Lee Yi, Systems Engineer, Smart City Technology, Government Technology Agency (GovTech) of Singapore

1) What does public service mean to you? Can you share more about your role in the public sector?

To me, public service means working on consequential problems that are not always easily or naturally solved by the private sector alone.

These are often complex, long-term challenges that cut across technology, infrastructure, policy, operations, and people’s everyday lives.

What makes public service meaningful is the breadth of its mandate: the work is not only about delivering a product or service, but about improving outcomes for citizens, strengthening trust, and building systems that can serve society fairly and sustainably.

I was drawn to the public sector because it offers the opportunity to work on problems at scale, with a direct line of sight to citizen impact.

I began my career as a systems engineer, where I worked on building smart estates and applying technology to make our urban environment more responsive, efficient, and liveable.

That experience gave me a very tangible appreciation of how digital innovation can translate into better public services, whether through smarter infrastructure, improved operational awareness, or more seamless experiences for residents.

I later had the opportunity to support Government Technology Agency (GovTech) Singapore's Chief Executive in some of his public-facing engagements, which gave me a broader view of organisational leadership and transformation.

In that role, I supported work that went beyond individual projects to look at how the organisation could strengthen its strategy, performance, and culture of excellence.

This helped me understand that innovation in government is not only about adopting new technology. It is also about aligning people, processes, and purpose so that good ideas can be implemented well and sustained over time.

Public service has allowed me to contribute to outcomes larger than myself.

From helping to build smart city capabilities on the ground to supporting organisational transformation at the leadership level, I have seen how public officers can create outsized impact when they combine technical expertise with a strong sense of mission.

For me, that is the privilege and responsibility of public service: to solve difficult problems with humility, creativity, and a commitment to the people we serve.

2) Tell us about a project you championed. What impact did it have on the community?

One project that has been especially meaningful to me is my work on Punggol Digital District, Singapore’s first smart district.

The district was envisioned as a testbed for more integrated, responsive, and sustainable urban living, bringing together businesses, academia, residents, and public infrastructure within one digitally enabled ecosystem.

As a systems engineer, I worked on integrating building systems such as lifts, doors, turnstiles, and other estate infrastructure so that they could be monitored, operated, and eventually connected to robotics and automation capabilities.

This may sound highly technical, but the broader purpose was very human: to make the district safer, more efficient, and more responsive to the needs of people who live, work, and study there.

I spent a good part of my first year in lift motor rooms, fire command centres, and back-of-house spaces, understanding how these systems worked on the ground and how they could be brought together through technology.

Those experiences shaped my view of innovation too.

Smart cities are not built only through strategy papers or dashboards; they are built through deep operational understanding, close collaboration with many stakeholders, and attention to the small details that affect daily life.

The impact of the project is that it helped lay the digital foundation for a district that can operate more intelligently over time.

With integrated systems, estate operators can gain better situational awareness, respond more quickly to incidents, and explore new capabilities such as robotics-enabled operations. For the community, this translates into more seamless, reliable, and future-ready public spaces.

What made the project personally meaningful was seeing the district gradually take shape from plans and technical drawings into a real place.

As a young officer, it was powerful to know that my work was translating into something real.

The systems we built would support a living district and contribute to Singapore’s broader smart city journey. It gave me a tangible sense of how public sector innovation can improve the built environment and, ultimately, the everyday experience of citizens.

3) As a young professional, how has your unique background or perspective allowed you to identify a solution that others in your organisations might have overlooked?

I have been fortunate to experience the public sector from both the ground-up and leadership perspectives.

I started out as an engineer working closely with operational systems and implementation teams, before later supporting the Chief Executive.

This combination has shaped the way I approach problems. I try to understand both what senior leadership is trying to achieve at the strategic level, and what is practically possible or challenging for officers working on the ground.

That dual perspective has helped me see that good solutions often sit at the intersection of ambition and execution.

A technically elegant solution may not succeed if it does not account for operational realities, user behaviour, or organisational readiness.

At the same time, teams can sometimes become constrained by day-to-day limitations and lose sight of larger strategic objectives.

My role has often been to help bridge these perspectives: translating strategic priorities into actionable plans, while ensuring that ground feedback is heard and reflected in decision-making.

Another formative experience was having the privilege of hosting the Digital Government Exchange for two consecutive years, where we engaged international delegations of government Chief Digitalisation Officers and senior digital leaders.

Hearing from representatives across different countries gave me a broader appreciation of the common challenges governments face in digitalisation, from legacy systems and procurement constraints to talent, change management, cybersecurity, and public trust.

What surprised me was that many of the difficulties we face are not unique to our organisation or even to Singapore.

They are shared challenges across governments, although each context requires a different solution. This exposure has encouraged me to think more dynamically and avoid assuming that there is only one way to solve a problem.

As a young professional, I may not always have the longest institutional memory, but I bring curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to connect ideas across domains.

By combining an engineer’s appreciation for systems and constraints, a strategist’s view of organisational priorities, and insights from international digital government leaders, I have learned to look for solutions that are not only innovative, but also implementable and meaningful to the people they serve.

4) What is your personal strategy for maintaining your creative energy when faced with bureaucracy?

My personal strategy is to focus on alignment before action.

