Imagine,
classes can take place in classrooms virtually without
walls; Made-by-Singapore products will take prime shelf-space
in the global market place;transacting with the Government
is just a SMS away; while healthcare services here will
offer patients faster and more accurate diagnoses with
technology's aid.
Imagine life in Singapore greatly enriched
by infocomm in 2015.
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore's new
10-year masterplan, Intelligent Nation 2015, or iN2015,
is aiming for that. The masterplan consists of an extensive
line-up of activities and goals with benefits for everyone
- people, businesses and the global community. The recommendations
set out in the infocomm plan will transform the way
people live, learn, work and play.
The roadmap paves the way forward, guided
along by three themes - innovation, integration and
internationalisation. The capacity to innovate with
infocomm, whether it is a new item or a new way of doing
something, must be a key differentiating capability
of Singapore's economy. Success also rests on how well
we can use infocomm as a bridge, to integrate resources
and capabilities across organisations and geographies.
For a small country like Singapore, going international
should be part of every local organisation's business
plan, aided by infocomm.
These themes will have a profound bearing
on the Masterplan's promise of an infocomm-enabled future
for everyone. Only through constant innovation, integration
and internationalisation, can the following targets
be achieved over the next ten years:
- Singapore to be No.1 in the world in harnessing
infocomm to add value to the economy and society
- Achieve a two-fold increase in value-added of the
infocomm industry to S$26 billion
- See a three-fold increase in infocomm export revenue
to S$60 billion
- Create 80,000 additional jobs
- Have at least 90 per cent of homes using broadband
- Ensure 100 per cent computer ownership for all homes
with school-going children
iN2015 was officially launched by Dr
Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications
and the Arts at the start of the week-long Infocomm
and Media Business Exchange (imbX), which also incorporates
CommunicAsia 2006, iX2006 and EnterpriseIT 2006.
To achieve the targets, the masterplan
outlined four strategies:
1. To spearhead the transformation of key economic sectors,
government and society through more sophisticated and
innovative use of infocomm;
2. To establish an ultra-high speed, pervasive, intelligent
and trusted infocomm infrastructure;
3. To develop a globally competitive infocomm industry;
4. To develop an infocomm-savvy workforce and globally
competitive infocomm manpower.
Dr Lee said at imbX: "The iN2015 Masterplan
is not only about economic competitiveness. We will also
be exploring ways to ensure that the elderly, less privileged
and people with disability can also enjoy connected and
enriched lives for self-improvement and life-long learning.
This is to bridge the digital divide and create opportunities
for all."
In harnessing infocomm technologies
for key economic sectors, some important recommendations
include the use of personalised services to enhance
healthcare, education, tourism and e-government, as
well as seamless delivery of financial services and
supply-chain management. To develop a globally-competitive
infocomm industry, initiatives are being worked out
to strengthen the domain and technology capabilities
within the industry. Local infocomm enterprises will
be nurtured for expansion and growth beyond the domestic
markets, and infocomm solutions geared for the global
markets.
The plan will also be for the Government
to develop a Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure,
to cope with future needs for speed. Such needs will
come from the growing use of bandwidth-intensive services
and applications such as online communication, immersive-learning
experiences, telemedicine, high-definition TV, grid
computing. This next generation network will be ready
by 2012. It will be capable of delivering broadband
speeds up to 1 Gigabits per second, and offer pervasive
connectivity around the country. It will also be IPv6-compliant,
which offers greater security and many billions more
addresses for the anticipated growth of networked devices.
iN2015 will also recommend ways to strengthen
the Singapore infocomm industry so that it can compete
more effectively internationally with innovative "Made-by-Singapore"
products, services and solutions. One such marketable
product is Singapore's e-Government offerings. In fact,
Singapore will soon have an e-Government Leadership
Centre for the training of industry and government personnel
in this area. This centre, to be launched later this
year, is a joint-effort between IDA, the National University
of Singapore's Institute of Systems Science and the
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Finally, to ensure an infocomm-savvy and globally-competitive
workforce, Singapore will nurture and develop infocomm
talent to take on higher value-added activities such
as creating infocomm solutions and R&D. The plan
is to groom a pool of techno-strategists who have both
the technical and business expertise to achieve business
and organisational goals through the strategic and innovative
use of infocomm.
Mr Chan Yeng Kit, Chief Executive of
IDA said: "The Government, together with the industry,
will pursue many of the recommendations from the iN2015
Steering Committee for Singapore's vision to be an intelligent
nation and global city by 2015. IDA sees the iN2015
masterplan as a living plan that will evolve as we look
into its implementation and respond to socio-economic
and technology changes over the next 10 years."
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