People-centric Smart Nation Programme

Mr Zaqy Mohamad asked the Prime Minister (a) what are the plans of the Smart Nation Programme Office to engage citizens and industries to ensure that the initiative is about "people, not machines"; (b) what are the key performance measures for the success of the Programme Office; and (c) how does the Programme Office plan to engage and prepare citizens, especially the less technology-savvy, and small businesses for the Smart Nation wave in the near future.

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan (for the Prime Minister): The aim of our Smart Nation Programme is to enhance the quality of life, create more opportunities and strengthen community bonds for all Singaporeans by integrating emerging new technologies into our daily lives. The key focus must be the needs of our people, and not just the deployment of interesting technologies.

Therefore, it is critical that we engage citizens and the private sector extensively in order to assess the needs of different segments of our society, to identify opportunities and to co-develop innovative solutions in many diverse areas, including healthcare, transport, education, estate management, public services and entrepreneurship. For a start, we intend to focus on how technology can help our seniors, youth and local SMEs.

This month, I am meeting a group of seniors who volunteer in the community. This kicks off a series of engagement exercises to reach out to different groups of seniors and their caregivers. We want to understand how best to use technology to serve them better.

Similarly, we will engage other segments, including our youths, innovators and the local SMEs. The Smart Nation Programme Office is working with various agencies such as SPRING and MOH on these efforts.

Mr Zaqy asked about plans to prepare citizens, especially the less technology savvy, for the future. Since November 2014, the Skills Future Council, chaired by DPM Tharman, has started work to drive the national effort to develop skills for the future. For those who are less technology savvy, especially the seniors who generally have had less opportunity to pick up IT skills, we have several measures to help them. Volunteer groups and Community Clubs run Silver Infocomm Junctions to help seniors familiarise themselves with IT. IDA organises various annual programmes such as Inter-Generation IT Bootcamp and Silver Infocomm Day to promote IT awareness and adoption. We will study what more we can do, together with the community playing its part.

As for the Smart Nation Programme Office, its key role is to take in perspectives and ideas from different sources, and integrate them to ensure that we take a whole-of-government, whole-of-nation approach to building a Smart Nation. We will refine the targets as we consult and engage more groups.