In large organisations, bureaucracy can sometimes feel like friction, but I have come to see that many delays or obstacles arise because different teams are optimising for different priorities.

Different teams are shaped by the outcomes and constraints that they are burdened with. Understanding these priorities is often the first step to moving ideas forward.

For me, this means taking time to understand the other sides of the equations I am involved in, and how a new idea can support the broader organisational agenda. At the same time, alignment cannot only happen at the top.

It is equally important to bring working-level officers and operational teams along by explaining the bigger picture in language that connects with their realities.

If people understand not just what needs to be done, but why it matters and how it affects their work, they are much more likely to support change.

5) If you had just one area to invest in to accelerate transformation in the public sector (regulation, technology, talent, etc.), which one would you choose and why?

If I had to choose one area, I would invest in regulatory and policy capability, especially in the context of emerging technology.

Technology will almost always move faster than regulation. This has become even more evident in the age of artificial intelligence, where new tools, platforms, and use cases can scale globally before governments have fully understood their risks, benefits, or second-order effects.

The challenge is that regulation can no longer be seen as something that happens only after technology is developed.

With artificial intelligence (AI) agents, autonomous systems, and increasingly complex digital platforms, the line between engineering, policy, and legislation is beginning to blur.

Policymakers need to understand enough about the underlying technology to ask the right questions, anticipate possible harms, and design rules that are both safe and enabling.

At the same time, technologists need to appreciate policy intent, public accountability, and the broader social consequences of what they build.

Recent developments in AI have shown how difficult this balance can be.

Governments and organisations are often forced to respond reactively: encouraging adoption to capture productivity gains, while also introducing restrictions when risks around security, privacy, bias, or accountability become clearer.

This reactive posture is understandable, but it is not sustainable. If the public sector wants to accelerate transformation responsibly, it needs stronger anticipatory governance: the ability to scan emerging technologies early, experiment safely, regulate proportionately, and update rules quickly as the technology evolves.

This calls for a new generation of technically proficient policymakers and policy-aware engineers.

The future of public sector transformation will not be driven by technology alone, but by our ability to govern technology well. Good regulation should not simply slow things down or prevent risk.

At its best, it creates the trust, clarity, and safeguards needed for innovation to scale responsibly.

For me, this is one of the most important capabilities governments must build in the AI age: not just adopting new tools, but developing the institutional muscle to understand, shape, and govern them in the public interest.

6) What is your greatest ambition as you grow in your public service career?

I just want to do my best!

7) What is a “universal value” that connects everyone in your department – from interns to directors – and how do you use that to drive collaboration?

A universal value that connects people across all levels of the organisation is the desire to do meaningful work and deliver outcomes that matter.

In practical terms, everyone has responsibilities, priorities, and key performance indicators they are accountable for.

This applies whether someone is an intern supporting a project, a manager coordinating teams, or a director making strategic decisions. While their perspectives may differ, most people are ultimately trying to contribute, perform well, and help the organisation succeed.

I find that collaboration becomes much easier when we start from that assumption.

Instead of viewing competing priorities as obstacles, I try to understand what each stakeholder is trying to achieve, what pressures they face, and what success looks like from their perspective.

This includes understanding the priorities of those I report to, as well as the needs of colleagues, partners, and team members who rely on me.

Once those motivations are clear, the task is to find a way to reconcile them.

Often, teams are not fundamentally opposed to one another; they are simply optimising for different outcomes, such as speed, reliability, compliance, user experience, operational efficiency, or strategic visibility.

Being able to identify these differences and translate between them is a powerful way to build trust and foster collaboration.

I believe there is always a way for everyone involved to meet their objectives.

8) What is the best piece of advice you’ve got for the next generation of public servants?

This is a very succinct piece of advice I got from a mentor: Focus on the right things, and everything else will fall into place.

9) What is a myth you wish to debunk about young public servants?

I would like to challenge the myth that young public servants cannot contribute meaningfully simply because we have less experience or institutional knowledge.

Experience is undoubtedly valuable, especially in government, where context, precedent, and stakeholder relationships matter deeply. But being young should not be seen only as a limitation; it can also be a strength.

What younger officers may lack in institutional memory, we often make up for with fresh perspective, curiosity, and a willingness to question whether things can be done differently.

Sometimes, being newer to a system allows us to see assumptions that others may have become accustomed to. We may ask why a process exists, whether a service can be made more intuitive, or whether technology can help citizens and officers achieve better outcomes with less friction.

I believe young public servants can play an important role in helping the government remain agile and responsive.

We bring familiarity with digital tools, comfort with experimentation, and a belief that systems can always be improved.

This does not mean disregarding experience or pushing change for its own sake. Rather, it means combining respect for institutional wisdom with the energy to imagine better ways of serving the public.

The best public sector teams are intergenerational. Experienced officers bring judgement, context, and a deep understanding of how to get things done. Younger officers bring new lenses, momentum, and sometimes the courage to ask simple but important questions.

When these strengths come together, bureaucracy can move faster, adapt better, and respond more closely to citizens’ needs.

In public service, impact does not just come from experience. It also comes from curiosity, initiative, and conviction that we can always do better for the people we serve.

10) Write a letter to your future self in 2035. Please keep it within 200 words.

Just keep doing what you find meaningful! :)