Yuri Anisimov, October 2015

Ability Factors Pte. Ltd.

Notes for a weary pedestrian. Non-

comprehensive, informal and biased

Realising, that many big neighbours around Singapore, Indonesia,

Malaysia, China are creating competitive landscape and moving

fast;

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), together with other

agencies is working towards Singapore’s vision to becoming the

world’s first smart nation

Singapore has set up a new smart nation programme office to

coordinate efforts by various government agencies that are already

using IT to serve citizens. The Smart Nation Program constitutes

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s priority, and every government

department is involved.

Singapore announced plans for a new Integrated Infocomm Media

Masterplan in June 2013, the vision has coalesced around the

transformation into a Smart Nation underpinned by data and

analytics.

Realising, that many big neighbours around Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, China

are creating competitive landscape and moving fast;

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), together with other agencies is working

towards Singapore’s vision to becoming the world’s first smart nation

Singapore has set up a new smart nation programme office to coordinate efforts by

various government agencies that are already using IT to serve citizens. The Smart

Nation Program constitutes Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s priority, and every

government department is involved.

Singapore announced plans for a new Integrated Infocomm Media Masterplan in

June 2013, the vision has coalesced around the transformation into a Smart Nation

underpinned by data and analytics.

In a usual practical approach, projects under Smart Nation Programme revolve

around the question: “what problems are we going to solve; and the “Innovation”

itself is defined as solving people’s problems.

In this approach, the “Innovative technologies” serve as the backbone of a smart

nation’s infrastructure and should not necessarily be cutting-edge ones; but rather,

present new and innovative way of bringing together existing technologies that

makes these technologies “innovative.” The main goal of such innovation is the

optimization of existing resources, rather than reliance on new ones.

The key to governance in a smart nation; unlike business entities, the

government cannot choose its customers and must serve all citizens: citizen-

centric approach calls for long term view and plan in order to deal with added

complexity;

Common Data Infrastructure for the Government, which would solve the

problem of the incompatibility of data sets coming from different government

agencies. The government cloud platform to serve the needs of ministries and

agencies.

Collaboration with citizens, industry and academia - The government nurtures

a collaborative ecosystem and serve as a connector and matchmaker without

attempting to dominate.

Government to review and reform its own structures to support the required

level of agility, efficiency and flexibility, and effectively manage change.

Diversity - nurture diversity among its own staff to ensure a variety of views and

diversity of skill sets, so that government employees can learn from each other and

partner with those outside the government in order to sustain the co-creation and

inclusiveness of the ecosystem.

And the projects are built upon Cross-agency collaboration, Data Sharing and

Big Data analytics

Smart Nation will collect and process data across the country, and derive

insights by analysing the data in order to improve performance and

enhance services across the board. Nationwide network of connected sensors and sensory devices

The Internet of Things (IoT)

Infrastructure of data centres to handle big data and analytics.

Essential components

a pervasive, scalable, ultra-high speed, intelligent and secured ICT

infrastructure

pool of skilled tech workforce

regulatory environment

In (iN2015) Masterplan, Singapore has completed its Next Generation

Nationwide Broadband Network (NGNBN) rollout and is developing a

nationwide wireless network, with plans for a new Heterogeneous

Network (HetNet) that will enable seamless mobile connectivity for

citizens across different networks.

iDA has announced several multi-pronged initiatives that will

deliver the Smart Nation vision, including the roll-out of a Smart

Nation Platform (SNP) that includes an operating system for public

agencies and companies to connect to.

Singapore’s SNP is aimed at bringing together a nationwide sensor

network and data analytics abilities. The SNP has three focus areas:

Connect - the enhancement of Singapore’s pervasive network and

communications backbone, with new developments such as Above Ground (AG)

Boxes – utility boxes that allow sensors to be easily powered and quickly

connected to the fibre network — and the HetNet.

