Projects
Ecosystemic change doesn't need to be monumental — even small projects can be woven together to orchestrate with each other.
My projects span over a decade of work across education, media, policy, and research — not just analyzing systemic challenges, but actively intervening through experimental design, collective ownership, and ecosystem innovation.
🎬 If There is a Reason to Study (2009–2016)
Lack of student voice and participation in the public discourse surrounding education.
Despite various reform efforts, students continue to feel dehumanized and alienated from their sense of purpose, self-worth, and society, often driven by the pressure to gain admission to a good high school, university, or job.
This project involved ethnographic research in a public alternative school during a time when higher education had become universalized, yet universities were producing a significant number of unemployed graduates, making it a natural experiment.
The film's early popularity (notably its selection by the Public Television Service in 2010) was utilized to engage stakeholders in education—students, parents, educators—through workshops and recruitment opportunities for the film team.
The production process itself became a Learning by Caring platform, creating a regenerative space for youth to participate in meaningful work beyond their traditional schooling.
Sparked national dialogue and media discourse on education reform and contributed to a national campaign that led to the discontinuation of the Basic Competence Test (BCT).
Received recognition at over 10 international film festivals.
Theatrically released in Taiwan and Hong Kong starting in August 2016 and achieved a box office revenue exceeding NTD 1.5 million.
It became the most successful crowdfunded Taiwanese documentary project in 2016.
The film's production provided teenagers with a Learning by Caring opportunity. Real-world experiences driven by social purpose transformed the entire team of teens involved. For example:
One former dropout, who failed the Basic Competence Test (BCT) for two consecutive years, joined the project at age 17 as a production manager and later became an award-winning YouTuber focused on rural sustainability, despite never attending university.
Some teenage singers who participated in the production of the theme song later pursued careers in music, becoming social media idols or members of independent bands.
The project led to follow-up initiatives and campaigns, such as Design Your Own Education, the collaboration with the National Education Radio, and Education Bypass Surgery.
It also formed the basis of the concept of Allocation Dependence as an ethnographic natural experiment.
📰Wikipedia — If There is a Reason to Study
🔗[in Traditional Chinese] Crowdfunding Page on ZecZec
🗞️Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute [in Traditional Chinese] A critique on education from the age of 14: an interview with Adler Yang
🗞️Film Review by Wonder Wong [in Traditional Chinese] If There is a Reason to Study — an Incarnation
🗞️Film Review by Pony World [in Traditional Chinese] If There is a Reason to Study — Dedicated to your younger self taking exams
🗞️Mumi Film Reviews [in Traditional Chinese] Do we really have a choice under the system? A review of If There is a Reason to Study
🗞️FutureFamily Magazine [in Traditional Chinese] Adler Yang: If I had the choice, I want children to have a childhood filled with meaning and hope
🗞️Shenzhen Commercial Daily [in Simplified Chinese] I want to see through the myths to discover truth—An interview with Taiwan's youngest documentary director Adler Yang
Watch the full film on:
(Sign up & payment/subscription required)
🧩"Design Your Own Education" Campaign (2010–2016)
Mainstream education reforms often fail to engage frontline stakeholders—students, parents, and teachers—in meaningful co-design.
These stakeholders often feel helpless and unsure of how to effect change.
Many are aware of alternative or innovative education practices but feel overwhelmed by daily tasks, relationships, and systemic inertia, making it difficult to implement these practices.
Rather than overwhelming them with more information, the focus was on helping them develop a systems mindset to identify vicious cycles and potential intervention points, along with a design mindset to become human-centered intrapreneurs who embrace iterations, trials, and errors.
Engaged over 3,000 participants in participatory workshops across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, to design alternatives tailored to their local needs and aspirations using systems thinking, design thinking, and the Care-Passion-Talent Framework.
Generated data that contributed to the development of models such as Allocation Dependence and Learning by Caring.
Crowdsourced issues, questions, and problems that were later discussed in Awakening Magazine, National Education Radio, and the Awakening Column in FutureFamily Magazine.
Many workshop participants went on to become education innovators and leaders in classrooms and nonprofits. For example, one participant became a former President of City Wanderer, an education nonprofit featured in Forbes.
🗺️U.S. Survey on Education Democratization and Innovation Spectrum (2012)
Taiwan often follows global trends, particularly from the U.S., without fully understanding the contexts behind them.
Different innovations come with varying underlying values; implementing them wholesale could lead to fundamental conflicts and inconsistencies.
