Brief: Singapore admits Smart Nation moving too slowly

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• Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently said that the country’s Smart Nation initiative isn’t moving as fast as expected. “We really are not going as fast as we ought to,” he remarked. Smart Nation is a government initiative to improve the lives of Singapore residents using technology.
• Experts say the private sector needs to step up. It faces a lack of startup entrepreneurs, programmers, and data scientists. Singapore’s small market is also blamed, with critics noting this works against its desire to be a technology test bed.
• The Singapore government is known for being heavily involved in the economy, and this can be a double-edged sword. It often means the private sector will wait for the government to take the initiative.
• The government will reorganize certain government agencies and create a Ministerial Committee to remove bureaucracy and speed up progress in creating a Smart Nation.

Source: TodayOnline

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