Singapore SmartNation Essentials

1. Yuri Anisimov, October 2015
Ability Factors Pte. Ltd.
Notes for a weary pedestrian. Non-
comprehensive, informal and biased

2.  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.

3.  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.

4. 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

5.  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.

6.  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

7.  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.

8. 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.

9. 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

10.  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

11. 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:

12.  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

13.  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

14. 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.

15.  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.

16.  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

17. Technology Roadmap
Roadmap 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.

18.  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.

19. 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.

20. 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

22.  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.