Bridging the Public and Private Sector with Government Data

• Date: 27 March 2013

Have you used apps like GoThere.SG to get to a certain place or WeatherLah to check weather forecasts before planning a picnic? Apps like these use government data that is available on a portal called data.gov.sg .

A key initiative under the eGov2015 masterplan , data.gov.sg was launched in June 2011 by the Ministry of Finance and IDA. The site currently features more than 8,200 publicly-available datasets from over 61 public agencies. Users can tap into selected datasets to create applications, conduct research or simply browse applications developed with the data.

The portal has made searching for government data much easier and convenient. In fact, users such as researchers and analysts now have a single location to find relevant data , such as information on public housing, weather and even primary school enrolment. In addition, the portal acts as a catalyst to spur the development of new applications and software.

What Kinds of Applications Utilise Government Data?

So far, over 110 applications have been created with the datasets and we anticipate more to come in the future.

BuUuk, a local company, built the WeatherLah mobile app that provides weather forecasts (i.e. rain, flood, PSI readings/alerts) using a combination of data from NEA and publicly crowd-sourced information. The app enables citizens to plan ahead for inclement weather and monitor air pollution levels on the move.

Outreach Efforts

However, data.gov.sg is more than just a website. Efforts have been put in place to organise events to spur demand for the government data and obtain feedback from the public.

For instance in, Jan 2012, we launched the ideas4apps Challenge – which offered the public an opportunity to submit ideas for developing apps using government data. The Challenge received over 700 creative ideas, such as "an application to alert where and when lightning will strike" and "an application to generate statistics on energy consumption". The 30 shortlisted ideas were then placed on a public voting platform where over 160,000 votes were cast to determine the winning idea.

Capitalising on the increased public interest in utilising government data and developing apps, IDA and MOF issued the "Harnessing Data for Value Creation" Call-for-Collaboration (CFC) in partnership with the Department of Statistics, Energy Market Authority, Health Promotion Board, Land Transport Authority, National Environment Agency, National Library Board, National Parks Board and Singapore Land Authority. The CFC, was an invitation to companies to submit proposals for innovative solutions that used government data.

Proposals were based on areas such as Business Planning, Conservation and Environment, Contextual Content, Connecting People, Healthy Lifestyle and Optimised Mobility. We received over 20 proposals and are currently in the midst of evaluating them.

So, What's Next?

Kicking off 2013 was the Google Plugfest International Programming competition - an open and international platform for both students and working individuals to build professional web applications using publicly-available data from data.gov.sg. This year's competition focus was on cloud and mobile technologies.

Other events planned for 2013 include a series of Hackathons and Application development competitions.

Through these activities that bring members of the public, government agencies and the private sector together, we aim to facilitate co-creation and catalyse the development of useful applications, to improve the way we live, work and interact in Singapore.

To view the publicly available datasets or to find out more about the various activities, please visit www.data.gov.sg .

Mr LO Yoong Khong
Director
Data Management and Analytics Division

---