we have an immune system from the social sector Where people just crowd checks like through the COFAX initiative Crowd checks anything that is trending or about to trend And make sure that if it has a high R value then the response to that Which is even more fun has even higher R value so it inoculates people who laugh about it And I think this is one of the ways to solve it I'm not saying it's perfect but it beats censorship in my opinion It's very interesting So the application of technology is a key to our discussion I think So maybe some thoughts from Dr. Ikeuchi How as a scientist do you think to for example your science, your experiments What do you think is the appropriate use of your technology that you are now doing research on? Our technology So I have to be honest about our technology is really far away from actually deployable product So as I mentioned last part of the slide I showed that we tried to interact with design people To understand what is the need from the society, what is the problem And we would try to of course come up with a scientific solution In our case a neuronal tissue or neuronal computer or the computer mimics our brain That are made of cells Which is developed which we think is a trajectory from our current research And we would not be able to really sort of directly have the solution for that question I'm sorry but from the cells But we would be able to actually bring up a lot of thoughts and ideas and problems through that course For example so if we make the brain like tissue That might be actually as biased as our brain For example like that might be a problem for example But then we can have that type of discussion with the participants And we would be sort of trying to addressing those questions by of course by developing our thoughts But also try to incorporate others But the short question in the end is what technology cannot be used directly right now But we are quite enjoying the discussion through the design lab You are inspiring AI technologists Yeah I hope that's the case So I hope that is by directional So of course we're not really talking with the general public We're maybe in the small clusters that are close together in the PCA analysis But anyways but maybe we can have that little window from the society to have the thoughts and knowledge And we would be like to addressing more And I hope that's happening more in this institute as well Yes thank you very much The whole symposium is about how we best use AI technologies And what can we do about education and also about research and ethics and so on But we have to pause our exciting discussion now I have many more questions from our colleagues for Minister Tan And I would like to ask because of the time one personal question to Minister Tan and one more conceptual one Is it okay Minister Tan? Yes And let me start with the personal Why did you change your career at the age of 33? And what drove you to become a political activist instead of staying as a tech entrepreneur That has something to do with also how scientists, what kind of role scientists play in society And what kind of role political activists play in society And how these two are related together Would you respond to this question? Sure In 2014 March I participated in the sunflower movement Where we occupied the Taiwan's parliament for three weeks And the occupy was a demonstration but it's not just a protest demonstration It's a demonstration in the sense of a demo like a software demo And the demonstration was a very simple hypothesis That the collective intelligence of half a million people on the street And many more online co-organized by more than 20 NGOs Each specializing say in the human rights, in the cybersecurity implications Labor laws, environment and so on about a trade deal Can actually deliberate such a trade deal even better than the parliamentarians could do In their formalized hearings And the demonstration was a resounding success We showed that with good open space technology and nonviolent communication People actually understood the repercussions of such a trade deal If empowered with the kind of collective intelligence tools That shows them exactly how such a trade deal affects them And this leads to high quality conversations And make the democracy, well I guess more democratic And it was endorsed by the head of the parliament at the time And we had the national forum And we collectively decided that we didn't want the parliament to get occupied whenever there is a controversial issue And we want instead to take such a conversation to the digital realm And anticipate such controversial values And so that we can settle on what we call a rough consensus through such exploratory design tools Not last minute occupies So that's the kind of outside game that brings me into the world of applied collective intelligence In the government when I was recruited as a reverse mentor as one of the ministers at the end of 2014 So you are a political entrepreneur That's right, I'm a politician, you can say that Great, yes And I have a privilege to ask one more question It is rather a conceptual question And how can AI, this is a question from all of us All the panelists here, three of us How can AI help us integrate divisive society Or in other words how can AI resolve this society's deepening rift of inequality instead of strengthening it And I would like you to address this question by talking to our students what we can do about it Yeah, I think one of the main promises of internet technology is that it's not just for downloading It's not just for listening to mass communication programs that were already fixed by the programmers But rather everyone is invited to be not just a programmer to invent your program But also a civic hacker in the sense that you can take such programs and adapt it to your local need However you feel appropriate without the explicit permission or even imagination by the original designers So they become more like Lego blocks Now it's arguable how much internet has fulfilled its original design spec But that spirit is always there, it's called end-to-end permissionless innovation So my suggestion is that to think about AI as like fire, which is also a technology that can burn cities It's very destructive, we're not used correctly But we don't restrict the use of fire to just a few elites Instead we teach about safety of fire and safe fire use And applied batch processing of food through fire as early as maybe six years old In the kindergarten it's called cooking classes And so think of it this way about how to cook for the better And also how to share your recipe with others Thank you, that's a very inspiring comment Lastly, maybe we can have a comment from our panelist, there's Wu Niko and Gio Chi Well it's been great to talk with Minister Tang and you guys I hope I can see you in person in Taiwan or Tokyo after the Covid crisis But I think another key is equality in education is so important Open education for people of all class, all gender or race And I just hope more women should be studying engineering and science Especially University of Tokyo needs to work hard on that I agree And I think more like quality in education leads to better AI, better design for AI So it's been great to talk today, thank you so much It's been really pleasure and really fun and I learned a lot today too And it's really difficult for us to interact on this Covid situation Including this institute has been doing a lot online But it is a good thing that we can connect even to Taiwan It's really nice time also And we really want to cause more technological intense fire from this institute And then hopefully that can be applied to the society more in the future Thank you, and Minister Tang final comment from you? I wish you all live long and prosper Okay, well unfortunately we have just run out of time And I'm sure more can and should be said but let's save this for the future discussions And I would like to thank each panelist and particularly Minister Tang For joining us from Taiwan, Amidst your busy schedule Thank you very much And it was great honor for me to moderate this session Thank you, thank you everybody Thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much Thank you, thank you, thank you Now back to Yu-jin Thank you very much, wow that was really exciting I wish it could last longer but we'll just save it for the next time Thank you once again Minister Tang Spotniko, Professor Ikeuchi and Professor Hayashi For the wonderful and inspiring discussion We'll take a break now until 11.10 am, just about 10 minutes And resume at 11.10 am To introduce the research activities of the Institute for AI and beyond Thank you


Hi everyone, I'm Kevin Lee from SmartRapper and we create sustainable packaging for cargo shipments. So there's over nine billion pallets in use around the world to ship goods that you and I see at the store, but we rarely see the plastic shrink wrap attached to these packages. In fact, it's 350 million pounds of plastic waste, sorry for the images, I think we had some trouble, but that's equivalent to 50,000 elephants weight in plastic every single year. That's four and a half billion pounds of petroleum and two billion kilograms of CO2. What we're creating and shipping demand is only growing because we're buying more and more things, which means goods need to get from port to the store faster and faster. What we're doing is creating a reusable pallet wrap out of fabric. Our image is down right now, but what it is is that you have a pallet that's one meter by one meter by one meter and you're putting a pallet cover over it with one tightening point in order to have better ease of use. That means we're able to reduce per use cost by 50%. So it's rated for 200 reuses at $120 retail and a plastic wrap costs a dollar each use. So that's $200, so we're saving about half of the cost. We're able to reduce the wasting materials by 50%, petroleum use by 95%, and CO2 is by 80%. Our value proposition is the same ease of use as the better ease of use than the plastic wrap. It takes the 90 seconds to apply, but then we're also adding in value added services such as IoT and tracking analytics to get pallet tracking to an individual level as well as security and padding. And the whole goal in this is to transform pallet wrapping and that plastic waste from a cost center into a profit or a value creation area. The dressable market is about $600 million in the US alone. We're targeting closed loop shipping networks such as Target, Best Buy, DHL, UPS, Pico, and the scale is all the way up to $12 billion in terms of plastic shrink wrap expenses every single year. In terms of traction, we're the unleashed winners out of Copenhagen this year, and we're planning pilots with Merce, Carlsberg, and Dahlberg coming up in the next six months. We're looking for $300,000 in seed funding to complete our product and finish our IP and do small production as well as build a sales pipeline. And our team is, I'm the CEO. We have a wide array of product development, sustainability, and supply chain work and previous experiences at Carlsberg and at Merce. And our advisors is also the same. So thanks. Thank you. It's a great mission and really well pitched. Thank you. Team Rappers are to be reused. Is there any kind of logistical problem with the fact that a lot of the time is that the people sending and packing and the people receiving it the other end not always being the same client or the same person? Yeah, so a lot of the time those are open loop networks, so you have companies that are sending products and then shipping it to a customer and that then is being tossed away by what I'm mentioning with closed loop systems is UPS is your FedEx is they're shipping their pallets and those goods from point A to point B, but then those pallets are returning. Returning, sure. Yeah, so the key feature is our cover is collapsible and stuff into a pallet. So as that pallet goes back to the distribution center or warehouse, they're able to collect the pallet covers again. So they're driving reuse. Sure, okay, great. How do you go about in selling this? Like who do you go straight to those guys like you mentioned obviously Mary Skin and Cardsburg in those guys, but are those the main customers as well or would you go through another sort of sales channels? So it is through the shipping companies because this is a pure cost center for them and it's all, yeah, so you go through the shipping companies because they are in charge of shipping things from point A to point B and they get paid the gross amount. Yeah, so it's a quick question about the durability of the product compared to the current ones, yeah. So current plastic shred trap is made out of polyethylene, which is one use and usually you just get a pair of scissors or a knife and just cut it where our fabric is polyethylene, which is rated for up to 600 reuses and we're only targeting at 200 reuses right now to get to the economics of saving them half already. During your transportation is it like as durable or? Yeah, it's as durable and with the plastic shred trap it actually doesn't protect anything it's purely to make sure that the cartons and boxes don't fall off. Thank you. Thank you.


