Collaboration amongst Government Agencies to Test and Share New Technologies

36 Mr Desmond Choo asked the Prime Minister (a) how are the different Ministries and agencies collaborating to test and share new technologies; and (b) what are the platforms available for agencies to check on new technologies being piloted to accelerate our collective learning and adoption capabilities.

Mr Teo Chee Hean (for the Prime Minister): Ministries and agencies collaborate to test, share and deploy technologies in three ways.

First, we do so by taking a citizen-centric approach, so that technology solutions work across agency boundaries to serve citizens well and solve their problems. For example, under the "Moments of Life" initiative, a common platform bundles Government digital services from multiple agencies so that citizens need to transact only through one channel rather than with many different agencies.

Second, we build horizontal platforms to share technology resources. The Science & Tech Policy and Planning Office (S&TPPO) is looking at creating a drones-as-a-service platform, for applications like aerial mapping and facade inspection. The Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) is developing the Government Technology Stack and Government Data Architecture, to share software services and data safely and efficiently across agencies. SingPass, for instance, is used by all agencies to transact securely with citizens. SingPass is also being used by businesses, such as NTUC Income and AIA, to allow customers to access their digital services.

Third, we pool in-house technical capabilities to serve whole-of-government needs. Centres of Excellence or CentExes have been set up in various engineering fields, to pool expertise within the Government, and build them up in numbers and quality. For example, GovTech serves as the CentEx for Info-communications Technology and Smart Systems; and JTC serves as the CentEx for Building and Infrastructure.

CentExes play a functional leadership role in their respective domains. Besides supporting other agencies' engineering needs, they lift engineering standards and disseminate best practices across the public service by a common process of masterplanning, competency and training frameworks. The Public Service Division and S&TPPO also supports learning among agencies, through the organisation of learning circles and capability building workshops.

Beyond in-house capabilities, the public sector also makes use of various platforms to learn from and partner the industry and research community. IMDA's Open Innovation Platform matches problem owners, from both public and private sectors, with problem solvers from industry and the research ecosystem. A*STAR's National Robotics Programme forges public-private partnerships to undertake R&D to use robotics to address various public sector challenges.

The public sector will continue to work collectively to make the best use of technology to serve citizens and businesses, and improve the quality of city living. We will also work closely with companies and researchers, so that as a nation, we may overcome our natural constraints and raise our economic competitiveness through technological innovation.