21
Recent Webinars
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 .
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 .
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