A wide range of ways are used to bring NPS into prisons. You've got the traditional methods such as people visiting prisoners, for example, throwing objects over the wall containing NPS. More creative ways include the use of drones. That is a well-recognised phenomenon in English prisons. And also the use of paper, which is being impregnated with synthetic cannabinoids. With these impregnated papers we have similar problems like we have with herbal material, which is that the concentrations in this material may vary over quite a great range.  So that can, of course, be a big problem in dosing these drugs and may be part of an explanation for the high rate of intoxications and convulsions we see after the use of these drugs. Quite a number of prisons started to not deliver the mail in the paper as it comes but they just hand copies to the prisoners. But of course then they find other ways to transport it into the prison like closings, for example, which are impregnated with substances or other means of transport. So it's very difficult to control because low amounts are enough to produce intoxication on the one hand and on the other hand you can't see or smell the substance because you don't need, you know, big amounts which you can easily see or detect. Specifically looking at supplier reduction in English prisons x-rays are being used, body scanners are being used also methods to interrupt the use of mobile phones and to interrupt the use of drones.


The Labour Party governorship candidate in the Oshoon 2022 poll, Yusuf Larson has raised an alarm that his life is in danger following an invasion by an ungunman in his home. It may disinvite him in the early hours of today and he further added that the gunman were all dressed in uniform while they carried out the attack. At the same time I wipe anything, but they all knew there were gunshots, so all of them, the three of them, they lay on the bedroom. And so I just worked with the policemen patrolling the compound. We did that for almost like 10 minutes and it came to the front of the house. But while I was trying to listen very attentively in my room, I now heard the voice of cooking just behind the building. They attacked my building from both sides, but right behind the building.


International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry I-U-P-A-C-Slash-A-Questionmark-Ju-Questionmark-PAC Ju-Questionmark-Slash is an international federation of national adhering organizations that represents chemists in individual countries. It is a member of the International Council for Science ICSU. I-U-P-A-C is registered in Sieb-Iroch, Switzerland, and the Administrative Office, known as the I-U-P-A-C Secretariat is in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States. This administrative office is headed by I-U-P-A-C's Executive Director, currently in S-O-B-E. I-U-P-A-C was established in 1919 as the successor of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry for the advancement of chemistry. Its members, the national adhering organizations, can be National Chemistry Societies, National Academies of Sciences, or other bodies representing chemists. There are 54 national adhering organizations and 3 associate national adhering organizations. I-U-P-A-C's Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols I-U-P-A-C Nomenclature is the recognized world authority in developing standards for the naming of the chemical elements and compounds. Since its creation, I-U-P-A-C has been run by many different committees with different responsibilities. These committees run different projects which include standardizing nomenclature, finding ways to bring chemistry to the world, and publishing works. I-U-P-A-C is best known for its work standardizing nomenclature in chemistry and other fields of science, but I-U-P-A-C has publications in many fields including chemistry, biology and physics. Some important work I-U-P-A-C has done in these fields includes standardizing nucleotide base sequence code names, publishing books for environmental scientists, chemists, and physicists, and improving education in science. I-U-P-A-C is also known for standardizing the atomic weights of the elements through one of its oldest standing committees, the Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights CIA-A-W.