Smarter citizens in a Smart Nation

THIS year marks SG51, the first page of the third chapter in the Singapore story - the first chapter being our transition from third world to first, and our second being first world to world hub. After an exhilarating jubilee year, and a miraculous economic transformation that is unlikely to be repeated, one question remains: Are we writing Singapore's final act?

At the opening of Singapore's 13th Parliament, President Tony Tan spoke about a stronger partnership between policymakers and the citizenry as crucial to the continuation of Singapore's success. The President specifically cited this in the context of Singapore's ambitions to become the world's first Smart Nation - one that is citizen-driven. The government has rolled out data.gov.sg, Singapore's open-data portal, which has close to 12,000 data sets available to the public in the form of interactive dashboards, visualisations and blog posts. The Singapore Department of Statistics also has a trove of data on topics ranging from fertility rates to wages. With so much data available, instead of asking for more data from the government, perhaps it is worth asking how much more data is really enough.

Allow me to frame this conundrum in the context of Singapore's struggle with raising productivity.