Exclusive: Big Data the top Singaporean priority
By Joshua Chambers
Priorities differ in healthcare and education sectors, GovInsider survey finds.
GovInsider surveyed 296 public sector officials holding ICT roles between June and September 2015, asking them to name the “tool, technique or technology is most of interest to you in the next 6 months”. Officials were free to name any answer, rather than select from a list of choices.
The most popular response was Big Data Analytics, with 36% of respondents naming it as top priority. Cyber security was second with 16%, and the Internet of Things was third with 10%.
Other common priorities included mobile apps and cloud computing. Meanwhile, a 20% chunk of responses were split over smaller priorities including GIS, open source, artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Big Data was top priority for three different sectors: central government, health and education. However, the second priority differed between each sector.
In central government, Big Data was most important for 28% of officials; cyber security was top for 13% and IoT was named by 7% - jointly tied with mobile apps.
In education, Big Data was top for 30% of officials, IOT was second priority and cyber security was relegated to joint third alongside cloud computing and “education tech”.
Top priority in healthcare agencies and hospitals was Big Data with 55%, while cyber security and IOT were in joint second place with 11%.
Big Data is important to public servants because it allows for the personalisation of services, Jennifer Esposito of Intel told GovInsider.
Espisito is Head of Global Health and Life Science Solution Sales and Marketing at Intel. “The vision is to move from today’s statistical average-based institutional care, to care that is exquisitely optimised for the individual person, delivered to them in their home whenever possible, and taking into account their biology, medical history and behavior in combination with treatment efficacy information gleaned from closely-related cases,” she said.
”All of this can only be made possible with the powerful insights generated by big data. There is broad industry agreement for the need to transform healthcare, but the pace of transformation is much too slow,” Esposito added. “’Making it personal’ is our industry’s call to action.”