Taiwan 
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Audrey Tang is a civic hacker and technologist who has profoundly influenced digital democracy and governance, serving as Taiwan’s first Digital Minister and promoting open-source collaboration globally.
Tang played a crucial role in shaping g0v, a leaderless civic-tech collective that built tools for government transparency and civic participation, re-imagining government as collaborative.
Tang led the integration of Polis, an AI-supported tool, into vTaiwan, a participatory platform that used social media paradigms for citizens to create digital petitions and foster consensus on policy issues.
Tang collaborates with this civic program to adapt vTaiwan/Polis methods to local contexts in Japan.
Tang pioneers civic-minded approaches to AI, contributing to initiatives related to ethical AI.
Tang has advised initiatives connecting citizens and lawmakers on issues like wildfire prevention.
Tang has advised initiatives connecting citizens and lawmakers on issues like social media reform.
Tang co-launched ROOST at the 2025 Paris AI Summit, an initiative aimed at a defence-dominant, decentralised response to synthetic child sexual abuse material, with mid-sized platforms like Bluesky, Roblox, and Discord contributing open-source tools.
These platforms contribute tools to open source as part of the ROOST initiative, co-launched by Audrey Tang, for federating online safety.
Tang hosted the video podcast "Innovative Minds with Audrey Tang" in collaboration with TaiwanPlus, an international streaming service.
Audrey Tang was born on April 18, 1981, in Taipei, Taiwan. A child prodigy, she was reading classical literature before age five, mastering advanced mathematics by age six, and programming by eight. Diagnosed with a congenital heart condition at a young age, she developed early resilience. By age 14, Tang left formal schooling to pursue self-education, and by 19, she had founded her own software company in Silicon Valley. Her early career saw her recognized as a leader in the open-source community, particularly for her contributions to and leadership of the Pugs project, which bridged different programming languages, and for numerous tools in the global tech ecosystem.
Tang’s career progressed from a prominent civic hacker to a key figure in government, beginning with her involvement in Taiwan’s g0v (gov-zero) community. This collective built tools for government transparency and played a role in the 2014 Sunflower Movement, connecting citizens and lawmakers. From this experience, vTaiwan, a participatory platform, emerged, which used AI-supported tools to find common ground across diverse opinions. In 2016, Tang was appointed as a Minister without Portfolio, becoming the youngest and the world’s first openly non-binary cabinet minister in Taiwan. She then served as Taiwan’s first Minister of Digital Affairs from August 2022 to May 2024.
During her tenure as Digital Minister, Tang spearheaded initiatives that transformed government-citizen interaction. She declared broadband a human right and developed the “Mask Map” during the pandemic, mobilizing hackathons to combat disinformation. Her approach emphasized “humour over rumour” in countering misinformation, which contributed to Taiwan’s successful COVID-19 response without lockdowns. Tang also pioneered civic-minded approaches to AI and advocated for decentralized, transparent safety infrastructures. Following her term as Digital Minister, she was named an Ambassador-at-large in October 2024, continuing her work in advancing digital technology for democratic renewal and global collaboration.
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