Proactive e-governance: flipping the service delivery model in Taiwan

Taiwan's fourth e-government strategy is shaped around the vision of "service without boundaries, providing a better life to all citizens." A core component of this strategy is to harness IT innovations to move towards "proactive" service and information delivery. The aim is to flip the service delivery model by shifting from the "pull" approach of traditional e-government---whereby the citizen must seek out government services---towards a "push" model, whereby government proactively and seamlessly delivers just-in-time information and services to individual citizens based on needs, preferences, circumstance, life events, and location. The article will share how Taiwan is conceptualizing and implementing this model of proactive e-Governance through mini case studies of initiatives across the strategic pillars of: (1) Service Excellence, focusing on the implementation of personalized push notifications to citizens and (2) Digital Inclusion, focusing on the "Door-to-Door e-Services" pilot program that proactively bridge the digital divide by physically delivering virtual services using roaming frontline civil servants equipped with connected tablets. The concluding section discusses what lies ahead as Taiwan further evolves this proactive approach by harnessing emerging innovations in cloud, social, and big data technologies.