Q3: What Role Will Tech Play in Singapore's Future? (Camp Sequoia Dialogue)

PM Lee: I think it's a natural area where we do have an advantage because we are a city,
we are compact, we are wired up.
It's economical for us to provide very high quality infrastructure
and we have people who take to it naturally.
Individually they know how to operate their phones or play Starcraft, Warcraft.
But also I think as a nation our ethos is one where we are rationalistic.
If it makes sense, if it can be done more efficiently,
if I can short-circuit the process and cut out the to-ing and fro-ing, I will want to do that,
and people will support that.
That is why we pay attention to encouraging startups to using tech,
to having what we call a Smart Nation Initiative
and we've set up a Smart Nation Programme Office in the Government, in the Prime Minister's Office,
to oversee this exercise and to try and get significant projects moving.
I think, personally, that for all our pushing,
we really aren't going quite as fast as we ought to.
We are looking at major projects
which will make a big difference to the way Singapore is able to operate.
For example, a national sensor network which is linked together and integrated,
so whether it's a Traffic Police network, whether it's the water net,
Traffic Police cameras or whether it is the water authority cameras tracking drains,
or whether it's cameras in our Housing Board estates where you're watching lifts and security,
you can pull all the pictures together and get one integrated data source for the whole country.
We are thinking about a national identity system.
We have one for the Government services, Singpass,
but really it doesn't do all the things we need it to do,
and it doesn't extend to private sector services.
It doesn't even extend to my hospitals which are semi-privatised.
And we need a good digital ID service which is reliable,
which everybody can rely on,
I can sign, I can identify myself,
I can access services securely and I can transact online.
The Estonians have this, there's no reason why I should not have it.
I need a good e-payment system.
I've got banks which offer ATMs.
In the old days they'd consider that a great step forward.
They have a presence on the Internet.
It works, not badly, some even win prizes,
but actually from the point of view of users
and if you compare it with other countries
there is a lot more we have to learn.
We haven't gone as far as we need in order to do cashless payments
in hawker centres, in shops, in-between people.
I was complaining to my Perm Secs (Permanent Secretaries) the other day.
The ministers have lunch once a week together.
We pay for our own lunch, and there's one minister in charge of collecting, making a collection,
and we made a great step forward when he said,
"I don't want to receive cash anymore, please write me cheques." [Audience laughter]
So the Perm Secs said "We are one step forward of you".
They used PayLah!, which is a DBS app,
but it shows how non-pervasive it is
and what the potential is that we can get it through.
We can use IT, and data, and the whole system to apply that intelligence to our transport system.
To be responsive, to adapt to demand,
in order to cut down on empty flights, empty routes, and unnecessary services.
We haven't done that enough, the incentives have not been brought together.
There are big things which we need to do
and many small things which we ought to do better.
Every time I go on to a Government website,
for some reason, I have to transact a service,
and I can't find the link,
I tell them, "Please put this link back".
If I can't find it, I think that there'll be a lot of people who will have the same problem as me!
Actually I've been minded to have a competition to do it the way Donald Knuth does his code.
He puts code up and then he says, "Anybody who finds a bug, ten cents for the first finder."
After two weeks he says twenty cents for the first finder.
The bugs gradually go down, finally 256 dollars for the first finder.
I think we need that kind of involvement from people in order to get the system responsive,
in order to get people focussed on it, in order for us to be at that edge.
So I think there are a lot of things we can do individually, as a Government, as a nation,
and also for companies to be participating and to come here and set up
and use Singapore as a place to start up.
Singapore companies, we have some starting up,
and I hope that many, and we know that there are quite a number who come from the region
and come to Singapore to take advantage of our incubators, our environment, our access to the region,
in order to make their base here.

Q3: What Role Will Tech Play in Singapore's Future? (Camp Sequoia Dialogue)

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