We aimed to visit and interview various U.S. educational alternatives and innovations to map their spectrum. Key figures and organizations included:
Pre-launch edX and Coursera (we reached out but did not succeed in interviewing them)
Sir Ken Robinson
Yong Zhao
Nikhil Goyal (before the official launch of his first book)
Alternative Education Resource Organization
Institute for Democratic Education in America
Post-Occupy movement cooperatives
Public universities with nontraditional programs and admissions
Growing Without Schooling
And others.
I led a group of four members, aged 15 to 17, to the U.S. to prototype the “Reflexive Media” model. We successfully conducted several “participatory interviews,” allowing the audience to engage in discussions live-streamed with education pioneers.
Prototyped the Reflexive Media model.
Became the Taiwanese representative for the Alternative Education Resource Organization.
Gained deeper insights into social change ecosystems, which are later developed into ideas and models such as Education as Ecosystem Weaving; one group member, who was just 16 at the time, has since become a major advocate for learning ecosystems in Taiwan.
📰CommonWealth Education Magazine [in Traditional Chinese] Sir Ken Robinson: I Even Doubt the Very Act of Attending College
📰[in Traditional Chinese] What can students do in the face of the collapse of education? Exclusive interview with Sir Ken Robinson, answers 17-year-old me: Be awake
🎤Awakening Magazine (2012–2014)
The media audience's passivity as consumers reflects the broader consumerist passivity of citizens in contemporary democracies. This trend may lead to a preference for authoritarian leadership, where leaders promise improved "services" (See Reflexive Media).
Young people often lack constructive avenues to explore themselves and the world, as their time is consumed by school and cram schools.
When youth do attempt to explore, this often leads to conflicts with their parents, due to the parents’ historical educational experiences and their concerns about their children's futures.
We established a youth-led publication platform across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China based on the principles of Reflexive Media. All articles were co-written by teens and young adults, targeting adult readers (especially parents and educators) by:
Crowdsourcing relevant issues from youth.
Inviting young people to participate in collaborative inquiries through in-person interviews or call-ins.
Using the co-created publication as a product of youth achievement to share with their parents. This alleviates parental concerns and updates them on educational information, reducing parent-child tension while empowering youth exploration and facilitating parental learning.
While empowering youth in the People's Republic of China with democracy is unattainable, providing them with online media that helps them discover their life directions may be a safer approach. This strategy could potentially sow the seeds for democracy in China in the coming decades.
The magazine garnered 5,000 subscribers across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.
Participants experienced life-changing outcomes, including a former high school dropout who resolved tensions with her parent through the magazine she co-produced. She ultimately gained admission to a top university without attending conventional high school or taking entrance exams and received the Presidential Award.
One member in China, lacking formal journalism training but gaining experience through Awakening’s "learning by caring" approach, became an award-winning journalist and documentary producer focused on significant social issues, such as COVID-19.
📻 If There is a Reason to Study – Radio Series (2016)
Students educational struggles were underrepresented in national media.
Produced a co-hosted radio series at National Education Radio based on crowd-sourced themes from previous workshops.
Mainstream broadcast of youth-driven dialogue.
Demonstrated scalable use of Reflexive Media across platforms.
Listen to selected episodes (in Mandarin)
📻Do I Really Have to Attend a “Good” University?
📻How Could I Develop My Passion If I Don’t Even Have the Time to Study?
📻Can't I Make My Dreams Feasible Career Pathways?
📻Is Education a Kind of Commodity? Is it the “Preparation” for Career and Life?
📻Is Studying Academics the Only Way to Success?
📻Is My Life Doomed If I Fail My Exams?
📰 “Awakening” Column, FutureFamily Magazine (2015–2016)
Parental media in Taiwan lacked youth perspectives and complex social analysis.
Curated the first youth-written monthly magazine column targeting parents.
Became a trusted space for intergenerational dialogue.
Influenced media framing of youth agency and non-traditional paths.
🏴☠️ Education Bypass Surgery Campaign (2016)
Students felt trapped in the university entrance competition with no viable alternatives.
The campaign connected youth through documentary screenings to over 10 local social mission hubs, aiming to ignite real-world "learning by caring" experiences. This campaign sought to address the issue in the following ways:
By connecting youth with peers and mentors relevant to their personal “learning by caring” aspirations, supportive communities for learning, development, and professional growth would be formed.
Social action leads to real-world feedback (both material and non-material), which serves as a foundational learning resource directly linked to their causes.
Youth engagement in real-world projects demonstrates their real-world skills and achievements, which could lead to career opportunities and entrepreneurship through engagement with actual potential clients and stakeholders.
