INNOVATION NATION
Singapore is not only the world’s easiest place to do business but is now also bidding to become the planet’s first ‘Smart Nation’. Anna Hart reports
Smart technology is attracting new business to the city-state
SINGAPORE HAS ALWAYS CHASED
SUPERLATIVES – from the world’s best airport to the planet’s largest glass greenhouse, the city-state pursues excellence with evangelical fervour.
Now it is setting in motion its “Smart Nation” initiative, the brainchild of incumbent prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. A widereaching and highly ambitious project, it is aimed at tackling social issues, healthcare, environmental sustainability, urban planning and transport through data collection via sensors implanted in every home, road, office and public space.
Over the coming years, Singapore will be rolling out self-driving cars, remote health monitoring and e-learning.“The goal is to bring our universities, research
institutes, start-ups, government and investors together with a shared mission of tackling difficult challenges,” says Steve Leonard, executive deputy chairman of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), which is overseeing the implementation of the programme.
Those who know and love Singapore won’t be surprised by this eagerness to road-test such technologies across an entire country. This is perhaps the most aspirational nation on the planet, with an ethnically diverse population on a quest to seek out new and better ways of doing things.
Singapore was a British colony from 1826 until 1959, when the nation state’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, took power on a mandate of quelling racial tensions, providing public housing, eradicating corruption and promoting economic growth.
When he passed away in March last year, Singaporeans turned out in their droves to mourn the man who steered them from poverty and political upheaval into the economic success story of South East Asia. For the past ten years, the country has ranked first in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index.
Leonard says: “The building of Singapore into a world-class city-state has been the result of a concerted effort over decades, and technology has been a vital foundation.” Last year, it topped US-based Ookla’s Net Index report for having the world’s fastest broadband internet, while Tufts University in Massachusetts named Singapore the top and fastestchanging digital economy.
WELL CONNECTED
Singaporeans already benefit from gigabit fibre connectivity, which has been a powerful incentive for businesses entering the country. Now, the fact that researchers can plug into the 80 per cent of the country’s population who live in government-owned housing has far-reaching implications for healthcare. The IDA is already looking into how the “Internet of Things” (web-wired gadgets such as smart fridges that automatically order food for you when you’re running low) can assist citizens at home, or even alert family members if an elderly person has a fall.
Singapore is the world’s thirdmost densely populated nation, with almost 8,000 people per sq km (5.5 million in total), but only about 15 per cent of the population own their own vehicle. A solution to public mobility is the self-driving taxi. Said to be cheaper, greener and safer, in August, Nutonomy began testing a fleet of electric autonomous taxis, while Delphi Automotive says it will introduce six robot cars next summer.
Karl Iagnemma, Nutonomy’s chief executive, has been reported as saying: “The pilot is going to allow us to collect technical data, but equally importantly, it’s going to allow us to find out if people enjoy riding in driverless cars.”
Joshua Chan, deputy head of the Smart Nation programme, says: “Singapore’s compact size and single layer of governance certainly helps with the speed at which we can trial, upscale and roll out smart solutions nationwide. Hence, we can become a living laboratory for Smart City solutions to be tested, developed and prototyped.”
Singaporeans often joke that they live in a “fine city – you’re fined for littering, for smoking, for carrying a durian on the MRT”, but any gentle criticism of the government is tempered by a sense of national pride. Locals are eager adopters of new technology, evidenced by everything from governmental initiatives such as computer literacy across state schools (something that was introduced in the 1980s) to the hoards taking part in mass Pokemon Go walks through East Coast Park.“We also have one of the highest mobile penetration rates in the world,” Chan says.
Elissa Loi, deputy editor of tech title Stuff Singapore (stuff.tv/sg), says: “Many tech companies see Singapore as an influencer and make a lot of their products available here in what’s often the first wave of release. Given the tech culture and population density, it’s easy for tech trends to catch on.”
REGIONAL HUB
Once a valuable port for British colonisers, today Singapore still occupies a strategic position in South East Asia, a hub from which to tap into the burgeoning markets of Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. Exports, particularly in electronics, chemicals and
services (Singapore is the regional hub for wealth management) provide the main source of revenue.
This year, Singapore retained its position as the second-freest economy in the world for the 22nd consecutive year. It is also very pro-business, as its World Bank ranking testifies – you can register a company online in only 15 minutes. Tax rates are low (14.2 per cent of GDP), and yet Singapore has the third highest per-capita GDP in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (US$84,821).
Jeffrey Paine, a start-up pioneer and leader of the Singapore Founder Institute (fi.co), says: “I think Smart Nation will generate local demand for products and services from start-up companies, but I also hope that the forward-thinking attitude of the nation will incentivise more businesses to operate in Singapore.” In 2005, there were 24,000 startups – by 2014, there were 55,000. Some 40 per cent of start-up acquisitions that take place in South East Asia happen in Singapore.
Despite the obvious appeal for international business, it’s the social aspect of being a smart nation that is being trumpeted. Loi says: “Most positive is the government’s willingness to empower people with the data collected, because they’re the ones capable of collecting all that critical information on such a large scale.” She cites as an example the government’s open data portal (data.gov.sg) that people can tap into to create apps.“It’s about connecting people to ideas in order to empower Singaporeans to create and innovate,” she says.