Using Wi-Fi hotspots to gauge crowd patterns on train platforms.
Singapore is prioritising open data, care for the elderly and improving transportation in its Smart Nation plan to use technology to improve services, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.
Singapore has an ageing population and the Prime Minister has made care for the elderly a priority for the Smart Nation agenda. The city plans to “integrate sensors, apps, remote monitoring to help our seniors age in place”, the Prime Minister said. Already one person in every nine is age 65 and above, and by 2030, one person in five will be 65 and above. “Technology can help them to live independently in their own communities with their own support networks”, he said.
The government has already tested this technology, installing sensors in public housing flats to alert the families of elderly people if their relatives are injured.
Another priority is to use data and technology to improve commuters’ experience. Singapore is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and cannot build more and more roads, Prime Minister Lee said. “We have got to find solutions, using technology, using data, to make our transport more efficient” through information for commuters, better management of public transport and city planning, he said.
Singapore plans to use Wi-Fi hotspots to collect data on crowding on train platforms. “We are now installing Wi-Fi [on train platforms], so that from the Wi-Fi hotspot we can tell how many people are standing on which parts of the platform”, he said.
A third focus is to share data and make it easier to use for citizens and businesses. Singapore has an open data portal data.gov.sg with over 11,000 datasets, but will do more to release the data in reusable formats. “We don’t always release information in the best possible way. Our APIs are not as polished and as standardised as they should be – sometimes there are no APIs”, Prime Minister Lee said at the Founders Forum Smart Nation reception yesterday evening.
“But we are working at this” so that Singapore can be a “secure data marketplace”, where companies can easily conduct user testing and people can build applications and services, he added.
To make the Smart Nation plan work, “the government is leading the way” to build a stronger “entrepreneurial culture” and attract more talent, the Prime Minister said. “We are upgrading our engineering and IT schemes, [and] we are reorganising the way we work”.
The government is setting up data teams and “skunkworks” which are small groups of people developing services using agile techniques, continuously testing and improving the product.
Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority has a Government Digital Services team, a specialist team developing digital services the agile way.
Prime Minister Lee has set up a Smart Nation Programme Office in his department to bring all the pieces of the plan together.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Medha Basu
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 21.04.2015
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