As these real-world learning experiences became more substantial than what could be gained in a traditional university setting, the emphasis on which university to attend, or even attending university at all, would become less critical. This shift would help alleviate the intense competition for university placements.
More than 100 students visited hubs across Taiwan.
The proposal advanced to the second round of the Thiel Fellowship.
Although the initiative was discontinued due to capacity constraints (it was entirely volunteer-based, and three teenagers continued its leadership after I left for ethnographic research at a new elite university), this theory of change proved effective for all teenagers on the steering team.
🕵️ Ethnographic Research on a New Elite University (2015–2020)
Emerging global university models (e.g., nomadic/online-first) are gaining popularity but lack critical, long-term ethnographic evaluation.
Embedded as a student-researcher, documenting firsthand structural tensions between institutional innovation and cultural reproduction.
Informed Taiwan’s reinterpretation of “experimental higher education” policy archetypes.
Still exploring possible mediums/outlets for publication.
🪺 Re-Imagining Experimental Higher Education Unconference (2020)
The Experimental Higher Education Act, legislated in 2017, has not produced any viable models that have passed review. Its implementation risks being dominated by neoliberal and elitist visions.
Youth voices are underrepresented in the discourse surrounding higher education reform.
Convened the first cross-national gathering on “Education as Sustainable Development” (EaSD), fostering solidarity among Asia’s alternative universities.
Engaged with leadership from the Ministry of Education and prominent scholars on experimental higher education policy, as well as East Asian pioneers from alternative universities and Taiwanese youth.
Ensured youth representation in all panels, workshops, world cafés, and open spaces.
Formed the International Research and Action Alliance for Experimental Higher Education (IRAAEH), which later became a key player in alternative and experimental higher education in Taiwan and a hub for the Ecoversities Alliance in East Asia.
Helped dilute elitist and neoliberal narratives about experimental universities by generating numerous news stories focused on ecological and cooperative visions.
Invited to participate in governmental research on experimental higher education policy without holding a degree.
🔗[in Traditional Chinese] Re-Imagining Experimental Higher Education Unconference
🗞️Liberty Times [in Traditional Chinese] Young people spontaneously formed the Experimental Higher Education Alliance to catalyze experimental universities in Taiwan
🗞️FutureFamily Magazine [in Traditional Chinese] Create the university you want? There is no limit to imagining the experimental university
🗞️Ministry of Education [in Traditional Chinese] Taiwanese youths invited experimental universities in Japan and South Korea to share, hoping to promote Taiwan into an island of experimental education
🗞️The NewsLens [in Traditional Chinese] Let Taiwan become the "Asian Experimental Education Center"! A youth-initiated, experimental higher education movement is on the way
🧾 National Research on the Legislation of Public-Private Experimental Universities (2020)
The Experimental Higher Education Act was legislated in 2017. However, no viable models have passed review, and its implementation faces risks of being co-opted by neoliberal and elitist visions.
Studied the ecological and cooperative models of alternative universities in South Korea and Japan. Positioned these institutions as nodes or hubs for ecosystem transformation.
Co-authored a report and a book that shifted official paradigms from elitist models to ecological universities.
Academia as Distributed Knowledge-Ecosystems for Collective Transformation
📝[in Traditional Chinese] Pathways for Future Revisions of the Experimental Higher Education Act (Ver. 1, 2020)
📚[in Traditional Chinese] Chapter 5 - Alternative Higher Education in Korea: Reconstructionist Attempts to Address the Domination of Imperialism and Capitalism
📚[in Traditional Chinese] The social context of Experimental Higher Education in Korea: Then and Now
📚[in Traditional Chinese] The Social Context of Experimental Higher Education Practices and Pathways in Japan
🌐 Taiwan International Education Summit (2020–2021)
The post-pandemic uncertainty revealed that education systems were structurally ill-equipped to handle complexity, relational crises, and the interplay between global and local issues. Strategic thinking was often fragmented across various ministries, disciplines, and cultural perspectives.
Organized a pair of summits that brought together global thought leaders, local grassroots actors, youth, and public officials.
The focus was to frame education not merely as traditional schooling, but as an ecosystemic function that fosters resilience, complexity literacy, and glocal innovation.
The summit design incorporated West-East dialogues and included voices from the "ordinary" participants (e.g., children, students, citizens) through an open call for speakers.
All sessions featured audience contributions, intertwining world cafes with keynote presentations, ensuring that all participants engaged in a co-authored workbook to make the summits truly participatory and educational.
Engaged over 1,000 participants from more than 8 countries.
