S$20m govt project opportunities created for Singapore tech firms, says IDA

Some S$20 million worth of government project opportunities have been created for promising tech firms under the Accreditation@IDA programme within a year of its inception, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said on Tuesday.

These include 125 infocomm projects across 50 government agencies. Six projects, commissioned by the Ministry of Manpower, Housing & Development Board, JTC Corporation, Economic Development Board, Sentosa Development Corporation and IDA, have been awarded to five of eight accredited companies, namely video analytics firms KAI Square and Trakomatic; secure file-sharing platform Inspire-Tech; data management firm Latize; and mobile solutions provider Tagit.

Another six projects are close to being awarded, said IDA. The other three accredited firms are V-Key, Deep Identity and Green Koncepts, which specialise in mobile security, compliance management and energy management, respectively.

Accreditation@IDA was launched in July 2014 to help Singapore-based tech companies build their credentials and accelerate their growth. To do this, IDA has worked with the Ministry of Finance to streamline procurement process such that government agencies will consider accredited companies first.

Moving forward, IDA aims to have a total of 20 accredited companies by March 2016, and expand the scope of accreditation to include technologies such as robotics, new sensor and autonomous vehicles.