Paving the way for Singapore’s Smart Nation vision

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted lives, businesses, and plans all around the world. Yet it has also presented opportunities, none so clear as the momentum toward digital transformation.

Singapore is at an inflection point: Its citizens and businesses want and are more prepared than ever before to adopt new digital services and products for greater convenience, efficiency, and productivity. The government is keen to sustain and grow this momentum by continuing to invest in both the technology and talent that will serve as the backbone of Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative.

Focusing on the tech space

In June 2021, the government announced that it would increase spending on infocommunications technology this year to a projected S$3.8 billion, up from S$3.5 billion last year.

This sum will go toward transforming government digital services that both citizens and businesses use and reengineering government digital infrastructure to support modern application development. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this opens up more opportunities, as almost 83% of available contracts involved in the initiative are open to them.

Photo credit: GovTech

Cloud technology and artificial intelligence are key areas of focus this year – an estimated S$2.7 billion will be spent on digital government services across 250 projects. Almost half of these projects (44%) will be developed on the cloud this year, and the government is on track to have 70% of all systems on the cloud by 2023. Meanwhile, over S$500 million will be spent to accelerate the adoption and deployment of AI for the public sector.

Our role at the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) is to continue to spearhead technology adoption across the whole of government. For example, GovTech has built various central platforms to support common use cases in the areas of video analytics, natural language processing, fraud analytics, and personalization to help agencies reduce the cost of onboarding AI solutions. In the next two years, over S$100 million will also be invested into the Singapore Government Technology Stack, which streamlines and simplifies the software development process for government agencies and helps them accelerate their modernization and digitalization plans.

Upskilling the public sector

Besides driving digital transformation within the public sector, GovTech is also leading a whole-of-government initiative called The Digital Academy. It is designed to raise the digital quotient of all infocomm technology and smart systems officers, public service leaders responsible for digital transformation in their ministries and agencies, and officers who are keen to upskill their own digital skills.

Launched on June 21, The Digital Academy operates at the intersection of technology and public service. It offers programs that are specially curated for the public sector by an in-house team in collaboration with nine leading industry players whom GovTech selected as content partners.

To address the fast-changing tech landscape, programs are designed and delivered in an agile way – through blended and applied learning – and for direct application in the government.

A call to action

This same principle of being agile is embedded in GovTech’s startup culture and counts among our core values, alongside being bold and collaborative.

The agency’s responsiveness during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic is one example of this. The swift launch of GoWhere, for one, provided citizens with timely and accurate information regarding matters such as mask collection, clinic and health subsidy information, and Covid-19 support schemes. This was followed by the timely launch of the TraceTogether program, which was developed within eight weeks, in late March 2020.

GovTech personnel performing interoperability testing for TraceTogether in 2020. / Photo credit: GovTech

When international travel looked poised to resume, our team then developed HealthCerts – a set of open-source digital standards and schemas used for issuing digital Covid-19 test result certificates. Travelers could also be issued digital vaccination certificates that are in line with international standards and the Singapore government’s requirements.

This was coupled with the launch of Notarise and Verify. The former helps outbound travelers from Singapore share government-authenticated HealthCerts, while the latter enables immigration authorities to easily verify these digital health certificates. Together, this system allows international travelers to rest easy, as the digital health certificates cannot be tampered with.

Photo credit: Ong Ye Kung / Facebook

These developments would not have been achieved if not for our people who abide by GovTech’s core values.

Our quest for talent who embrace these values – being agile, bold, and collaborative – and possess deep expertise to build, test, launch, and improve our products continues. In the past two and a half years, GovTech has grown from a headcount of 1,800 to 3,000 people and we are still looking to hire 500 more this year to help us adequately support the government’s increasing digitalization efforts.

While we recognize the steep competition for tech talent, we urge those with a passion to harness technology for public good to come forward. Few places in Singapore would offer the opportunity to work on projects of national importance that impact the business community and the lives of citizens.

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