Singapore's tech readiness gave it head start amid Covid-19 crisis, says minister

Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan speaking to The Straits Times in a video interview last Thursday. Singapore's decade-ago investments to bring fibre broadband links to every home have paid off as employees and students have had to work and learn from home to manage the spread of Covid-19.PHOTO: ST VIDEO

SINGAPORE, June 22 (The Straits Times/ANN) - Singapore's technology preparedness gave the Republic "a head start" in responding to acute needs when the Covid-19 pandemic erupted earlier this year, said Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan.

"We were starting, fortunately, from a position of strength and preparation," he said in an interview with The Straits Times.

Indeed, Hong Kong-based Deep Knowledge Group's survey of 200 countries and territories released earlier this month ranked Singapore the fourth safest place in the world to live in during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The country trailed only Switzerland, Germany and Israel in the survey that looked at quarantine efficiency, monitoring and detection, as well as emergency preparedness.

Singapore owes its current readiness to groundwork that started six years ago with the roll-out of Smart Nation plans that aim to see, among other things, every resident going cashless and transacting online safely and with ease using a national digital identity.

This led to the Government forming its own crack team of data scientists, software coders and engineers, which has now grown to 950 people.

"We've been able to recruit, rebuild a hard core of engineering talent that has enabled the Government now to do in-house many things which it would have had to outsource in the past," said Dr Balakrishnan, who is also Foreign Minister.

They bang out codes and design solutions to address Singapore's needs.

Most recently, they created an information site maskgowhere.sg in one day and launched it on Feb 1 to allow residents to enter their postal code to check the nearest collection point for the free masks the Government was distributing.

Singapore is also the first in the world to roll out an app to reduce the tracking time of potentially infected individuals who had come into close contact with a Covid-19 patient.

Singapore's tech readiness gave it head start amid Covid-19 crisis: Vivian, Singapore News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

Launched in March, the app called TraceTogether, which uses Bluetooth radio exchanges to log nearby users, was developed in about two months by GovTech engineers. Since then, dozens of governments in Australia, Britain and some American states have developed similar versions.

Singapore's decade-ago investments to bring fibre broadband links to every home have also paid off as employees and students have had to work and learn from home to manage the spread of Covid-19.