Collect - the roll-out of a nationwide sensor network, communications backbone

based the SNP operating system where public agencies could be plugged in to

access essential sensor data; provide the efficient sharing of collected sensor data

(protected, and managed, before being shared)

Comprehend – providing situational awareness through data analysis that will

empower individuals, government and businesses alike via data analytics and

real-world applications

Singapore faces two big pressures – increased urban density and an ageing

population

There are three priorities for tackling these pressures:

Smart health care Health care in the context of an ageing population:

The country’s vision includes remote diagnostics, DNA sequencing, automated ambulances

and smart public housing that react to residents’ needs

Transport Singapore is testing autonomous vehicles in the west of the island

Plans to use a virtual model to track real-time commuting patterns and plan future

transport systems. The Multi-Agent Transport Simulation Toolkit Singapore (MATSim

Singapore) takes data from the Land Transport Authority and the Urban Redevelopment

Authority.

Housing Smart housing, which includes waste and energy management.

Advantage - around 80 per cent of Singaporeans live in public housing, which are broadly

wired the same way

New block of housing in Punggol will test smart lighting, waste management and car park

monitoring.

Connectivity

The priority is expanding the existing reach in a plan called E3A –

connecting Everything and Everybody Everywhere All the Time.

The experimental city

Singapore will continue to open labs to test parts of its Smart Nation plan.

(lab in Jurong West for testing out smart street lights and transport)

Flexibility:

The Smart Nation Programme itself is a living blueprint and does not

feature complete end-to-end strategy design, featuring sometimes the

approach “we do it now and fix later”, rather that miss the opportunity and

inhibit development.

Data Sources:

Citizens data

Data relayed by sensors that are being installed on the ground for better

situational awareness and resource allocation.

Education

The IDA is partnering with MOOC providers to offer online

analytics courses to grow the local talent pool. The first focus Data

Sciences & Analytics, Coursera data sciences platform from Johns

Hopkins University.

Living Analytics Lab (LARC ) at Singapore Management University

(SMU) aspires to make pioneering breakthroughs in statistical and

experimental theories, methods and tools for conducting

Behavioural Insight Experiments within pervasively networked

environments and defines the following priorities for Smart Nation

Projects:

Intelligent Systems for Mining and Analytics

Social and Management Science

Network Experimentation

Security, Data Fusion and Privacy Preservation

Systems and Infrastructure

Nationwide sensor network and data analytics abilities to provide

better situational awareness through the efficient collection and

sharing of data.

A HetNet (heterogenous network) will enable mobile users to switch

seamlessly between different types of wireless networks.

Aggregation Gateway (AG) Boxes - high-speed fibre connectivity and

power at the street level, and accommodate sensors from different

government agencies to monitor everything from traffic to street

lights and crowded buses.

Developing its own smart grid infrastructure. State-owned energy

utility Singapore Power (SP) is currently involved in a project to

upgrade and renew the country’s ageing grid infrastructure. SP is in

partnership with national energy regulator Energy Market

Authority (EMA) to evaluate and develop the Intelligent Energy

System (IES) pilot to modernise electricity transmission and

distribution networks with new information, communication, and

sensor

Cyber security and privacy problems

Smart Nation also makes Singapore a bigger target for hacktivists, cyber

criminals and state actors

The government established Cyber Security Agency

Grids - Cyberthreats, are evolving at a greater rate than the grid can keep

up with. Developed before cyber-security was a concern, the primary risk

factor for the power grid in the 80's and 90's was physical security threats.

Governance recommendations to protect the infrastructure:

Cloud Service Providers’ Registry (CSP) allows choosing cloud vendors

through registry, standards. The CSP Registry was conceived to engender

trust through transparency for the benefit of cloud adopters by making

available online information about CSPs. This was facilitated by services

such as a self-disclosure form and information on a CSP's Multi-Tier Cloud

Security Singapore Standard (MTCS SS) certification

IDA and the Singapore Standards Council, launched the world's

first Multi-Tier Cloud Security Singapore Standard (MTCS SS). The

MTCS SS provides specifications for CSPs to give clarity around

their security service levels for customer understanding, while also

increasing the level of accountability and transparency from them.

IDA announces the launch of a pilot for Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), to

become an important building block for the Smart Nation. A

federated approach with individual Dataset Registries (DSR) based

on an open source data portal platform, creating a coherent

mechanism for users to easily discover private sector datasets

The data providers will be given an opportunity to understand and check

the relative quality of their datasets through a set of industry-domain

agnostic Data Quality Metrics. The metrics cover areas such as reliability,

relevance, accessibility, timeliness and ease of use, and will also give

potential users a base of comparison between similar datasets from distinct

owners.

