Ministry of Communications and Information

The Minister for Communications and Information (Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim): MCI's mission is to connect people to community, Government and opportunity.

The infocomm and media sectors are converging due to rapid technological advancements. These technologies have the potential to drive innovation, enhance productivity for economic growth and improve the quality of life for all Singaporeans. We will restructure the Info-communications Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), so as to reflect the converged nature of the infocomm media industry and in order to seize new opportunities more effectively.

The Government Chief Information Office functions within IDA will be restructured as an independent entity – the Government Technology Organisation (GTO). GTO will focus on building engineering talent for the Government and support its digital transformation efforts. This will help the Government deliver world-class digital services to Singaporeans.

The industry development and regulatory functions of IDA and MDA will be combined to form the Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA). As a unified authority, IMDA will be able to enact competition and consumer protection regulations in a more holistic and progressive manner. We will also update our Telecommunications Act, Broadcasting Act and Films Act to keep pace with the demands of the converged infocomm media space.

We aim to complete the nationwide transition to digital broadcasting and switch off analogue broadcast in end-2017. The freed-up spectrum will provide more capacity for mobile broadband and better support our Smart Nation development.

In the future economy, design will become an increasingly important enabler. Through design, enterprises can be more responsive to customers' needs and innovative in their product and service offerings. We will launch Design 2025, a long-term plan to make Singapore a hub for design, build up the design sector and encourage the adoption of design to transform our economy and society.

The growth of the infocomm, media and design sectors and their adoption by the rest of the economy, will create good jobs for Singaporeans. We will help Singaporeans acquire the skills that will be increasingly important in the future: computational thinking, coding, design thinking and story-telling. We will expand existing initiatives to equip our young with the skillsets needed to thrive in the future. Through SkillsFuture, we will support the development of manpower for the infocomm, media and design sectors.

We will continue to support start-ups and entrepreneurship in the infocomm, media and design sectors. To encourage innovation through experimenting, tinkering and risk-taking, we will set up more prototyping laboratories, provide greater access to networking opportunities and co-locate mutually-supporting expertise and services.

We will roll out the Smart Nation Platform, a network infrastructure of sensors to enable us to build a Smart Nation. The platform will support sensor-based services and smart system solutions and facilitate greater sharing of data to improve Government operations and the delivery of public services. At the same time, we will release more public sector data to encourage private sector development of applications that can improve our quality of life.

We will leave no one behind in Singapore's Smart Nation journey. We will continue to ensure that low-income families and senior citizens have access to the broadband Internet and enjoy the benefits of Internet connectivity.

While the Smart Nation opens up many opportunities, we must also ensure that it is built upon a secure, robust and resilient infrastructure. We will develop a national cyber security strategy to strengthen Singapore's information infrastructure. Priority will be given to our critical sectors of energy, water, transport, health, Government, infocomm, media, security and emergency services and banking and finance. To set an example, cyber security expenditure, as a share of the Government's IT budget, will increase to at least 8% in the long term. We will introduce a Cyber Security Bill that will give the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore greater powers to secure our critical information infrastructure.

We will develop the cybersecurity ecosystem in Singapore and grow cybersecurity talent and manpower. We will also seek international cooperation on cybersecurity to overcome the transnational nature of cyber threats and work with the private sector to raise public awareness of the importance of cybersecurity.

We will make Singapore's history and archival heritage more accessible to Singaporeans. Learning from the success of our Singapore Memory Project and Citizen Archivists experiences, we will continue to collaborate with our citizens to promote Singaporeans' appreciation and understanding of our history and heritage. Together with the people and private sectors, we will curate our archived materials better and co-create presentations from our National Library collections for wider public access. As a start, we will develop a Constitutional Gallery, to be housed in the National Gallery Singapore, to showcase key constitutional documents of our nation.

We will transform our public libraries to support Singaporeans' lifelong learning. Our public libraries will cater to different reading and learning preferences. We will offer differentiated collections, interactive technology and conducive library spaces to make learning more engaging and interesting.

As reading is a gateway to lifelong learning, we will start a National Reading Movement to encourage more Singaporeans to pick up reading and promote a culture of reading. We will partner the National Library Board's network of volunteers and supporters to promote this reading movement.

We will promote information, media and cyber literacy in a concerted way. We will do this by enhancing public awareness and through collaborative programmes with our communities, libraries, private organisations and other institutions of learning to promote these literacy skills to match Singaporeans' digital lifestyle.

We will continue to invest in Public Service Broadcast programmes to develop more compelling and engaging local content on our free-to-air channels and suitable online platforms to meet the diverse needs of our local audience. We are reviewing Okto and Channel U, to provide more choices for young audiences. We will introduce subtitling progressively for our live broadcast programmes to be more inclusive and reach out to a wider audience.

We will continue to engage Singaporeans on Government policies, especially in the digital space and on social media. Through regular dialogues and surveys, we aim to better understand our people's concerns and aspirations so as to develop policies and programmes that will improve their quality of life. We will also improve our capabilities in whole-of-Government crisis communications.

MCI's strategic priorities and plans aim to build an Engaged and Connected Singapore in close partnership with our people and private sectors, in order that we may provide a good quality of life for all Singaporeans.