Singapore’s unlikely rise as a digital tech powerhouse

FOR decades, Singapore has been held up as a model of successful state-led economic development. However, many doubted whether this top-down approach could succeed in the rapidly evolving digital economy, where nimble entrepreneurship is often seen as more important than long-term government planning.

Despite doubts about Singapore’s struggles to nurture a thriving tech sector in the late 2000s, the city-state has now emerged as a global powerhouse in scaling up digital technology firms more than a decade later. How did this transformation happen?

Our new research sheds light on Singapore’s journey. We found that the key was the government’s ability to coordinate a diverse ecosystem of actors – a capability we term “network coordination”.