Friday, 3 September 2010
About | Contact Us | Careers | Feed
Advertisement
Follow us on Twitter 
| Join us on 
Editors
Robin Hicks is the editor of FutureGov. He took on the role in February 2009, and manages the content of the print magazine and website as well as help steer their editorial direction. Prior to FutureGov, Robin was Southeast Asia editor of Haymarket’s Media magazine, which covers the Asia Pacific media and marketing industries.
A passionate advocate of environmental and social sustainability, he launched Asia’s first special report on the implications of sustainability for Asian marketers when he moved to the region in 2006. He introduced a similar report to Campaign magazine in the UK two years previously.
A zoology graduate turned journalist, Robin’s first published work was a research paper on the escape response of Xenopus laevis (a South American toad), which ran in the Journal of experimental biology in 2000. He has written for various publications including Business Times, Power and TV Asia. Robin is a long-suffering follower of West Ham United FC.
2 September 2010 | News
India targets Google and Skype on data security
First BlackBerry. Now Google and Skype. The government of India not only wants BlackBerry to build data centres within its borders so that its intelligence agencies can more easily monitor communications. It wants Google and Skype to do the same.
31 August 2010 | News
Australia's open govt data drive
The economic value of government information can increase four-fold within a year if it is made freely available to public. Its social value could increase by even more. So thinks Peter Harper, Chief Operating Officer of Australia’s Bureau of Statistics, who says that public services are on the “cusp of a revolution” driven by open government data.
31 August 2010 | News
Singapore govt's answer to YouTube
In March this year, Singapore launched its own version of YouTube. Government agencies can now upload videos on to a site that gives them copyright ownership and a controlled environment. In an interview with FutureGov, the Infocomm Development Authority also revealed how using the cloud has saved the government US$4000 a month per video.
30 August 2010 | News
Philippines' new govt ICT chief on challenges ahead
Ivan Uy, the newly appointed Chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology in the Philippines, has revealed his priorities in an interview with FutureGov. The CICT’s future has been in doubt since before the general elections in May, when a bill to create a full-fledged department of ICT was thrown out by congress.
25 August 2010 | News
Competition heats up for FutureGov Awards
An application system that could save Australian businesses US$4.4 million. A Thai e-business registry that validates 1000 applicants in a year. Remote sensors that could conserve water for 400,000 households in India. Just three of the nominations that will test the judges at the 2010 FutureGov Awards in October.
24 August 2010 | News
The world’s most sustainable city?
Imagine a city powered almost entirely by the sun. A city in which smart homes use energy only when it is needed, where driverless electric cars ferry passengers to work in low-emission buildings, and where healthcare, education, public safety and transport systems ‘talk’ to each other, getting people to hospital quicker and children to school on time. Could this city be in Asia?
23 August 2010 | News
E-elections put to vote in Australia and Indonesia
The government of Australia, currently in the throes of a general election, is toying with the idea of automated polling for the next election, an Australian Electoral Commission official has told FutureGov. Meanwhile Indonesia has revealed plans to introduce electronic voting in time for the country’s next presidential election in 2014.
23 August 2010 | News
Malaysia’s cyber defences ready for Independence Day
There is one week to go before Hari Medeka, Malaysia’s Independence Day celebrations (August 31st), which last year were blighted by attacks by Indonesian hackers on Malaysian web sites. In an interview with FutureGov, the head of national security agency CyberSecurity Malaysia revealed how the government has been securing its cyber borders.
17 August 2010 | News
HK govt puts cloud to the test
Hong Kong’s Office of the Government Chief Information Officer has said that while cloud computing could have “profound implications” for how government procures IT, “major issues” stand in the way of adoption.
16 August 2010 | News
Uneven progress for anti-poverty push
In an interview with FutureGov, Malaysia’s Prime Minister’s Department has said that geographical and logistical constraints are hampering the government’s anti-poverty campaign in the east of the country, and its mission to completely eradicate hardcore poverty by December 2010 may not be achievable.
16 August 2010 | News
Is Facebook suitable for govt transactions?
Last week, an airline in the United States became the first company to allow customers to book directly through its Facebook page. Will citizens soon be able to transact directly with government on social media? In interviews with FutureGov, officials in Indonesia, Australia and Singapore say that despite data security concerns, some government transactions on Facebook or Twitter will very soon be possible.
10 August 2010 | News
School ICT project on track
Despite a change in government following a general election in May, the Philippines’ iSchools Project is on course to computerise 1000 public schools across the archipelago. Project Manager Toni Torres said that while incoming regime would mean new priorities, she was confident the project would meet its target.
6 August 2010 | News
BlackBerry data encryption in Asia
After a jittery week for Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry, the Indonesian government has said that it will not ban the popular device. But what about governments elsewhere around the world?
3 August 2010 | News
Ex-US GCIO warns on cloud security
In an interview with FutureGov, a former United States cabinet-level government CIO said that policymakers in Asia are right to be cautious about cloud computing, and should think carefully about the risks they are taking before they take the plunge.
30 July 2010 | Feature
The Philippines’ e-election miracle
The critics said the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen. And they were very nearly right. But once the dust had settled on May 11th 2010, observers were hailing the Philippines’ first e-election as a ‘miracle’.
30 July 2010 | News
How useful is Twitter’s government service?
The news that Twitter will launch a service for public servants has been met with interest from prominent tweeting officials in Asia. However, Trudy Rankin, CIO of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, told FutureGov that government business should not be dictated to by the popular micro-blogging site.
28 July 2010 | News
Australia’s GCIO talks tough at FutureGov Forum
Australia’s Government Chief Information Officer, Ann Steward, urged civil servants to become “Gov 2.0 activists” at the FutureGov Forum Australia this week (Tuesday 27th July). She also had strong words for government agencies on the accessibility of their online services.
22 July 2010 | News
Singapore’s labour dept cuts office visits by 75%
Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower has reduced the number of daily visitors to its offices to submit documents by 75 per cent through the introduction an electronic document submission system.
22 July 2010 | News
Social networks: Indonesia's fifth estate?
Social networks in Indonesia have become the country’s “fifth estate” - they are shaping democracy and policymaking. So says the commissioner of the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (BRTI), Heru Sutardi, who points to recent cases of where Indonesians have used social networks to amass public support and pressure governments.
22 July 2010 | News
Mobile security risks for the public sector
According to a survey published this week, the biggest digital security concerns among Asian citizens relate to their mobile devices. In an interview with FutureGov, a leading academic has urged governments to do more to educate citizens and public sector workers on the importance of information security on mobile devices.
21 July 2010 | News
Seoul tops global cities ranking for e-govt
The South Korean capital of Seoul is the world’s most advanced municipal e-government, according to a global survey of city web sites. The “Soul of Asia” topped the UN-sponsored table ahead of Prague, Hong Kong, New York and Singapore on the usability, content, services, privacy and inclusiveness of its online operations.
6 July 2010 | News
Should internet access be a basic human right?
How valuable to human life is information? Well, in Finland it is now a basic human right - like food, shelter or clean water. Every citizen and business in the home of Nokia should - by law – be granted access to broadband internet services, the government decreed on July 1st 2010. Should Asia follow suit?
4 July 2010 | Interview
Chongqing Mayor reveals plans to combat economic crisis
In an interview with FutureGov last week, the Mayor of Chongqing, a metropolis of 32 million people in southwest China, shared his plans to tackle what he sees as the city’s biggest challenge: sustaining a rocketing economy and managing a widening income gap between urban rich and rural poor.
1 July 2010 | News
China info chief hails smart city project
Guangzhou is investing RMB100 million (US$15 million) annually in new technologies as part of a plan to develop into a ‘smart’ city. The ‘Intelligent Guangzhou’ project will see ‘internet of things’ applications designed, manufactured and deployed across the city - China’s third largest - with a major roll-out expected by 2013.
29 June 2010 | Research
Sharing in govt: HK Vs Singapore
It’s good to share. But in government, sharing information between departments is not always easy, as a FutureGov Research report reveals.
28 June 2010 | News
India’s e-driver’s licence project hits 10m
In what has been billed as the largest project of its kind of the world, the government of India has passed the 10 million mark for issuing electronic driver’s licences. Of the country’s 110 million drivers, nine per cent have now been registered with electronic driving certificates, according to Gemalto, a digital security firm involved in the project.
22 June 2010 | News
Open data guru urges govts to let go
One of the architects of the Obama Administration’s technology policy has hailed open data as a means to usher in a new era for accountability, collaboration and innovation in the public sector. But he insisted that for open data to live up to its promise, governments must learn to “let go” and embrace a culture of openness and accountability.
21 June 2010 | News
Lessons from the Philippines’ first e-election
Although the US$155 million project was fraught with technical difficulties and controversy, the Philippines’ first computerised election has been hailed an historic success. FutureGov caught up with the Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Commission on Elections, Ray Roxas-Chua, to ask how Asia’s first democracy could go one better next time round.
21 June 2010 | News
Are cancer maps a good idea?
The New York State Department of Health recently launched a series of ‘cancer maps’ which allow users to view incidences of cancer in a given geographical area. These maps, which are freely available online, are not without controversy. Could the idea work in Asia?
17 June 2010 | News
South Korea and Singapore sign e-government pact
Two of Asia’s biggest exporters of e-government systems, South Korea and Singapore, have struck a deal to share ideas and lessons learned on e-government service delivery and strategy. The memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed June 16th 2010, will see the two countries collaborate on e-government projects and support…
10 June 2010 | News
Singapore’s healthcare IT journey: lessons learned
The head of IT for Singapore’s healthcare institutions has revealed the lessons she has learned in implementing new projects. Speaking at the FutureHealth Forum yesterday (9th May 2010), Dr Chong Yoke Sin, CEO of Integrated Health Information Systems, said that patient safety is the most powerful argument to get buy-in from clinicians.
7 June 2010 | News
Asia dominates global spam league
More than one third of the world’s spam originates from Asia, with India, South Korea and Vietnam in the top-five worst offending countries. However, spam coming from China has dramatically reduced, according to a Sophos report.
7 June 2010 | News
UN reveals changes to E-Government rankings
In an interview with FutureGov, the director of the United Nations E-Government rankings has revealed how the next survey will be modified to stay up to date with emerging trends.
31 May 2010 | News
Should civil servants be paid by performance?
Civil servants have a reputation for complacency at work, and doing only the bare minimum to get by to keep their jobs. Unfair? Probably. With this in mind, FutureGov asked senior public sector modernisers in China, India, Malaysia and Singapore if they think civil servants should be paid by performance.
31 May 2010 | News
Public sector network management - improving?
Some good news and some bad news. Education and healthcare institutions in Asia are managing the lifecycle of their IT assets more efficiently, and are getting better at making their systems more secure. But configuration errors, such as faulty encryption settings or incompatible device drivers, are an area the public sector did not improve on over the past year, according to a survey by Datacraft.
24 May 2010 | News
Facebook warns govt users on privacy
More than 2000 Facebook pages are used by 35 federal agencies in the United States. Many more government agencies in Asia are now on Facebook, amassing millions of fans. But government Facebookers should be mindful of privacy issues when archiving content, a Facebook spokesman has cautioned in an interview with FutureGov.
21 May 2010 | News
World City Prize winner revealed
The inaugural Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize has been awarded to Bilbao. The Spanish city famous for the Guggenheim art museum was picked from 78 nominations from 32 countries for a “knowledge revolution” that transformed a fading post-industrial city into a vibrant culture and business hub.
18 May 2010 | News
OECD plots next generation e-govt indicators
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has entered talks with the producers of the major global e-government surveys with a view to launching new e-government indicators that focus on public sector performance.
17 May 2010 | News
The Philippines hails election automation a success
Critics said the Philippines’ first automated election was certain to fail. But on May 11th, the day after the country’s presidential, vice presidential and senatorial elections saw more than 53 million Filipinos vote using 76,347 Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, the process was declared the cleanest, fastest, and most orderly election yet.
12 May 2010 | News
Role of ICT in education debated at FutureCampus
Is technology driving teaching, or teaching driving technology? This question was at the centre of debate among Asia’s leading educators at the FutureCampus Forum in Singapore last week (Wednesday 12th May 2010).
11 May 2010 | News
Singapore reveals US$800m ICT procurement plans
The Singapore government has unveiled plans to spend S$1.1 billion (US$800 million) on ICT in the 2010 financial year, with a new government portal and a revamped road monitoring system among the 350 government ICT projects in the pipeline.
11 May 2010 | News
World Bank opens up development data
The World Bank is the latest information-rich organisation to free up its data for public consumption. The portal data.worldbank.org will give policymakers access to more than 2000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics, information that was previously exclusive to paying subscribers.
7 May 2010 | News
Singapore automates Youth Olympics
Two thousand computers, 170 servers and 500 network devices will be deployed in 18 competition venues to serve 26 sporting events, 5000 athletes, 1200 press, 20,000 volunteers, and an estimated 500,000 spectators when the Singapore Youth Olympics get underway in 13 weeks time.
4 May 2010 | News
ADB urges developing govts to engage private sector
The Asian Development Bank has called on governments in developing countries to create more opportunities for the private sector to “turn the digital divide into a digital opportunity” to aid the fight against poverty.
4 May 2010 | News
Why the Philippines needs a GCIO
Without a Government Chief Information Officer and an IT department with clout, the Philippines will be left behind the rest of Asia in terms of the efficiency and accountability of its government. So says the head of the Chief Information Officers Forum, a foundation set up to promote ICT-led governance in the archipelago.
28 April 2010 | News
How govts are making sense of social media
Social media presents government with a headache-inducing glut of unstructured data from which it is difficult to make any sense. But as governments in Australia, Hong Kong and Europe reveal in interviews with FutureGov, analytics tools that trawl blogs and social networks are helping to test public sentiment and shape policy with increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
27 April 2010 | Feature
Can mobiles close the digital divide?
Everyone in the world above the age of five is expected to own a mobile phone within the next decade. So how can and will governments in Asia use these ubiquitous devices to deliver services to its poorest citizens?
20 April 2010 | News
A statistician’s approach to data management
The Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University is studying the relationship between the well being of students and their academic performance at school. Tan Teck Kiang, Research Associate at the centre, revealed the challenges of making sense of large, complex data sets in an interview with FutureGov.
20 April 2010 | News
Washington fraud-busters turn to social analytics
Faced with a US$1.8 billion budget deficit plus staff cuts and pay freezes in the civil service, losing millions to fraud is the last thing the state of Washington needs. In an interview with FutureGov in Seattle last week, fraud detection agents from Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) revealed how social networking business analytics is curbing the rise of compensation cheats.
20 April 2010 | News
What role will govt play in social web of the future?
In the not too distant future, a new generation of social media will be administered by virtual civil servants and patrolled by cyber sheriffs. Highly evolved versions of Second Life, where netizens meet, trade, and play, will also become places where policy is debated and decided. Sound fanciful? Well, this is the way the world is headed, predicts futurist and author Thornton May.
11 April 2010 | News
Why gov 2.0 calls for risk managers
If governments are to use social media more effectively, they must learn to operate in environments over which they have no control. In interviews with FutureGov, government modernisers from Hong Kong, Australia and the UK said that the “wild west” of web 2.0 calls for a new approach to risk management.
11 April 2010 | News
Singapore heritage game replaces fantasy with facts
Singapore’s National Heritage Board is launching an online game in the style of the multiplayer epic World of Warcraft to encourage learning in a context popular with young people. Replacing fantasy with facts, World of Temasek, which is set in 14th century Singapore, gets players hunting for ‘real’ historical artifacts that can be found in museums locally.
9 April 2010 | News
Korea exports e-government model to Japan
One hundred years after South Korea adopted Japan’s administrative system under colonial rule, Korea has struck an historic deal to sell its e-government model to Japan. In an interview with FutureGov, a leading Korean academic in public administration said the deal marked a shift for Korea “from playing catch-up to leading the way” for e-government in East Asia.
8 April 2010 | News
Do the benefits of open govt data outweigh the costs?
“Data belongs to the people, particularly that held by the public sector,” Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said recently. But putting government data online is not without risks. FutureGov asked officials in Singapore - which launched an open data initiative last week - South Korea, the UK and the Netherlands whether they feel that the benefits of open government data outweigh the costs.
5 April 2010 | News
Singapore launches smart map portal
Sixteen government agencies in Singapore have joined forces to launch an intelligent online map portal. Built using web 2.0 technologies, ‘OneMap’ enables government agencies, citizens and businesses to mash-up geospatial data for their own purposes. The S$2.2 million (US$1.8 million) project is the first major product of the Singapore Geospatial Collaborative Environment (SG-SPACE) initiative, a whole-of-government push to spur innovation using map-based information.
5 April 2010 | News
Are civil servants cut out for social media?
Most senior civil servants are Baby Boomers or Generation Xers, born at a time without the internet. But does this mean that web communities are too ‘young’ for top officials to operate in effectively? In interviews with FutureGov, government officials from Australia, Malaysia and the UK argue that although civil servants may not feel comfortable using social media to reach young citizens, the rewards are worth the risks.
29 March 2010 | News
Philippines confident in looming e-elections
In an interview with FutureGov in Manila last week, Jose Melo, Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), said he is confident that the technology used for the Philippines’ first-ever computerised election will hold firm when 50 million Filipinos head for the polls on May 10th, and that much opposition to automation has come from those who “no longer know how to cheat.”
23 March 2010 | News
Singapore bolsters cyber defences
Singapore is boosting the defences of its online critical infrastructure. Policy changes, technical controls and competency building measures will roll out this year in response to a growing cyber security threat that has seen South Korea and the United States hit by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in the last 12 months.
19 March 2010 | News
Will Facebook profiles replace govt web sites?
It’s all the rage for ministries and agencies to have a Facebook pages these days. Government is going where its citizens are. So why bother having a web site at all? The idea may seem farfetched. But as officials from Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Netherlands reveal in interviews with FutureGov, government web sites could disappear into the ‘social cloud’ sooner than we think.
18 March 2010 | Feature
Unlocking efficiency at Changi Prison
The doors of Singapore’s maximum security correctional facility were unlocked for Robin Hicks and Kelly Ng to find out how technology has made one of Asia’s most high-tech jails more secure and efficient.
17 March 2010 | News
India’s govt performance guru delivers key speech
It is nine months since the Government of India announced a plan to overhaul the way it measures how well it is serving the public. The man behind that plan is Dr Prajapati Trivedi, a former economist at the World Bank and now the Indian government’s Chief Performance Officer, who will reveal how India is living up to its performance …
12 March 2010 | News
How government web sites build citizen trust
Government modernisers in Asia and Europe have stressed the importance of building transparent official web sites as a way to boost citizen trust. In interviews with FutureGov, public sector experts from Singapore and the Netherlands said that more needs to be done to make information on government web sites more accessible, timely and searchable if closer ties are to be built with netizens.
9 March 2010 | News
OGCIO reveals 2010 priorities at FutureGov Forum HK
Hong Kong’s Government Chief Information Officer Jeremy Godfrey laid out his department’s plans for this year and beyond at the FutureGov Forum Hong Kong this week (Tuesday, March 9th 2010). Joined-up government, driving greater efficiencies, exploiting opportunities of cloud and social computing, and using IT to tackle climate change will be the “big five policy drivers” for Godfrey’s team in 2010.
8 March 2010 | News
Are mobile devices secure enough for govt services?
More than 50 per cent of electronic government services are now delivered on mobile phones in South Korea, the world’s most advanced mobile telephony market. But are mobile devices secure enough to support government services? In an interview with FutureGov, Professor Cheol Oh, a member of the Presidential Committee for …
3 March 2010 | News
Singapore overhauls free wireless service
The Singapore government has revamped its free, nationwide wireless internet service Wireless@SG to give citizens and businesses faster and easier access to the internet. It is hoped that the service – which will be free until 2013 - will boost innovation and business activity as the island nation’s economy emerges from recession.
1 March 2010 | News
Citizens of Asia speak out on ID cards
In the run-up to the launch of the biggest citizen identity project ever attempted, privacy concerns are playing a defining role in the Unique Identification Authority of India’s plans to issue 1.2 billion people with their own ID number. With this in mind, FutureGov quizzed citizens in Asia for a regional snapshot of what people really think about ID cards.
1 March 2010 | News
UN defends relevance of e-government rankings
The United Nations has refuted suggestions that its E-government Survey has lost relevance in an era of increasingly diverse e-government ecosystems. The survey’s director, Haiyan Qian, told FutureGov that the rankings continue to serve as a guide to more efficient, open and transparent governance, and help public sector modernisers “put money in the right places” and avoid commonly made mistakes.
23 February 2010 | Feature
Malaysia banks on ICT to meet 2020 development goals
Malaysia’s Government CIO has hailed ICT as a “key enabler” to fulfil Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s mission to transform Malaysia into a developed nation by 2020. Speaking at the FutureGov Forum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday (23rd February 2010), Dr Nor Aliah Zahri, Government CIO and Deputy Director General of the Malaysian …
21 February 2010 | News
Korea hails California’s govt IT strategy
The South Korean government’s Director of Green IT has described the government of California’s plan to cut the energy its IT operations use by 30 per cent by 2012 as “very aggressive” as Korea embarks on its own mission to reduce energy consumption from 40 ministries and agencies by 15 per cent by 2013.
9 February 2010 | News
Interpol rebuffs calls for web police
Calls for the creation of an internet police force to tackle unprecedented levels of cyber crime have been rebuffed by the director of IT at Interpol in an interview with FutureGov. Noboru Nakatani, Director for Information Systems and Technology for the global police network Interpol said that setting up a net police would be “reinventing the wheel” and the …
9 February 2010 | News
Should govts archive social media posts?
It is fashionable for government agencies to have a Facebook or Twitter account these days. But should tweets and status updates be backed up to leave a digital trail for transparency’s sake? Not all policymakers have made their minds up, as perspectives from the United States, Europe and Asia reveal in interviews with FutureGov.
9 February 2010 | News
Privacy concerns shape biggest ID project ever
The government of India hopes to have given half of the country’s residents an identification number within four years of the launch of the most ambitious project of its kind ever attempted. The Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) Director General Ram Sharma told FutureGov that the UID project, which is expected to roll out around October this year, will see 600 million residents registered with a unique identity number by 2014, if all goes according to plan.
9 February 2010 | News
Philippine govt ICT agency’s future in doubt
A week after a bill to create a fully-fledged Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) in the Philippines was thrown out by Congress, the future of the current agency responsible for IT hangs in the balance. As President Gloria Arroyo’s administration makes way ahead of elections in May, the Commission on Information and …
5 February 2010 | News
Tweeting officials warned about security risks
Tweeting government officials with Facebook pages and LinkedIn accounts beware. The volume of spam and malware sent via social networking sites increased by 70 per cent last year, with MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all falling victim to rising levels of malicious activity in 2009. Of them all, Facebook poses the biggest risk to security, according to a survey by cyber security firm Sophos.
2 February 2010 | News
Corruption rises among HK govt officials
Corruption among government officials in Hong Kong rose considerably during the global financial crisis, although not by as much as was expected, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has told FutureGov. Corruption complaints made against government departments jumped by 11 per cent in 2009, but the number of pursuable cases rose by just four per cent, according to ICAC figures.
27 January 2010 | News
Gov 2.0 championed at FutureGov Forum Singapore
Government modernisers from South Korea and Europe urged delegates at the FutureGov Forum Singapore today (Wednesday 27, 2010) to be bold in embracing social media and open information as ways to help solve society’s problems. Dr Jung-hee Song, Assistant Mayor for IT and Chief Information Officer, Seoul Metropolitan Government, pointed to …
26 January 2010 | News
Politicians ponder what’s next at FutureGov Forum
Elected politicians from Hong Kong and Singapore shared their perspectives on the future of governance and public service delivery at the FutureGov Forum in Singapore today. Zaqy Mohamad, Member of Parliament & Chairman for the Government Parliamentary Committee for Singapore’s Ministry of Information Communication and the Arts, told delegates that while his country has always …
25 January 2010 | News
Time running out for Philippine govt IT agency
A bill to create a Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) in the Philippines, which has been pending in the national legislative for almost a decade, has just a few days to be passed before Congress is adjourned in time for general elections in May. Ray Roxas-Chua (pictured), Chairman of the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), told FutureGov that the bill faced “an uphill battle” to win the attention of Filipino lawmakers.
25 January 2010 | News
Appeal for billion-dollar e-governance project in India
A development programme director for India’s poorest regions has called on foreign and domestic service-providers to help with a local government capacity building exercise for an area that covers 40 per cent of the country. Sudhir Krishna, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, told FutureGov that the 1000 crore rupees (US$217 million) project needed best-of-breed providers to ensure its success. Another project, known as e-Panchayat, will see around 4500 crore rupees (US$978 million) spent on improving service delivery at the village level.
20 January 2010 | News
Korea tops UN recession-time e-govt rankings
South Korea has led the world in how governments have used ICT to give citizens and businesses better access to public services during the economic downturn, according to a United Nations survey. Korea edged out the United States in the 2010 UN E-Government rankings, marking the first time an Asian country has topped the bi-annual table.
19 January 2010 | Interview
What are government’s security weak spots?
Microsoft’s global public safety and national security head Tim Bloechl has a Facebook account, but doesn’t trust social media as a reliable source of intelligence. Not yet anyway. When confronted with a threat to public safety, dealing with it should be second nature. So says Tim Bloechl, Microsoft’s Managing Director for Worldwide Public Safety and National Security.
19 January 2010 | Feature
Government Cloud: Public or Private?
Asia‘s first ever public sector summit on cloud computing suggested that the economics of cloud computing trumped other concerns - but that private clouds would be the necessary first stepping stone to prove the technology could deliver.
13 January 2010 | News
Asian govts eye gains from setting data free
More of the huge reserves of information locked away in the basements of government buildings should be made available to the public. So say government modernisers in Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia following the news that the Mayor of London has sparked an “information revolution” in the British capital by putting data online for public consumption for the first time, free of charge.
13 January 2010 | News
Vietnam e-govt scam case prompts procurement rethink
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has urged developing countries to embrace transparency and accountability in their procurement practices following the news that a former Vietnamese deputy minister faces corruption charges over the failed e-government venture Project 21.
7 January 2010 | Feature
Moving from planning to impact
Government is back, and it is not going away anytime soon. Following a tumultuous 12 months in which governments throughout the region had dramatically increased their role within national economies, the 132 delegates to the FutureGov Summit, Asia’s annual gathering of senior government officials, took time out of the busy schedules to share what had worked well, and lay out their plans for the future of public administration.
4 January 2010 | News
Agency walls too high for US Cyber Security Czar?
Howard Schmidt, the newly appointed United States Cyber Security Coordinator, faces the daunting challenge of ensuring that different government agencies cooperate on cyber security issues, a senior government official has told FutureGov.
4 January 2010 | News
Singapore and China forge public sector training alliance
China and Singapore have struck a deal that will see the two governments share their experiences in public administration and training. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed by China’s State Administration of Foreign Experts (SAFEA) and Singapore’s Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) at the …
22 December 2009 | News
Korea to launch e-gov services via IPTV
The government of South Korea has hatched a plan to make e-services available on the country’s IPTV platforms in the capital, Seoul, by early next year. Public information such as tender notices will be provided in real-time through IPTV channels from March 2010, with services such as civil petitions and tax payments to follow at a later stage.
16 December 2009 | News
Sri Lanka introduces ICT to dairy farmers
Web and mobile technologies have been introduced such that Sri Lanka’s dairy farmers can achieve self-sufficiency in milk production.
19 November 2009 | News
Asians split on the future role of government
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and just as the global economy begins to recover from a painful downturn, Asian citizens have mixed feelings on whether government should have more control over industry and the distribution of wealth, according to a global BBC poll.
17 November 2009 | News
Yahoo! CEO trumpets the power of blogging
Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz told an audience of Asian business leaders and government officials last week that specialist blogging is the “ultimate targeting” for reaching audiences young and old, and called the mobile phone the “new frontier” in communication for government.
2 November 2009 | Feature
Improving tax collection efficiency in Asia
The pressure on government to efficiently deliver services has probably never been greater. Such is life for governments during downturns. Systems are under stress. And yet extracting tax revenue from citizens and businesses to fund huge economic stimulus packages has probably never been more difficult.
27 October 2009 | News
Security officials ponder use of social media
Government officials from Australia and Singapore have admitted that there is much to be done to understand how social media can be used to gather intelligence on security matters from the public, at a security event organised by FutureGov in Singapore last week.
23 October 2009 | News
'Govt 2.0 should come with health warning'
Governments need to be more wary of the security risks posed by the consumerisation of the internet and the changing working habits of the public sector work force. So senior executives at global cyber security firms have warned civil servants in interviews with FutureGov.
21 October 2009 | Interview
Reflections of a government CIO
Laurence Millar was one of the longest serving GCIOs in Asia before he resigned in April. The former New Zealand government IT supremo talks Robin Hicks through the ups and downs of his tenure, and the lessons he learned along the way
21 October 2009 | News
Singapore forges new e-gov deal with Oman
Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority has struck a new deal with the Information Technology Authority of Oman (ITA) to further develop the Sultanate’s e-government infrastructure.
14 October 2009 | News
IMPACT boss warns of long struggle with cyber crime
Datuk Mohd Noor Amin, the Chairman of the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats, or IMPACT, has warned governments of the “long-term struggle” with cyber criminality and the need for international cooperation to fight it.
13 October 2009 | Interview
Malaysia's moderniser
Datuk Normah binti Md Yusof, Director-General of the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit, the country’s lead agency for government modernisation, marks her second year in the job by reviewing progress and outlining her organisation’s future plans.
13 October 2009 | News
Standards up at Government Technology Awards 2009
Winners at the Government Technology Awards 2009 have received praised for the “very high quality” of entries, particularly from developing countries in the region. However, there is still room for improvement in the Green Government category, noted Laurence Millar, former Government Chief Information Officer of…
12 October 2009 | News
Asian govts mix carrot and stick approach to e-services
Asian governments revealed their differences on how to boost the uptake of e-services in a rambunctious discussion at last week’s FutureGov Summit in Bali, Indonesia.
5 October 2009 | News
Network to connect 4000 education institutes in Asia
A third generation information highway known as the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN3) has been launched to connect more than 4000 research and education organisations in Asia Pacific, enabling large volumes of data to be shared.
29 September 2009 | News
Chinese city builds public cloud to aid innovation
The northern Chinese city of Dongying is building a public cloud computing platform that it hopes will aid its transformation from an oil-rich manufacturing hub into a high-tech service-based economy.
23 September 2009 | News
Bangaloreans get govt services home delivered
The Indian city of Bangalore, the country’s third most populous city, has hatched plans to launch a series of mobile e-service centres to bring government services closer to citizens.
22 September 2009 | News
Winning the war against cyber crime
What are governments doing to ensure that critical online operations remain operational when under attack from cyber criminals? FutureGov asked senior civil servants in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and the Philippines to reveal how they are preparing their defences against hackers.
14 September 2009 | News
Can Cambodia play e-government leapfrog?
The government of Cambodia’s long awaited e-government guidelines have provided agencies with a roadmap for how to take their services online as the Kingdom looks to get up to speed with the global ICT sector. There is an opportunity for Cambodia to ‘leapfrog’ other developing countries and avoid past mistakes, Madhav Ragam, Director, Government & Education, Healthcare & Life Sciences at IBM’s Growth Markets Unit told FutureGov.
8 September 2009 | News
US cyber security system sparks privacy row
A new version of a computer intrusion detection system being developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security has raised concerns from advocacy groups over privacy and the involvement of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the development of the software. The new system, known as Einstein 3, can reportedly read email as well as its original function, to detect malicious software.
1 September 2009 | Feature
How will technology change the future of healthcare?
The future does not bear thinking about for many healthcare practitioners in Asia, which is faced with the world’s fastest ageing population. FutureGov asked a group of experts for their views on how technology could clear a safer path for the sector.
1 September 2009 | News
E-voting in the Philippines on trial
There is not enough time to reliably and effectively test the electronic voting machines that will be used in next year’s general elections in the Philippines. So says Dr Pablo Manalastas, IT consultant for the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), a policy think tank that has been pushing for the source code of the voting machines to be released ahead of the polls on May 10th next year.
24 August 2009 | Feature
legislator pushes for a bigger role for it
Dr Samson Tam is an entrepreneur who has made an indelible mark on Hong Kong‘s electronics industry. In the next phase of his career as a legislator, he wants to change society through the use of information technology.
12 August 2009 | News
Korea forms commission to boost e-gov exports
South Korea’s Ministry of Public Administration and Security is organising an International Information and Communication Technology Collaboration Commission (ICTCC) to help the country export its e-government model.
12 August 2009 | News
Indian schools invest in ICT for disabled students
Secondary schools in India are to be granted more information and communications technology (ICT) to help teach disabled children. Screen readers and Braille printers are among the technologies to given to school around the country.
11 August 2009 | News
US cybersecurity guidelines come under fire
A new set of guidelines on cybersecurity released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States has fallen short of the protection needed for government systems, a cybersecurity analysis group has warned.
4 August 2009 | News
E-register portal debuts for overseas Singaporeans
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched a portal for its e-register services to make the electronic registration process faster and more convenient for Singaporeans abroad who might need assistance in times of emergency.
3 August 2009 | News
US govt IT departments still confused by cloud computing
Federal officials in the United States think that cloud computing will play a big role in future government IT initiatives. But they are still confused about what cloud computing is and want security assurances before adopting it on a large scale, a survey of federal IT managers has found.
29 July 2009 | News
Philippine president pushes for govt IT dept
Gloria Arroyo, President of the Philippines, has made an appeal to local lawmakers to pass a bill to establish a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), a bill that has been pending in the national legislature for five years.
29 July 2009 | News
UAE travelers use ID cards at passport control
The United Arab Emirates has introduced a scheme where identity cards can be used to go through passport control at entry and exit points across the country to enable travelers to pass quickly through immigration, an Abu Dhabi Police official has said.
29 July 2009 | News
HK expands cyber centre network
A pilot scheme to roll out District-Based Cyber Centres (DCCs) is to be expanded in Hong Kong as part of the government’s Digital 21 Strategy, which aims to give needy residents throughout the territory access to information and communications technology (ICT).
28 July 2009 | News
UK govt launches Twitter guide for civil servants
The UK government is developing a strategy for civil servants to use the microblogging service Twitter in the hope of giving government an “informal, human voice” with which to communicate with the public.
28 July 2009 | News
Bangladeshi Minister pushes importance of IT
AMA Muhith, the Finance Minister of Bangladesh, has highlighted the role of ICT in creating jobs, skilling the workforce and curbing corruption, and the danger of falling behind other countries as they move towards a knowledge-base economy.
27 July 2009 | News
Philippines launches study on internet use
The World Bank is funding a comprehensive study that will measure PC and internet penetration in the Philippines in partnership with the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
23 July 2009 | News
US govt admits to being a web 2.0 laggard
Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra has admitted that the United States government is lagging far behind its citizens in its use of the internet to communicate, collaborate and solve problems using social networking platforms.
20 July 2009 | News
Vietnam deputy PM: consensus key to e-govt
Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan has said that high levels of determination and agreement among government agencies are key to making e-government a reality in the fast-growing Southeast Asian country.
20 July 2009 | News
Japanese netizens fret about internet safety
Eighty per cent of Japanese internet users feel are worried about their privacy and feel insecure when using the web, according to the results of a government survey.
20 July 2009 | News
Cloud could boost inter-agency collaboration: US GCIO
Vivek Kundra, the United States Federal Chief Information Officer, has said that cloud computing could enable governments to better share information and boost collaboration among federal, state and local government agencies.
13 July 2009 | News
Singapore heritage board sees growth for revamped portal
Singapore’s National Heritage Board (NHB) has reported record numbers of visitors to its portal yesterday.sg, which was re-launched in 2008 to boost its appeal among young Singaporeans.
7 July 2009 | Interview
Selling the Singapore e-govt story
In the last issue of FutureGov, we asked senior figures in China, India, Korea and the Philippines whether or not they thought the Singapore e-government model would work in their countries. Not all of them said yes. In fact, only one did. And he was from Korea, a country that like Singapore wants to sell its e-government model to the world.
6 July 2009 | News
Poll automation back on in the Philippines
The Philippines’ Commission on Elections (Comelec) has announced that the winning bidders in the country’s poll automation project have settled their dispute and will go ahead with computerising next year’s elections.
30 June 2009 | News
Chinese anti-corruption website deluged
A web site launched by the Chinese government to enable citizens to blow the whistle on corrupt officials has crashed due to heavy site traffic.
16 June 2009 | News
E-elections get green light in Philippines
The Philippines is pushing ahead with plans to hold its first automated elections next year.
15 June 2009 | News
Obama electioneer worried about waning social media appeal
Scott Goodstein, the brains behind United States President Barack Obama’s online election campaign, told delegates at a conference last week (Wednesday 10 June 2009) that the effectiveness of social media platforms as a communication tool for government is likely to wane – and fast – in the coming months.
15 June 2009 | News
Mobile workforce poses cybersecurity threat: expert
Governments need to develop strategies to bolster cyber security as their workforces become more mobile, an information security expert has urged.
15 June 2009 | News
Tight govt IT budgets boost cloud appeal: Google
A senior Google executive has said that tight public sector information technology (IT) budgets are provoking interest in cloud computing, but adoption of the media giant’s services in Asia has so far been limited to the education sector.
8 June 2009 | News
Long road ahead for India's e-services
The Indian government’s rollout of web-connected Common Service Centers (CSC) has been completed in the states of Jharkhand, Haryana and Sikkim, with more than 40,000 kiosks operational.
2 June 2009 | News
Seattle CTO to speak at Hong Kong govt event
Bill Schrier, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Seattle, Bob Correll, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Australia’s Immigration and Citizenship Department, and Lee Hsang-Chen, the Director of Information Systems for Taiwan’s National Police Agency are the latest additions to the speaker line-up for the Government Information Forum (GIF) in Hong Kong this summer.
26 May 2009 | News
US hospital webcasts brain surgery to promote services
A hospital in the United States has webcast an operation to remove a brain cancer as part of a promotional campaign to educate patients, entice donors, and recruit top doctors.
25 May 2009 | News
Thailand hatches plan for private cloud
The government of Thailand is planning to set up a cloud computing platform as part of efforts to improve the development and implementation of e-government applications.
19 May 2009 | News
Stimulus packages to add to rising data burden
Government efforts to stimulate their economies will lead to a dramatic increase in the volume of digital information created, a report by EMC and IDC has predicted.
19 May 2009 | Feature
Elections electrified: the end of the paper ballot?
Election fever is gripping Asia, from India to Indonesia. And the elections are increasingly going digital. Why is electronic voting gradually displacing the paper ballot? Robin Hicks sizes up the candidates
19 May 2009 | News
Indonesian transparency drive opens doors for vendors
The Indonesian government’s efforts to become more transparent and efficient by embracing e-government initiatives are opening opportunities for IT vendors, says a senior executive at the Indian information technology firm Tata Consultancy Services.
18 May 2009 | News
Public sector to boost IT spend in the Philippines
The economic gloom in the Philippines is doing little to dampen the uptake of IT services thanks to a number of public sector initiatives, according to a report from research firm Ovum.
5 May 2009 | News
Hong Kong govt tackles perceived rise in corruption
A poor economy is likely to lead to a rise in corruption in both the public and private sector, a survey by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has revealed.
29 April 2009 | News
Citizen satisfaction with e-government falls in the US
Citizen satisfaction with federal government web sites has fallen in the US in the first quarter of this year, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index.
29 April 2009 | News
Hong Kong University staff accused of IT contract fraud
Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has charged a professor at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) for alleged conspiracy to defraud the university in relation to an information technology (IT) service contract.
27 April 2009 | News
Russian Minister: e-government to curb bureaucracy
The creation of an e-government in Russia will rid people of bureaucratic procedures, Minister of Mass Communications Igor Shchegolev has said.
22 April 2009 | News
Government to buck trend for cutting green IT
Governments are expected to buck an industry-wide trend for diverting spend away from green IT projects due to the global economic downturn, according to IT analyst Gartner.
22 April 2009 | News
Technical glitches trouble Indonesia's elections
Technical glitches to the electronic vote-counting system used in Indonesia could delay the elections, the archipelago’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has warned.
22 April 2009 | News
Sun/Oracle merger: why the public sector should worry
Oracle Corporation’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems should worry the public sector because the enlarged entity could lead to price hikes and “vendor lock-in”, according to an IT analyst.
20 April 2009 | News
China's e-gov network nears completion
All of China’s government administrations at central, provincial and municipal levels have all now set up official websites, Yang Xueshan, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology Ministry at the China E-government Forum has said.
16 April 2009 | News
Utah state offers services via iPhone
Residents of the US state of Utah have been given access to iPhone applications developed by a state government for the first time.
16 April 2009 | News
Bahrain hires e-government measurement firm
Bahrain’s eGovernment Authority has signed an agreement with Nielsen Company, a provider of market information and indices, to assess public satisfaction with electronic services in the kingdom.
15 April 2009 | News
Hong Kong's tax office casts doubt over the cloud
Hong Kong’s Inland Revenue has voiced concerns over the security of using cloud computing services to manage tax payer information.
7 April 2009 | Interview
What women bring to government: academic
If there were more women in government in Asia, more attention would be paid to family and social issues and the welfare of children, a leading academic on Southeast Asian gender issues has told FutureGov.
7 April 2009 | News
Govts invest in fuel-saving air traffic system
Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US are among the countries to have supported the adoption of a new technology to reduce fuel consumption - and so carbon dioxide emissions - of air traffic.
7 April 2009 | News
Microsoft updates e-health platform
Microsoft is set to unveil a new version of its software for aggregating health records which it claims makes it easier for patients and doctors to share information electronically.
7 April 2009 | News
Australia plots $31bn broadband network
The Australian government is to build a A$43bn ($31bn) national broadband network, the country’s largest infrastructure project, after abandoning a A$4.7bn tender process that it said failed to offer value for money.
31 March 2009 | News
Technology unites domestic workers in tough times
Information communications technology (ICT) is helping to keep family ties strong for Southeast Asia’s overseas domestic workers, who face increasing pressure as their job prospects shrink. So says Dr Theresa Devasahayam, Gender Studies Programme Coordinator at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
31 March 2009 | News
Glass ceiling hangs over Asian civil service
A glass ceiling is still firmly in place for women in the top echelons of the civil service in Southeast Asia. So says Dr Susan Blackburn, Associate Professor at Australia’s Monash University, and an expert on Southeast Asian politics.
24 March 2009 | News
Singapore reveals plan behind Jobs Credit Scheme
Singapore’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) has revealed details of the plan behind the Jobs Credit Scheme, the S$4.5 billion (US$3 billion) initiative introduced earlier this year to save jobs by subsidising part of employers’ wage bills.
23 March 2009 | News
IT chief: e-gov in South Africa has a long way to go
The development of e-government in South Africa still has a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world, the country’s State IT Agency Chief of Strategic Services Moses Mtimunye has warned.
23 March 2009 | News
Poverty holds back e-gov services in the UK
A survey by UK government telecoms regulator Ofcom has found that e-government services are becoming increasingly popular - but are held back by the digital divide.
18 March 2009 | News
Three quarters of gov agencies to embrace GIS
Three-quarters of government agencies in Europe and North America have, or plan to implement geographic information systems (GIS) for crime monitoring, urban planning, traffic monitoring and national defense, according to a survey by market analyst Datamonitor.
18 March 2009 | News
India’s low-cost laptop: still too pricey
The cost of the controversial low-cost laptop is not yet low enough for ordinary Indians, a prominent e-governance expert admitted in an interview with FutureGov.
17 March 2009 | News
Pressure grows on India’s e-governance mandate
India’s government has come under increasing pressure to “reach out” to its citizens as elections grip the world’s largest democracy.
16 March 2009 | Feature
The identity management catch-22
FutureGov’s research arm has identified ‘ID Management’ as one of the top three priorities for the public sector in 2009. A few years ago, the United Kingdom’s Customs and Revenue admitted to losing the financials details of 25 million citizens.
16 March 2009 | News
SWJU installs China's largest campus wireless network
China’s Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJU) is installing a wireless network to digitally connect the campus. The project is believed to the largest of its kind in the country.
11 March 2009 | Feature
Security in a wireless world
Robin Hicks Editor FutureGov in interview with John Cunningham, Director of Enterprise Wireless for Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility Business in the Asia Pacific region.
11 March 2009 | News
Tibco: new US CIO needs discipline and focus
Tibco’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Don Adams has praised President Barack Obama’s appointment of Vivek Kundra as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the United States government, but warns that Kundra will have to have “laser beam focus” on where he can achieve early successes.
9 March 2009 | News
Four Asian countries make e-government top ten
Four Asian countries have made the top ten rankings of a global e-government study, with Singapore moving above the United States to top the table for the first time.
6 March 2009 | News
Singapore government shows confidence in cloud computing
Despite security fears raised by the “G-fail” incident last week, when an overloaded data centre in Europe prevented millions of Gmail users from accessing their accounts, the Singapore government has given cloud computing its vote of confidence.
5 March 2009 | News
Hong Kong: how to make clinical computing a reality
Asia’s hospitals still have a long way to go before clinical computing is a reality, Dr N. T. Cheung, Chief Medical Officer at the Hong Kong Hospital Authority told delegates at the Government Information Forum last week (Wednesday 4 March).
5 March 2009 | News
Malaysia: how to create a more agile government
Governments must become more agile to meet rising citizen expectations for service delivery, Haji Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, Undersecretary of Malaysia’s Ministry of Information urged delegates at the Government Information Forum last week (Wednesday 4 March).
3 March 2009 | News
Govts should release more data for innovation’s sake
The research director behind a 12-country study on ‘generation Y’ has suggested that governments in Asia should cede more control of information to citizens in the name of innovation.
2 March 2009 | News
Rising to governments’ data centre energy challenge
Green energy projects have come under mounting pressure as the economic situation worsens, but governments should be thinking about energy conservation now more than ever, insists a consultant at APC, the Schneider-owned cooling services giant.
2 March 2009 | News
Philippine CICT chairman cool on cloud computing
The Chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) in the Philippines has said that the “inherent risks” of cloud computing need to be addressed before government embraces it is a viable way of managing information.
25 February 2009 | News
Blunkett: UK becoming a 'big brother' state
David Blunkett, the former home secretary of the United Kingdom, has warned that the UK is in danger of becoming a ‘big brother’ state.
24 February 2009 | News
Singapore to engage new media at general elections
Singapore’s government has signalled its intention to embrace new media at the next general election.
18 February 2009 | Spotlight
Improving Citizen Services and Patient Relationships Using CRM
One concept that now transcends both commercial business and the Public Sector is the notion of customer relationship management, writes Jonathan Farmer, CRM Lead - Asia, Microsoft. For over 15 years, businesses have used Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies to drive competitive…
18 February 2009 | News
Singapore's IDA launches e-govt consultancy
Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority has launched an international consultancy to help other countries develop their e-government infrastructure.
16 February 2009 | Spotlight
Managing the transition to SharePoint in Singapore
Many Singaporean government agencies are considering the move from IBM Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint because of the rich feature set of the Microsoft solutions, the strategic value of partnering with Microsoft and the high availability of IT staff trained on Microsoft technology.
15 February 2009 | News
Is your agency equipped to repel a ‘cyber attack’?
The more government leverages technology to automate core business processes, the more vulnerable to cyber attack it becomes. In the United States, experts have been warning for years against an ‘electronic Pearl Harbor’, a ‘digital September 11’ or a ‘Cybergeddon’.
13 February 2009 | Spotlight
Transforming government with SAS business analytics
Government agencies are now entering an unprecedented time of transition and scrutiny – tasked to do much more with far less. The ability to provide “smart” access to massive amounts of data is at the top of the technology agenda for agencies across the board.
11 February 2009 | News
Singapore citizens to get road info on mobile phones
All traffic and road information will eventually be made available to citizens in real-time via mobile phone, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) chief executive Yam Ah Mee has said.
11 February 2009 | News
Investment in HK Clinical Management System paying off
Over the past decade, Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HKHA) has dedicated itself to bringing world-class healthcare systems to its citizens. The growing popularity of the web has opened up various windows of opportunities…
6 February 2009 | News
Singapore Minister: data burden to rise as IT budgets fall
IT budgets may be falling but the volume of data generated by governments will continue to rise exponentially this year, Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran warned today (Friday February 6th).
3 February 2009 | News
Taking the best of Web 2.0 into the public sector
With the widespread use of the internet and the enormous success of social network platforms, governments around the world are jumping on the bandwagon and work on strategies how to expand their services by incorporating Web 2.0 technologies.
Survey of the Week
In your experience, is gaming an effective training tool?
Most highly rated
Better learning with web 2.0 and virtual worlds
In a visit to Ngee Ann Secondary School yesterday (22 July), FutureGov found students deeply ...
Will Facebook profiles replace govt web sites?
It’s all the rage for ministries and agencies to have a Facebook pages these ...
Singapore awards US$144m EHR contract
A consortium made up by Accenture, Oracle, and Orion Health has won Singapore’s National ...