Singapore’s smart nation initiative: BBC reporter tests solutions herself

In this report, Karishma Vaswani, BBC News’s Asia business correspondent, visits Singapore and explores the Smart Nation Iniative of the country. Applications can be found in transport, health, emergency and education. The reporter tests some of the solutions hereself and interviews several key persons behind the initiative. For example, Harminder Singh, a senior lecturer in business information systems at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, says the main issue with Smart Nation is that there may be too much government control over it right now for real innovation to take place. “Singapore’s way of doing things is that the government leads, then others follow. This might be a problem – it is too centralised and so it may take too long for plans to trickle down. And ideas from the ground may be neither visible to those on top nor acceptable to them, especially if they are related to the delivery of services that are traditionally handled by the government”.

Access the original article by Karishma Vaswani on BBC News here.