Putting humans at the centre of 'smart' and 'green'

SINGAPORE celebrates its 56th year of independence this month. Much of the nation's achievements today can be attributed to the astute foresight, prudent planning and painstaking hard work of her people and leaders over several decades.

Today, we continue to reap the fruits of labour of our past generations as well as benefit from national policies and initiatives launched in the past. Take for example the Smart Nation initiative, which was introduced in 2014 with the vision to build a nation where people live meaningful and fulfilled lives, enabled seamlessly by technology, offering exciting opportunities for all. This initiative was timely and necessary, in anticipation of the opportunities and risks that digital disruption would have on economies, governments and societies.

In the intervening years to date, significant investments in areas such as digital infrastructure and service delivery involving the public and private sectors were made. Little did we know that some six years on, the Smart Nation initiative would provide the foundation to enable Singapore to efficiently face off, among other challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic through contact tracing to break transmission chains, as well as support its testing and vaccination strategy.