New platform, data.gov.sg, serves as a central source of government data

contains more than 8,000 datasets that are available to citizens, app

developers and researchers.

Network of information centers called Citizen Connect has been established

to bridge the digital divide and facilitate free access to government services

including eCitizen, an e-government platform, for those who do not have

internet access.

The government recently awarded a tender for the development of the

Social Service Net (SSNet), a unified content management system for the

social service sector to facilitate information sharing among multiple social

services providers and government agencies

A*STAR catalyses R&D value capture for Singapore amounting to over $380

million from over 1,700 industry projects

The creation of a detailed 3D model of Singapore by the Urban

Redevelopment Authority (URA) to help planners and architects design and

build the city with greater insight and sensitivity to finer details.

Virtual Singapore, a project that will culminate in an integrated 3D map

with layers of data about local buildings, land and the environment. It was

launched today by the National Research Foundation, Singapore Land

Authority and Infocomm Development Authority.

Project Bus Stop, the re-imagining of a bus stop in Jurong East as a

meaningful social node which incorporates greenery, interactive smart

boards, a phone charging station, a swing and bicycle parking.

PLANET (Planning for Land TrAnsport NETwork), the Land Transport

Authority’s (LTA) enterprise business intelligence platform for big data

analytics, public transport performance monitoring and predictive

simulation of public transport initiatives.

The Police Camera (PolCam) project by Singapore Police Force, under

which about 18,000 cameras have been installed at 3,300 HDB blocks and

multi-storey car parks across all 16 Town Councils and 87 wards since May

2012 to enhance SPF’s crime-fighting ability in HDB estates.

The tele-rehabilitation projTo enhance eldercare, the HDB is piloting the

Smart Elderly Monitoring and Alert System sensors in 12 flats. The sensors

monitor the movements of the elderly folks in the flats, and alert family

members when they detect anything unusual.

ect led by A/Prof Gerald Koh enhances the use of technology to supervise

the recovery of stroke patients in the comfort of their own home. The tele-

rehab system will be able to perform supervised rehabilitation exercises

from home which potentially alleviates stress and inconvenience suffered by

caregivers and patients who would otherwise have to travel to rehab

centres

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is looking into streamlining

different modes of payment into a single instrument — which may take the

form of a watch, ring, or even an identity card, fitted with a chip.

Legal mechanisms that limit risk and liability as

corporations tap on growth opportunities in Singapore's

Smart Nation Initiative.

How to acquire technology and bid for ICT projects

Smart Grids and IoT, privacy

Privacy challenges in acquiring and processing data

collected via smart meters

Systems availability beyond service level agreements

Technology RoadmapRoadmap charts the vision and trends of the technology landscape in Singapore

IPv6

protocol adoption is essential if Singapore is to participate in the next era of Internet services and create a platform to grow innovations and business opportunities. The IPv6 Transition Programme is a national effort to address the issue of IPv4 exhaustion and to facilitate the smooth transition of the Singapore infocomm ecosystem to IPv6.

Geospatial

location aware technology enables businesses and consumers to leverage on map and location data to improve productivity and decision making. i-Singapore is the key programme that drives the awareness and adoption of geospatial technology and applications in the different industry segments. The programme aims to build up a vibrant ecosystem of players in utilising maps and location data and promote the mash-up of public, private and people data to deliver comprehensive applications that are location aware.

Data & Analytics

Data & Analytics provides enterprises with crucial capabilities to derive insights from vast amounts of data, to make more effective and timely decisions and create a competitive edge for themselves. IDA takes an integrated approach to creating a vibrant Data & Analytics ecosystem in Singapore and positioning the country as an international Data & Analytics hub.

Green ICT

IDA’s Green Data Centre initiative aims to boost the competitiveness of the data centre industry by raising their overall energy efficiency and reducing their operating costs. It aims to establish Singapore-specific standards, metrics and best practices for data centre energy efficiency; raise efficiency through ratings, recognition and incentives; and foster Innovation in Green Data Centre-related products, solutions and services.

The Infocomm Technology of the latest infocomm developments and help them identify emerging infocomm technologies that will give Singapore a competitive edge in exploiting business and economic opportunities.

