Singapore’s Open Innovation Initiatives
The government of Singapore has decided that it wants to ramp up innovation in the country. Therefore, it’s going to share more data sets with both public and private sectors to increase efficiency, improve the way services are delivered, and drive social innovation.
The government has adopted a new “Open Data” mindset to get even more from the power of data.
One of its projects is a new data service named PopulationQuery. This has been launched on OneMap and allows users to get various forms of data about Singapore’s population and display the results on a map. This can be overlaid with other sorts of information such as stats about schools, restaurants and properties in an area. This can help someone who is thinking about relocating.
Enabling Criowdsourcing Contests
The government is also keen on holding crowdsourcing contests. In April this year six teams of developers won awards for innovative apps that use open government data. They took part in the inaugural PlugFest International Programming Competition (IPC).
An app called ‘The Great Singapore Rat Race’ won the Most Innovative Award. It visualizes labor and income data, using data sets released by the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Education, and the Department of Statistics. Another app, called ‘Last Order’ aims to reduce wastage of food in restaurants.
Co-Creation to Improve Citizens’ Lives
“By opening up more data, and through innovative use of technology, we can crowdsource ideas and co-create applications with the wider community,” said Tharman Shanmugaratnam, deputy prime minister and minister for finance, in an interview.
Reader Comments
Be great if Singapore Government was willing to accomadate and fund our project and grant us permanent residency to keep the whole project development and manufacturing base over there.
I am sure President Lee Kwuan Yew can see the merit in having a new wingless vertical takeoff and landing flight industry.
Those Singaporeans are clever people and go getters who have the money and resolve and technical nous to support the development of this new easy to fly super safe wingless flight system and don't waste time humming and harring like NZ do.
Rather unappreciative bunch the Kiwis with regards to major breakthroughs and much to timid too. No wonder country is lagging behind the rest of the world in many areas.
Posted by Mike Dinsdale on June 19, 2013
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