Govt to spend S$2.2 billion on infocomm this year

Singapore

AROUND S$2.2 billion in public-sector infocomm tenders will be up for grabs during fiscal 2015.

Procurement will home in on areas such as digital and data services, web services, infocomm infrastructure and the development of the "smart nation" platform.

This year's proposed spending is higher than last year's final figure of S$1.95 billion, and nine in 10 opportunities will be valued under S$5 million, which levels the playing field for larger companies and smaller ones.

Among the major initiatives announced at the 2015 Industry Briefing was the Singapore Custom's plan to combine the backend systems of TradeNet, TradeXchange and Customs into one system, tentatively to be named National Trade Infrastructure, once the current contract expires in 2017.

The government hopes that this keystone project will boost Singapore's productivity and competitiveness through a digitalised, integrated supply chain.

Jacqueline Poh, managing director of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), said that as Singapore moves towards becoming a smart nation, the government will actively engage with citizens, businesses and the technology industry: "We seek to gain better insight into the kinds of applications that people need and to build new digital government capabilities to deliver great experiences to them. This is also the time to invest in the infrastructure that will be foundational to the smart nation."

She cited examples such as the OneService Mobile App, through which the public can easily give feedback on municipal issues, and MyResponder, a life-saving mobile application by the Singapore Civil Defence Force which leverages location awareness to despatch volunteers to assist with cardiac-arrest cases.

The government will also introduce an enhanced SingPass this year; it will have two-factor authentication, among other features. A new Corporate Pass (Corppass) for companies is also slated for release; this will be a one-stop authentication and authorisation system for corporate users to access multiple government e-services and mobile services on behalf of their company.

Ms Poh said Corppass will make a major difference in the way organisations and enterprises interact with the government. Previously, the interaction took place through the individual SingPass account of employees, on behalf of the company. This practice raised security and logistical issues, as the employee could leave the organisation and yet still access e-services on behalf of the company. The new Corppass will resolve this problem, though it would be "a massive exercise in change management", said Ms Poh.

IDA said it will continue to work with the industry and co-create solutions for a nation that will harness infocomm technology (ICT), networks and data to support better living, create more opportunities and to support stronger communities.

One such initiative is the Accreditation@IDA programme, launched last year to assist local technology companies in getting their innovations adopted by government agencies and other consumers. The programme seeks to provide an independent third-party evaluation of the company's product or service and its ability to deliver.

So far, eight companies - Deep Identity, Green Koncepts, InspireTech, Kai Square, Latize, Tagit, Trakomatic and VKey - have been accredited in areas such as mobile security, enterprise analytics, video analytics and energy management. Another 40 companies are being evaluated, said Ms Poh.

IDA named the enhancing of cyber security within the government as a key area of focus. In the last two years, measures have been taken in this area through the Cyber Watch Centre (CWC) and the Monitoring and Operations Command Centre (MOCC), and by securing government ICT infrastructure through tighter access controls and protection services against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Spending on cyber security went up from S$29 million to S$408.6 million in the space of a year - between fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2014.

Speaking at the briefing, IDA's assistant chief executive for government services Chan Cheow Hoe said a digital government puts citizens at the heart of its development and delivery of services.

"To be nimble and responsive, the government can no longer outsource applications development so extensively, but must seek to co-source solutions with industry," he said.

Going forward, therefore, the government plans to keep up to 20 per cent of infocomm development in-house so it can develop infocomm skills.

Mr Chan disclosed that IDA will set up a centre of excellence in software engineering and data analytics in One-North, with facilities for user research, user experience testing and consultancy services for government agencies that are developing services for citizens. It will be staffed by a team of software engineers and data-scientists, working in a multi-disciplinary, innovative and collaborative environment.

He added: "The government must anticipate the needs of citizens through data analytics and build up its own internal IT engineering and development capabilities while engaging the best partners in the industry."

During the industry briefing, the Ministry of Education said it is looking to build capabilities, get more value out of its investments and exploit ICT; it hopes to acquire analytics tools with which to mine its existing data sets. In the next three years, it will acquire ICT services to build its infrastructure in schools and to improve administration in schools.

The Ministry of Manpower will issue tenders to procure a next-generation work-pass system, a licensing system for employment agencies and dormitories and a finance-and-procurement tracking system.

The National Library Board said it will release tenders for the improvement of automation to cut down on library operations and thus enable its staff to focus on the user experience.