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Qatar and Singapore have numerous opportunities to work together using information and communications technology (ICT) to further improve the lives of their people, a senior official of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore has told Gulf Times.
While the Singaporean Prime Minister laid out a vision for Singapore to become a Smart Nation, IDA-Singapore managing director Jacqueline Poh said Qatar is moving towards its 2030 National Vision to be an advanced society capable of sustaining its development and providing a high standard of living for all its citizens.
“This also means Singapore is capable of pulling together people, national policy, industry, research & development and technology to tackle important global challenges brought on by the inevitable trends of ageing populations and urban density,” she noted.
Poh was speaking at a roundtable discussion on Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative yesterday. She was joined by Ambassador Wong Kwok Pun and other IDA officials.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched the initiative on November 24 in a bid to integrate IT, networks and data seamlessly aimed at providing better living conditions for people.
Poh said the transformation may take time to achieve but their ongoing projects and trials lead to various developments such as improved transport apps with autonomous vehicle trials (driverless vehicles), smart enabled homes, better payment systems and home and health monitoring, among others.
Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative is also expected to improve government digital service delivery, providing its citizens
with greater convenience in making government transactions.
Singapore currently has more than 1,600 electronic government services where more than 100 are accessible using mobile devices (e-services app).
“Many of the innovations that will be present when you build a Smart Nation can also be used in any other country,” Poh noted. Smart Nation is not about technology alone, but technology as a means of improving people’s lives and engage business and the community together, it was observed. “Smart Nation means empowering the people.”
She said they thought of using technology more extensively and systematically to tackle global challenges brought about by trends not only in Singapore but in other countries as well.
One such challenge is urban density, as many cities are becoming more crowded, creating huge traffic jams.
Singapore now has “driverless vehicles” rolling in one of its districts and in two universities. The government plans to expand it next year by deploying these vehicles in public.
Poh believes that using a driverless vehicle is a lot safer than a conventional one.
While some countries have problems with a booming population, Poh noted that others face an opposite case. “I don’t know about the case in Qatar but in Singapore we have a rapidly ageing population.”
“In a sense, Singapore and Qatar are very similar in terms of the desire to go down the road of more developments in the Internet of Things and smart cities,” said Poh, adding that the two countries have many things in common.
Poh also stressed that Singapore could be a good “reference” as a Smart Nation with its businesses and research capable of creating solutions that are relevant globally.