Introduced systems thinking, complexity theory, and the concept of "education as ecosystem weaving" into Taiwan’s national education discourse.
Inspired multiple spin-offs, including research on creative changemakers and new inter-ministerial dialogues.
🏡 Education Innovation for Regional Revitalization (2021–2022)
The traditional education system tends to funnel rural "winner" youth into cities while leaving "loser" youth behind, which erodes local economies and cultural continuity. This dynamic exacerbates inequalities between rural and urban regions.
Co-developed a model that:
Integrates students’ play and self-exploration.
Shifts the focus of learning from "getting into universities in big cities and living a barely affordable life" to "discovering one’s passion for their hometown and identifying the needs of their community."
Expands learning beyond schools and cram schools, utilizing the entire local community as a resource pool to address the resource gaps in rural areas.
This model
enhances students’ sense of belonging within their community and
provides clarity about their future career pathways,
encourages job-seeking and entrepreneurial behaviors among youth in rural areas, and as a result,
helps mitigate rural exodus.
The model is currently being studied and replicated in other regions of Taiwan.
🔗Konrad Adenauer Civic Engagement Conference: Decoding Progress and Equity in Taiwan's Education (2021)
Mainstream civic discourse in Taiwan, particularly regarding education, has been compartmentalized, reactive, and lacking systemic foresight.
A participatory policy symposium was organized, bringing together civil society leaders, youth, educators, and public officials to explore educational justice, social cohesion, and democratic imagination through the lens of systems change and international comparison.
The event included case studies and follow-up world cafés prompted by “How might we...?” dialogues that focused on democratization, rural development, and equity. The aim was to overcome the existing compartmentalization and overspecialization in agenda-setting.
The conference elevated youth voices in national civic policy discussions and attracted over 200 participants from various sectors.
It impressed international observers, leading to Taiwan's education innovators being featured in regional exchanges.
This created new diplomatic, cultural, and epistemic bridges, notably when a Taiwanese education innovator was invited to replace a minister from another country as the keynote speaker at a regional roundtable.
Plans were also made (though later canceled due to geopolitical factors) for Taiwan to host the Asia-Pacific Mayor’s Education Roundtable.
Read the full report
🧘🏼 Research on the Holistic Needs of Innovative Changemakers (2021–)
Many existing incubators, fellowships, and funding opportunities for social changemakers primarily focus on various forms of "capital" necessary for social change, including human, knowledge, and financial capital. However, they often overlook the holistic needs of these individuals—such as physical, psychological, and existential well-being—which are crucial not only for their overall health but also for their success.
Co-conducted qualitative research with innovative changemakers who are addressing social issues across Taiwan, utilizing the network of ZA Share.
This research involved mapping their developmental journeys and identifying patterns related to care, personal agency, the quality of relationships, and the need for both intra- and interpersonal support.
This research is still ongoing.
The 2021 TIES served as a platform for in-depth discussion on this issue.
🧭 Education Agenda 2032 (2021–2022)
Taiwan lacked a long-term, integrative roadmap to align education with broader social, environmental, and economic changes.
Proposed an inter-ministerial foresight and design process based on complexity thinking and futures literacy. Developed policy blueprints and deliberative forum models to facilitate cross-sector alignment, contextualizing related issues along two axes: Restoration–Foresight and Local–Planetary.
Drafted a strategic framework that remains available for future implementation.
The project is discontinued due to a leadership transition at the host think tank, but the insights gained continue to inform parallel reform initiatives.
Read the draft agenda
🔗 Education as Ecosystem Weaving
📝[in Traditional Chinese] Agenda Setting for "Taiwan Education Vision 2032"
🕸️ East Asia Dojo for Transdisciplinary Research and Praxis (2025–)
Scholar-changemakers pursuing transformation-oriented work often experience epistemic isolation, institutional marginalization, and a lack of integrative support for their spiritual, intellectual, and civic growth.
Building a transdisciplinary, cross-cultural community of practice that bridges systems thinking, Post-Western inquiry, and collective experimentation. Part "invisible college," part reflective dojo, part grassroots lab — it fosters response-able awareness and applied transformation through embodied research and mutual support.
Currently convening early cohorts of scholar-changemakers across Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Our 10+ founding members include
an associate professor at Kyoto University,
civic researchers with Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs,
and a former leader of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement,
and more.
Functions as both a hub for methodological innovation and a container for regenerative academic practice.
Laying groundwork for decentralized knowledge ecosystems.
Explore its vision
🔗 Academia as Distributed Knowledge-Ecosystems for Collective Transformation
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