Prime Minister's Office (Smart Nation Programme Office)

The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan): Singapore is striving to be a Smart Nation, where citizens live meaningful and fulfilled lives empowered by technology; where digital connectivity leads to stronger community bonds; and where there will be many opportunities for Singaporeans to pursue their aspirations and contribute to Singapore's future.

Various Ministries have mentioned in their respective Addendum how they intend to leverage technology to improve services and capabilities for citizens. The Smart Nation Programme Office (SNPO) under PMO coordinates the overall development of infrastructure, policies, ecosystem and capabilities, to achieve a Smart Nation. The Office will collaborate with citizens, industry and Government agencies, so that, collectively, we leverage technology in a concerted and integrated manner to address our national challenges, improve quality of life and benefit the society and economy.

We will focus on areas in which technology can create the greatest positive impact on our daily lives. For example, in public transport and the enhancement of the commuting experience, we have begun to collect more data through the use of bus and taxi sensors and we are sharing these with commuters to empower them to plan their trips. For the longer term, we have begun to experiment with future modes of public transport provision, including autonomous vehicle solutions.

Another area is the use of technology and innovation in our homes and housing estates, to help achieve resource savings, create a more liveable environment and support ageing in place. We are working with industry to pilot some of these technologies in the Yuhua housing estate, with a view to more widespread deployment in due course. The pilots involve residents providing feedback to ensure that the solutions are human-centric and designed to meet their real-life needs.

We want to position Singapore well, as part of the global value chain that will seize opportunities arising from the global digital revolution. Singapore can be the living laboratory for companies to prototype and co-develop proof-of-concepts with our own researchers and innovators. The innovative solutions that work can be piloted, scaled up quickly in Singapore and adapted beyond our shores as global solutions. To this end, various test-beds have already been established in Singapore: for smart home solutions, autonomous driving, outdoor sensor connectivity and others. Such opportunities, to test out new approaches and to give good ideas the runway to take flight, will also contribute to an attractive environment for startups and entrepreneurs.

Indeed, entrepreneurship is a key ingredient of the Smart Nation we are building. We will continue to foster an attractive environment for entrepreneurial talent and strengthen our startup ecosystem to create exciting avenues for our young entrepreneurs to thrive and succeed. For various industries, Smart Nation also presents opportunities to leverage on technology to improve processes and productivity and generate new revenue streams.

Finally, we want to strengthen cohesion in our communities through technology and online platforms. A key thrust of this is our push to make Government data open, shareable and machine readable as much as possible, without compromising personal data protection or national security. We have taken the first steps to do so, to allow citizens to co-create solutions to address the needs of the community.