Critical infocomm infrastructure

Critical Infocomm Infrastructure (CII) Protection Assessment programme to assess security of the infocomm

systems, essential to the operation of critical infrastructures in Singapore. Building upon MP2, the Government will

expand its effort and collaborate with more critical sectors to ensure high priority CII in each sector remains secure

and resilient. The National Cyber Security Exercise programme aims to enhance the readiness

and responsiveness to significant cyber attacks at the national level.

Government

The enhanced Cyber Watch Centre (CWC) will provide a wider range of detection capabilities for government

agencies with improved correlation capabilities, tested procedures and advanced monitoring technology, the enhanced

CWC will leverage on more advanced tools and techniques to improve the overall security monitoring effectiveness for

the Government and public sector. The enhanced Threat Analysis Centre (TAC) will leverage on state-of-the-art

analytical tools to assess larger volume of data from a wider range of sources and to identify cyber threats with greater

accuracy and efficiency. This will enable public agencies to receive detailed cyber threat analysis, threat advisories

and recommendations and take preventive actions.

Promote the adoption of appropriate infocomm security measures

Current efforts will be reinforced to raise infocomm security awareness and adoption amongst users and businesses.

This includes the Cyber Security Awareness and Outreach programme to augment existing outreach channels (e.g. via

online and social media platforms, educational talks, road-shows, seminars, and print advertorials) and explore new

avenues that offers wider coverage and reach to users, such as broadcast media.

Grow Singapore’s pool of infocomm security experts

The NCSM2018 will look into developing human and intellectual capital within the infocomm industry to boost cyber

security in Singapore. This will involve working with Institutes of Higher Learning to incorporate cyber security into

their curriculum or explore the provision of specialist track in the current degree programmes. For security

professionals, the NCSM 2018 will foster the development of cyber training facilities for testing and training of cyber

security experts.

Council: ASME, DSTA, ISS, I2R, SCS, SiTF, ITMA, NUS, NTU, RP, SMU, SP, SPRING Singapore and IDA

IT Standards Committee

industry-led effort supported by SPRING Singapore and IDA, infocomm standardisation activities in Singapore and represent Singapore in the forum of ISO/IEC JTC1 on Information Technology.

Specification for Contactless ePurse Application (CEPAS)

CEPAS, the Specification for Contactless e-Purse Application, micro-payments in Singapore. Collaboration by IDA, LTA and the industry to develop a cashless nation-wide e-payment platform.

National Authentication Framework (NAF)

Nationwide common platform for strong authentication to enable to access multiple services using a single authentication device

Green Data Centre Standard

To reduce energy consumption and operating costs of data centres and enhance their competitiveness, IDA partnered with other government agencies and the industry to develop a Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres under the IT Standards Committee. A framework as well as a logical and consistent methodology

Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Certification Scheme

The Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Singapore standard is developed under Information Technology Standards Committee (ITSC) for Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) in Singapore.

Objectives:

Accredit promising and innovative Singapore-based early-stage growth technology product companies to establish credentials and position them as qualified contenders to government and large enterprise buyers;

Provide potential buyers assurance on the accredited companies' product core functionalities and ability to deliver; and

Build an innovative technopreneurs ecosystem to drive economic growth, inspire the younger generation, and build more innovative products and technology companies that can scale overseas.

The IDA has opened outposts in London and San Francisco to monitor the latest start-ups and university research projects

one of the world's highest mobile and broadband penetration rates, boasting among the speediest broadband access at 2Gbps. It also topped the World Economic Forum's 2015 Global Information Technology Report as well as Waseda University Internationale's 2015 Government ranking.

Missteps. Its S$1.3 billion goal to create a standard operating environment across all government agencies proved to be a long and arduous process. Ironically coined SOEasy, the project was hit with delays and eventually morphed from a single-vendor environment to a multi-vendor model.

More recently, several government websites as well as its e-government system suffered security breaches. And despite investing significant resources to nurture a local startup ecosystem, there has yet to be a Made-in-Singapore product or technology that has gained global recognition.

Singapore's Second Minister for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran pointed to China's climb along the value chain despite its slow economic growth, and will increasingly compete with Singapore in high-tech manufacturing markets including the semiconductor sector.

Competition from India also would intensify as the country looked to further develop and drive locally made technology. It is aiming to create smart cities, mirroring Singapore's own smart nation ambition, India could become a new manufacturing hub in Asia.