SINGAPORE: Forming the right regulatory framework and getting acceptance from the population are the “two big buckets of challenges” that the Government faces in its push towards a Smart Nation, said Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary on Tuesday (Jun 5).
He was responding to a question posed during a panel discussion held at the Smart Nation Innovations Week opening symposium.
AdvertisementBeing a small and resource-constrained country, Dr Puthucheary said Singapore cannot afford to be in the “too-late zone” and the Government sees the Smart Nation effort as an opportunity for significant transformations in the economy and society.
However, challenges remain.
One of which is figuring out the right regulatory structure and avoiding possible downsides, given the absence of prior experiences and success models, he said.
The Government has since taken on the approach of a regulatory sandbox, in part due to the success that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has had with nurturing the local financial technology (finTech) scene.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThat success has prompted the Government to take that approach across other domains, where uncertainties remain about the appropriate regulatory structure to drive innovation, he added.
However, Dr Puthucheary said the Smart Nation initiatives remain a “hard sell” to the population in Singapore amid fears surrounding the elimination of jobs and privacy concerns.
There is also the consideration of how a significant portion of Singaporeans are not English-educated or digital natives.
“There is anxiety about how much value this is to them,” he said.
This is where the newly launched Singapore’s first Digital Readiness Blueprint comes in, Dr Puthucheary added.
“That looks at these issues around access, literacy and participation. How do we give Singaporeans increasing access to the benefits of the digital revolution and how do we make sure they have literacy … and skills needed to participate in the online space."
Efforts are also underway to allay concerns related to technology and its disruptions on jobs – an issue that Dr Puthucheary described as having a “very real concern” and not something “to shy away from”.
For one, the labour movement is committed to retraining and re-skilling the local workforce, while schools are also ensuring that the formal education system remains relevant to the opportunities in the current world.
“If we can get all that right, then Singaporeans will see that there are a lot of benefits to this journey of transformation through technology that we are using Smart Nation for,” he said.
DATA “IS THE NEW AIR”
Alongside Dr Puthucheary, other speakers for the panel discussions include DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, and Australia’s Minister for Jobs and Innovation Michaelia Cash who discussed the impact of technology on the transformation of people’s lives, cities and economies.
The importance of data and a recent rise in privacy concerns were among the issues tossed up during the discussion.
Data, for instance, has had profound implications on the banking industry, ranging from changes in existing procedures and how it opens up the industry to start-ups, said Mr Gupta.
“People call data the new oil. I think data is more than the new oil, it is the new air,” he said.
However, he noted that this comes with both upsides and downsides. While data has paved the way for financial inclusion, it also has unintended consequences on areas like jobs.
Citing DBS as an example where the use of technology means that it is able to reduce the number of employees at its bank branches and call centres by half, Mr Gupta said: “We have been automating and digitising … but what does that mean to the nature of jobs? What does it mean to where the jobs come from?”
Ms Harriet Green, chairman and CEO of IBM Asia-Pacific, said the issue of stewardship is at the heart of data and digitisation, be it for governments or businesses.
Noting that 80 per cent of the world’s data currently belongs to companies and is not searchable, she said: “With a greater power, (comes) a deep responsibility around stewarding and being the guardians of the data of our clients and of the people that give us that data.”
On that, Dr Puthucheary said putting in place the right type of protection will be appropriate, such as making sure that citizens have the “recourse to either appeal, challenge or to secure their privacy”.
However, this should be done in a way that does not constrain business opportunities.
“The opportunities that will be available through the analysis of data are likely to increase and we must make sure that we all benefit from that process,” he said.
“There is some clear anxiety given what has happened recently and it’s appropriate that we correct and put in place the right type of protection. But I think we also want to give ourselves the opportunity to think about how … not to constrain the business model and business opportunities.”
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