Two new initiatives were announced at the inaugural Infocomm Industry Forum 2009 targeting innovative development in the key areas of geospatial applications and contactless payment services.
“Infocomm technology is an integral part of national economic strategy as a key enabler of development, modernisation and growth,” said Mr Lui Tuck Yew, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, during the event’s keynote address. “Innovation in the infocomm industry drives competitiveness both at the firm level and at the national level.”
i-Singapore
The first announcement was i-Singapore (Image of Singapore), through an Request For Information (RFI) with the industry to create innovative services and applications that not only harness geospatial data, but integrate real-time data from public, private, and people sectors to create useful services for businesses and people alike.
Acting Minister for Information, Communications & the Arts, Mr Lui Tuck Yew: Innovation in the infocomm industry drives competitiveness both at the firm level and at the national level. |
The i-Singapore programme seeks to catalyse the development of innovative services that will create value for the private, people and public sectors, through using Web 2.0 technologies to put together geospatial contents from these three sectors. Mr Lui Tuck Yew said, “i-Singapore encourages the use of Web 2.0 technologies and rides the current trend of pervasive social interactions.”
For example, if an entrepreneur wants to start a childcare centre, he would need to pick the best location to start his business and needs to first find out where his potential competitors are located. He may also want to assess the market potential by knowing the number of children under the age of five that live in the vicinity. With i-Singapore, he can have sight of potential business partners such as transport companies within the vicinity that can help him ferry children and complement his business. Through the Business Competitive Intelligence Service of i-Singapore, he will be able to assess the suitability of the identified location for his business by analysing available demographic information. Furthermore, such information can be presented on a map on a mobile or computer screen which facilitates analysis and insights for business decision-making.
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is working with a consortium to develop services in the transport, business and lifestyle sectors next year. Recently in August 2009, a grant was awarded to the consortium consisting of namely, MapKing (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Quantum Inventions Pte Ltd, ShowNearby Pte Ltd and Surround Networks Pte Ltd. These services which will enhance the transport, business and lifestyle sectors will be ready by Q1 2010 for a 6-month pilot.
Commenting on the initiative, Mr Paul Loke, Senior Assistant Director (Computing & Information Systems), Corporate Services & Planning, National Heritage Board, said, “Geospatial technology is useful even for heritage sites. For example, a contour map can extract reasons why historical monuments were built in particular areas in Singapore.”
Contactless POS
The other announcement was the award of the Contactless Point-of-Sale (POS) Call-for-Collaboration (CFC). This CFC is part of IDA’s Next Generation e-Payments Programme that aims to spur e-lifestyle and support innovative e-payment services for consumers. Five companies were awarded under this CFC to proliferate the deployment of CEPAS-compliant POS terminals beyond the transport sector, bringing the convenience of e-payment to consumers and businesses for low value purchases. The awarded companies were: EZ-Link Pte Ltd, Nera Telecommuni-cations Ltd, Network for Electronic Transfers (Singapore) Pte Ltd, PaymentLink Pte Ltd and Way Systems Solutions Pte Ltd.
Through this CFC, IDA and the five awarded companies will be jointly investing S$16 million. This investment will see the number of contactless terminals in Singapore more than quadruple from about 5,000 to over 24,000 within two years. “When fully deployed by 2011, these terminals are expected to generate over 94 million transactions per year, converting a significant number of cash-based payments to e-payments. This CFC will also lead to a 15 to 50 per cent reduction in merchant fees, compared to prevailing fees charged for CEPAS (Contactless ePurse Application) payments, which is an important factor of lowering the barrier to adoption of e-payment by merchants,” said Mr Lui.
Merchants deploying CEPAS terminals are able to gain immediate access to a customer base bearing more than 5.9 million CEPAS cards. In addition, merchants can also reduce administrative overheads and incidences of petty thefts with lower cash handling through increased e-payment usage.
The network of terminals will form a key supporting infrastructure for the deployment of innovative services enabled by Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, where NFC-enabled mobile phones can be used to make payments at restaurants, purchase mobile tickets, redeem mobile coupons and even open doors by tapping their NFC-enabled phones on contactless readers.