Orient Magazine Issue 83 - August 2021 - Page 40

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Recent Webinars

Discover more webinars at britcham . org . sg / webinars

1 July 2021 : A UK Outlook : Essential Tax Planning for UK Inheritance Tax and Domicile

Hear from Martin Rimmer , Head of Tax for Select Investors as he shares a refresher on how inheritance tax works and how your exposure can be minimised .

Series Partner :

7 July 2021 : Healthcare & HealthTech Trade Webinar

Supporting Partners

Designed for the UK market , this webinar is part of a series led by our Trade Services team . Many companies have launched innovative and game-changing health products to meet today ' s megatrends , and Singapore and ASEAN are no exception . 8 July 2021 : Virtual Quiz & Music Evening

Entertainment Partner :

Our partners at Song Division hosted a lively virtual rock and roll game show to entertain our members and guests .

13 July 2021 : Green Bonds , Carbon Offsetting & the Challenges with Data & Transparency From our Financial & FinTech and Sustainability committees , hear the latest developments from industry experts on the ESG drive towards Net Zero & COP26 . RECENT WEBINARS

COMMITTEE CONTENT 41 ICT AND THE CITY - HOW DIGITAL IS UPSCALING FOR CITIZENS AND A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE ICT and the City How Digital is Upscaling for Citizens and a Sustainable Future Contributed by the BritCham ICT Committee In Singapore we are fortunate to experience first-hand the benefits from the most forward-thinking city planning and digital government service delivery, all enabled by Information Communication Technologies (ICT). Our Lion City is a leader in global indexes covering "Smart" and "AI ready" cities, an indication of the advances that are continually made. We can take pride in commentary from such indexes on Singapore's "outstanding vision" and the upfront approach taken to addressing ethics in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including an evolving AI governance framework. These sit alongside an advanced digital legal framework which enables digital innovation and novel marketplaces for our businesses, all founded on a digital skill-enabled population (where citizens are provided with opportunities to continually advance those skills to meet future demand). Each day in Singapore we experience how ICT and the City are enabling "Smart" in places for living, working and playing. For example, we suffer little inconvenience using public transport to get around town - I've not purchased a ticket to travel around Singapore in years thanks to the integration of ticketing and contactless payments, and I can access government services on the move through a one-stop mobile app to providing things like identity, skills and tax. The city has been citizen-centric in designing a user-experience for our "moments of life", now called LifeSG, connecting departments behind the scenes without a need for us to navigate them. And these examples are really just the start in how ICT will further contribute to a resilient and sustainable future city, one in which ICT will help us understand more about the impact from natural resources we consume, across energy, food and water. Singapore's ICT and digitalisation success results from decades of planning and investment. How can other cities in the region learn from this and upscale to be sustainable and smart using ICT? The starting point for cities to operate in a smart way is to rethink how they are organised and to recognise that data and ICT really only exist to serve the city’s needs. It’s not the other way around. A transformation is happening globally, in how the removal of internal barriers between city departments enables valuable information sharing, with focused ICT investment to prioritise city operations and direct limited resources. This, in turn, provides citizens with one-touch digital access to multiple city services which boost productivity. Targeted investment in new telecommunications infrastructure, including 5G, is also essential – both for citizens and the assets that the city is made of, as novel use cases in autonomous vehicles, drones and large- scale automation become reality. Of course, a “top-down” approach to transforming cities can be perceived as theoretical unless real problems are addressed through “bottom-up” initiatives that demonstrate benefits in tangible ways that help the city advance. City ICT innovation challenges and pilot projects, working with communities, private sector and academia can yield the best results and Singapore offers many such opportunities. But there’s no simple solution and each city needs to tailor its approach – this might relate to how a city looks at inclusive education, public health, or the impact of weather events and related performance of its infrastructure. From an ICT perspective, cities must build their own digital literacy. City departments need capabilities in data stewardship and data science – subjects that businesses and academia can work with cities to implement, and citizens themselves can benefit from, particularly in the context of safe and secure use of data and digital services. Using ICT to create inventories of city assets, designed with purpose and open data principles, sets a foundation for implementation, reducing data access costs and promoting open innovation for digitally literate cities to improve citizen’s lives and city economies. To be sustainable and smart, cities can adopt an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approach. Originally developed by UK cities working with academia and the private sector, and now available as ISO 37106, this approach enables cities to deploy a framework of cross-cutting processes which covers everything from city vision to empowering communities through data and the deployment of ICT services. Collectively, the processes target city benefits realisation, including well-being, preservation and improvement of the environment, and city resilience. Finally, a growing ICT opportunity for cities and businesses operating in them, is the emergence of digital twins for city infrastructure. The UK has led the way in national digital twins through the Centre for Digital Built Britain. Digital twins comprise of computer models connected bi-directionally to physical infrastructure through multiple data sources and sensors. The connection between physical and digital enables better understanding of sustainability, performance and simulation for real-time decision making when the cities need it most. The use of digital twins can optimise city services, such as multi-modal transport networks, and integrate city services to enable rapid service restoration following disruption. As an exciting and vital opportunity, they will enable cities to better plan, mitigate and adapt for major longer-term change to ensure ongoing health and success of our communities and the natural environment we share. • • • • • • readiness/global-cities-ai-readiness- index-2019.html www.imda.gov.sg/infocomm-media- landscape/SGDigital/tech-pillars/ Artificial-Intelligence www.clc.gov.sg/research-publications/ publications/urban-systems-studies/ view/technology-and-the-city www.life.gov.sg www.openinnovation.sg/about www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/smart- cities/iso-37106-guide/ www.cdbb.cam.ac.uk/what-we-do/ national-digital-twin-programme Further reading: • www.imd.org/smart-city-observatory/ smart-city-index/ • www.oliverwymanforum.com/city- ABOUT THE AUTHORS Derek Murray, Digital Advisory Lead, Mott MacDonald; Chair, BritCham ICT Committee Penny Murphy, Head of Digital Transformation, Arcadis; Co-Chair, BritCham ICT Committee By partnering with clients and engaging with communities, Arcadis and Mott MacDonald achieve transformative results in creating liveable cities and making a positive impact on quality of life. Find out more about the BritCham ICT Committee here. COMMITTEE CONTENT ICT AND THE CITY - HOW DIGITAL IS UPSCALING FOR CITIZENS AND A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE