MPAS: The aim is to help lower deployment costs and catalyse the adoption of innovative location-based technologies by retailers and business to improve customer engagement and business operations.

Consumers and retail businesses can look forward to new interactive experiences made possible through location analytics when projects awarded under the Mobile Positioning and Analytics Services (MPAS) Call for Collaboration (CFC) start to take off from the fourth quarter of this year.

This is just one example of technovation that is happening through innovation linkages between the public, private and people sectors. And there are many more in store, as the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) launches new collaborative initiatives such as the Enterprise Mobility Call for Proposals (CFP) and the Smart & Connected Jurong Lake Distract Pilots and Trials CFC.

The MPAS programme is an initiative by IDA to establish shared services for the provisioning of accurate indoor location positioning data and location-sensitive analytics. The aim is to help lower deployment costs and catalyse the adoption of innovative location-based technologies by retailers and business in order to improve customer engagement and business operations.

The MPAS CFC, which was launched in May last year, has been awarded to four consortia - StarHub and Changi Airport Group; Cold Storage, YFind and SangInfo; YFind and Perennial Real Estate; and YFind and Tangs.

Announcing this at the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation’s ICT Business Summit 2013, Mr Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer of IDA, said the four consortia will leverage location analytics to bring about new interactive experiences for consumers and retail businesses, such as indoor navigational features combined with targeted marketing. “Through analytical services, mall operators and retailers can also better understand their premises' traffic flow, crowd density and customer behaviour.”

IDA will also work closely with the consortia partners to jointly establish an Open Positioning Framework as a common standard of communication between different service providers, which will reduce the cost of future implementation in other venues, said Mr Tay.

IDA has also launched an Enterprise Mobility CFP aimed at catalysing the development of innovative and exportable enterprise mobility solutions. Under this initiative, incentive schemes will support selected local infocomm enterprises in the development of enterprise mobility solutions focusing on areas such as enabling a mobile workforce, field services automation, supply chain management and operations efficiency. The CFP, which closes on 26 July, is a multi-agency effort led by IDA, in collaboration with SPRING Singapore.

In another exciting development, IDA is working with other agencies to implement the Smart & Connected Jurong Lake District Pilots and Trials Call for Collaboration (JLD CFC) in Jurong Lake District, one of the new growth areas identified in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Master Plan 2008. Announcing this, Mr Tay noted that ICT can enable Singapore to address complex challenges as a global city through practical and efficient solutions. “We need to adopt an approach that is based on experimentation and risk-taking to enable the development and piloting of new concepts,” he said.

The JLD CFC, a multi-party collaboration with the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore Economic Development Board and other government agencies, seeks to provide a platform for the industry to demonstrate their solutions to urban challenges, and offers government agencies an opportunity to test out innovative solutions before deploying them nationwide.

“The idea is to develop a smart, connected and sustainable district where pervasive ICT connectivity and real-time large data collection will lead to greater awareness and insights, translating into improved liveability for residents and more efficient operations and informed planning for agencies and organisations,” said IDA.