The infocomm sector is a key contributor to Singapore's economy, with revenues growing 12.2 per cent from 2009 to reach S$70.39 billion in 2010. Given the limited size of the Singapore domestic market, the export segment plays a key role in fuelling this growth. Over three consecutive years, export revenues have continued to rise, accounting for 66.2 per cent of total infocomm revenues in 2010, compared with 64.5 per cent in 2009 and 60.7 per cent in 2008. To sustain this momentum, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has embarked on various efforts to help Singapore infocomm companies make inroads into overseas markets.

Going international
IDA launched iSTART@Silicon Valley (iSTART@SV) in 2010, an “in-market accelerator programme”, which is an intensive introductory programme that fast-tracks Singapore start-ups’ foray into the United States. In 2011, ten new companies participated in the bootcamp-cum-networking programme to gain an in-depth understanding of business-related issues in the United States (US) as well as the opportunity to undergo a series of pitching and mentoring sessions from successful founders of US start-ups and connect to various industry partners and organisations. In October 2011, five companies had also participated in a similar programme for Vietnam, iSTART@Vietnam.

The iSTART programme has given us a much broader perspective of infocomm sector challenges and how our company should develop, position and market our solution when we go international. The social, cultural and business interactions from the programme have set me thinking about how a Singapore company should move forward to stay ahead in the field of information technology. We should have more of such programmes to support the local start-ups as well as assist the local companies in planting their flag across the world.

- Mr Jimmy Tan, Managing Director of GSA Technology Group, which provides open source and Web 2.0 solutions for the education sector

IDA has also led Singapore infocomm companies in making their presence felt in international events. An example was the participation of six local infocomm companies in the 11th World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention (WCEC) to explore business opportunities within Chinese business communities around the world. The WCEC, a biennial gathering of Chinese entrepreneurs from across the globe, was held in Singapore in October 2011 and attracted about 4,000 delegates from 32 countries.

Another strategy to help the Singapore infocomm industry extend its reach overseas involves IDA subsidiary IDA International, which serves as the execution arm for all collaborations on public service infocomm between Singapore and countries around the world. As part of its charter, IDA International also hopes to expose the local ICT industry to the global landscape and offer a platform where they can venture overseas in a more coherent, integrated fashion.

"Many of our companies are small and medium-sized, each with a different specialty. It is important that we all work together and create a loose federation of companies, with a proven track record. This will enhance the competitive advantage of our local companies."

- Mr Seah Chin Siong, Chief Executive Officer, IDA International

Building knowledge networks
Networking and the sharing of experiences and expertise are some ways in which the local infocomm community can identify opportunities for growth, understand the challenges that lie ahead and how best they can prepare themselves to meet those challenges.

One major platform for this is the annual Infocomm Industry Forum jointly organised by IDA and the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation. The 2011 forum in October brought together over 400 participants from the public and private sectors to share their views on the theme “Innovating in a New Converging World”.

IDA also creates opportunities for the local infocomm industry to interact with thought leaders and entrepreneurs through programmes such as the Distinguished Infocomm Speaker series as well as Infocomm LIVE!, which is targetted at entrepreneurs, industry professionals, researchers and students.

"The current business model sees the need to have domain references like publishing, financial services, media, insurance and IT services. All that is completely changed with digitalisation… Digitalisation redefines what industry you are in and changes geographical boundaries."

- Mr Vineet Nayar, Chief Executive Officer, HCL Technologies, sharing his views on digitalisation at the Distinguished Infocomm Speaker presentation

"Being an entrepreneur involves selling all the time. You have to sell your idea to your co-founders and employees. Even in difficult times, you have to be the one who believes in it."

- Mr Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Kazaa and Skype, talking about entrepreneurship at the 2011 Infocomm LIVE! event

Creating buzz
A thriving community of local and foreign technopreneurs and the presence of well-established IT MNCs have combined to create a vibrant infocomm environment in Singapore.

Within the start-ups space, IDA’s goal is to create a vibrant ecosystem that provides opportunities for all players, including local and foreign start-ups, investors, venture capitalists and talents. It does this through programmes such as iSTART as well as the Infocomm Business & Engineering Start-up Programme (iBEST) and the Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme (TECS), which is jointly administered by SPRING Singapore. iBEST is aimed at global venture capital-backed start-ups looking to base engineering activities in Singapore while TECS is for local early stage infocomm start-ups seeking funding for the development and commercialisation of innovative technologies and business ideas. IDA also provides support through its subsidiary, Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd.

"The IDA/TECS support has enabled us to undertake the R&D to develop a system management appliance – NumaManager Appliance – to better manage Numascale's NumaConnect peta-scale shared memory systems. We showcased NumaManager in Supercomputing 2011 in the US and this has led to a major OEM contract with a server contractor. Our focus is to provide large-memory configuration systems for solving big-data problems in areas of life sciences, finance and analytics."

- Mr Laurence Liew, Chief Executive Officer, OneDegreeNorth

"KAI Square is an innovative company specialising in providing high-tech surveillance and monitoring solutions. With the support of IDA and TECS, KAI Square has successfully expanded our business development regionally and globally."

- Mr Neo Shiyong, Founder, KAI Square

Complementing the community of start-ups and niche players are industry heavyweights that have continued to make significant investments in Singapore in 2011.

In December 2011, IBM opened its Global Services Integration Hub in Singapore to spearhead the development and adoption of a new model for the IT services industry that makes use of reusable solutions to reduce the time needed to build its systems and infrastructure. The hub, one of two such facilities worldwide, is the second major investment in Singapore in 2011 for IBM. In April, it opened a US$38 million data centre to provide businesses with solutions and services to harness the potential of cloud computing.

"The World Bank, in its 2011 Doing Business Report, ranked Singapore as the world's easiest place to do business. Singapore was also ranked first in the world by the World Economic Forum for having the best protection of intellectual property. And BERI has, for 16 consecutive years, ranked Singapore No. 2 worldwide with the best investment potential. These global rankings recognise Singapore as a world-class city."

- Ms Cordelia Chung, Regional General Manager, IBM ASEAN, on the reasons why IBM chose to site its IBM Global Services Integration Hub (East) in Singapore

Indeed, the data centre scene has been a busy one in 2011. Data centre operator Digital Realty Trust went live with its first facility in the Asia Pacific – located in International Business Park in Jurong - in the second quarter of 2011, while hosting services company SoftLayer Technologies also announced its presence in the region with the opening of a new data centre in Singapore in October.

With Singapore set to become the data centre hub for the Asia-Pacific region, the Government has established a standard that provides a framework and methodology for data centres to achieve energy efficiency. Called the Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres – Energy and Environmental Management Systems (SS564:2010), the certifiable management system was announced at the Green Data Centre Forum on 31 March 2011.

"Becoming a Green Data Centre has always been top on our priority. The SS 540:2008 Certification or Green Data Centre - Energy and Environmental Management System has been instrumental to us in fulfilling our commitment to customers. As we go along our green journey, we will incorporate these Green Best Practices in our daily data centre operation to reduce costs, further improve our product and service offerings."

- Mr Yow Tau Keon, Managing Director of 1-Net Singapore, one of the first organisations to adopt the Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres