August 20th, 2004

Singapore e-Government

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A nice article was published on Public Sector Technology & Management, (a site that discuss IT usage in Asia governments) on Singapore e-government. (via InternetPolicy)

Amidst the flags and fly pasts, and other very visible signs of four decades of Singaporean nation building, a profound civic achievement deserves the attention of anyone interested in Asian IT-enabled governance. Put simply, Singapore has succeeded in leveraging the web to create one of Asia’s most engaged citizenries.

What the article did not say is that much of the credit goes to IDA, the agency in Singapore responsible for most of the government IT infrastructure services and implementing e-government services among other things. (Yes, we don’t just put stickers on your handphones). For example, many countries are still talking about how good would it be to have IT integration between different ministries and agencies and to perhaps provide a single login to all government services like tax filing etc, in Singapore style, we already done it (see Singpass).

This is one of the many reasons I am proud to be working in IDA.

June 15th, 2004

Integrated IT Platform to Make Trade Information Flows More Efficient

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Another project, codename ‘InfoPort’, I did in IDA just went public today, announced by our minister Dr. Lee Boon Yang.

An integrated IT platform that manages the flow of trade-related information is set to make Singapore more competitive as a world class port and logistics hub. This platform will enable exchange of information between shippers, freight forwarders, carriers and financial institutions to facilitate the flow of goods within, through and out of Singapore. Revealing this today at the opening of the Infocomm Media Business Exchange 2004 was Dr Lee Boon Yang, Singapore’s Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts.

It is the first project I did when I join IDA early last year and I play a small role in the technical team in architecting the platform in Phase I (feasibility study). I have a lot of fun (aka “big fight”) arguing for a de-centralized architecture.

I believe we should keep as little as possible centralized and allowing the industries and third party to provide interesting and innovative services rather then pretending to know all the possible services people would do with the system from the beginning.

I am no longer involved in the project after Phase I but I am still proud how far this has come along and the little contributions I made to the project…

May 25th, 2004

Singapore Multi-Pronged Antispam Measure

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Finally! One of my my team work has gone public today :-)

To reduce e-mail spam in Singapore, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has worked closely with the three major Internet Service Providers, Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE), Direct Marketing Association of Singapore (DMAS), Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and Singapore infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF) to introduce a multi-pronged approach to tackle e-mail spam. The various anti-spam measures developed aim to protect the interests of e-mail users from the impact of e-mail spam.

Other then bringing spam as an issue for the power-to-be, we also put together the National Antispam Website. :-)

Incidently, also check out the survey IDA conduct last year on spam problem in Singapore. Quite a lot of interesting statistic there…

February 23rd, 2004

IDA allocates 2.3 Ghz and 2.5 Ghz spectrum for Trials and Commercial Deployment

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While I am not directly involved in this, I am proud to see this announcement from IDA today! Well done! Congz to all all my friends who been working on this!

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) today announced the allocation of dedicated spectrum bands for trials and commercial deployment of wireless broadband. This move is timely as various wireless broadband technologies are now ready for trial or deployment. When deployed, these new technologies could provide Singapore with an additional broadband infrastructure, thus giving consumers more choices and options when going “broadband”.


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January 31st, 2004

Secure your Server

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FTC is urgings companies to close their open proxies. I play a small role in advising IDA to participate in this initiative.

Sure, whats the point of closing open proxy now that most spams dont even go through open proxy? But “why not?”. Yes, we can do more but that is a story for another day…