iN2015 A Living Plan For Every Individual And Business In Singapore Power By Infocomm

Imagine, classes can take place in classrooms virtually without walls; Made-by-Singapore products will take prime shelf-space in the global market place;transacting with the Government is just a SMS away; while healthcare services here will offer patients faster and more accurate diagnoses with technology's aid.

Imagine life in Singapore greatly enriched by infocomm in 2015.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore's new 10-year masterplan, Intelligent Nation 2015, or iN2015, is aiming for that. The masterplan consists of an extensive line-up of activities and goals with benefits for everyone - people, businesses and the global community. The recommendations set out in the infocomm plan will transform the way people live, learn, work and play.

The roadmap paves the way forward, guided along by three themes - innovation, integration and internationalisation. The capacity to innovate with infocomm, whether it is a new item or a new way of doing something, must be a key differentiating capability of Singapore's economy. Success also rests on how well we can use infocomm as a bridge, to integrate resources and capabilities across organisations and geographies. For a small country like Singapore, going international should be part of every local organisation's business plan, aided by infocomm.

These themes will have a profound bearing on the Masterplan's promise of an infocomm-enabled future for everyone. Only through constant innovation, integration and internationalisation, can the following targets be achieved over the next ten years:

1. Singapore to be No.1 in the world in harnessing infocomm to add value to the economy and society
2. Achieve a two-fold increase in value-added of the iznfocomm industry to S$26 billion
3. See a three-fold increase in infocomm export revenue to S$60 billion
4. Create 80,000 additional jobs
5. Have at least 90 per cent of homes using broadband
6. Ensure 100 per cent computer ownership for all homes with school-going children

iN2015 was officially launched by Dr Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts at the start of the week-long Infocomm and Media Business Exchange (imbX), which also incorporates CommunicAsia 2006, iX2006 and EnterpriseIT 2006.

To achieve the targets, the masterplan outlined four strategies:

1. To spearhead the transformation of key economic sectors, government and society through more sophisticated and innovative use of infocomm;
2. To establish an ultra-high speed, pervasive, intelligent and trusted infocomm infrastructure;
3. To develop a globally competitive infocomm industry;
4. To develop an infocomm-savvy workforce and globally competitive infocomm manpower.

Dr Lee said at imbX: "The iN2015 Masterplan is not only about economic competitiveness. We will also be exploring ways to ensure that the elderly, less privileged and people with disability can also enjoy connected and enriched lives for self-improvement and life-long learning. This is to bridge the digital divide and create opportunities for all."

In harnessing infocomm technologies for key economic sectors, some important recommendations include the use of personalised services to enhance healthcare, education, tourism and e-government, as well as seamless delivery of financial services and supply-chain management. To develop a globally-competitive infocomm industry, initiatives are being worked out to strengthen the domain and technology capabilities within the industry. Local infocomm enterprises will be nurtured for expansion and growth beyond the domestic markets, and infocomm solutions geared for the global markets.

The plan will also be for the Government to develop a Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure, to cope with future needs for speed. Such needs will come from the growing use of bandwidth-intensive services and applications such as online communication, immersive-learning experiences, telemedicine, high-definition TV, grid computing. This next generation network will be ready by 2012. It will be capable of delivering broadband speeds up to 1 Gigabits per second, and offer pervasive connectivity around the country. It will also be IPv6-compliant, which offers greater security and many billions more addresses for the anticipated growth of networked devices.

iN2015 will also recommend ways to strengthen the Singapore infocomm industry so that it can compete more effectively internationally with innovative "Made-by-Singapore" products, services and solutions. One such marketable product is Singapore's e-Government offerings. In fact, Singapore will soon have an e-Government Leadership Centre for the training of industry and government personnel in this area. This centre, to be launched later this year, is a joint-effort between IDA, the National University of Singapore's Institute of Systems Science and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Finally, to ensure an infocomm-savvy and globally-competitive workforce, Singapore will nurture and develop infocomm talent to take on higher value-added activities such as creating infocomm solutions and R&D. The plan is to groom a pool of techno-strategists who have both the technical and business expertise to achieve business and organisational goals through the strategic and innovative use of infocomm.

Mr Chan Yeng Kit, Chief Executive of IDA said: "The Government, together with the industry, will pursue many of the recommendations from the iN2015 Steering Committee for Singapore's vision to be an intelligent nation and global city by 2015. IDA sees the iN2015 masterplan as a living plan that will evolve as we look into its implementation and respond to socio-economic and technology changes over the next 10 years."