Governments being held to new benchmarks of excellence, says SMS Desmond Tan

Extending a parking session from your phone while enjoying a cup of coffee may not feel so out of place today. 

But this wasn’t always the case less than eight years ago when Singapore switched from paper coupons to Parking.sg mobile app – saving the country over S$3 million over 15 months after its launch, as well as in manpower and administration costs. 

Citing this example in the opening keynote for GovInsider’s Festival of Innovation (FOI) 2025, Senior Minister of State (SMS) in the Prime Minister’s Office and Deputy Secretary-General of National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), Desmond Tan, highlighted the impact of such solutions and its implications for public officials. 

“Across ASEAN, the role of the public service is shifting rapidly. Our citizens and businesses expect greater transparency, faster responses, and seamless access to services.  

The rise of super apps, e-commerce, and virtual connectivity have reshaped these expectations, holding governments to a new benchmark of service excellence,” said SMS Tan. 

“Innovation is more than just a buzzword - it’s a necessity in today’s world, and this festival serves as a crucial platform for sharing ideas, making real connections, enabling collaborations and driving transformation in public service, not just within Singapore, but also across borders,” SMS Tan added. 

As GovInsider’s annual flagship event, FOI delves into the technologies, strategies, and approaches that foster public sector innovation and digital readiness as well as sustain lasting positive change.

The two-day event from March 25 to 26 saw a total of 2120 delegates registered, who represented 410 agencies across 27 countries. 

Attendants have adopted one of the four festival personas in ‘Thinkers’, ‘Frontliners’, ‘Policy Geeks’, and ‘Techies’ to identify the topics and sessions from the lineup of 48 sessions and 85 speakers that most resonated with their work. 

Trends and the evolving role of public service 

SMS Tan highlighted ASEAN’s ambition to build a US$1 trillion (S$1.34 billion) digital economy by 2030, calling for strong collaboration as global spending on GovTech is also expected to double in the next decade to US$1.42 trillion. 

“The efficiency, transparency, and sustainability gains from this could unlock US$9.8 trillion in public value by 2034,” he said. 

SMS Tan emphasised the importance of the creativity, resilience and drive of public officials to drive further progress. 

He also mentioned Lim Xiu Ling from Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Digital Office who exemplified ethos of picking up new skills and driving digital transformation in her agency.  

“As public officers, we have a duty not just to keep up with change, but to lead it. Whether it’s generative artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, or robotic process automation (RPA), these are tools that will define the future of governance.  

“The question is not if we should adopt them, but how well we can harness them to serve our people better,” he said. 

Debuts and highlights of FOI 2025 day 1 

In her presentation, Montenegro’s former Minister of Public Administration, Digital Transformation and Media, Tamara Srzentić, shared her insights on driving government transformation through crises.

Srzentić highlighted strategies and best practices essential for empowering government teams to embrace digital ways of working and better serve the public. 

When asked to join the new government in Montenegro, at a time when the ruling party of over 30 years was replaced, Srzentić shared that she was able to be “human first and a political leader second” as the new government formed was not a political one - but an “all-expert" government.

“I did not have to compromise any of my values and instead had an opportunity to demonstrate a power and leadership different from the one traditionally used in authoritarian Balkans,” she said.

Alongside workshops conducted by private industry experts like Thoughtworks and BeyondTrust, the conference programme was divided into two concurrent tracks, namely ‘Deepening Civil Servant Innovation’ and ‘Transforming Public Services’. 

GovMesh makes its debut

Making its debut at FOI 2025 was GovMesh, a by-invite-only event that convenes a group of emerging digital governments.    

GovMesh was born out of the idea that when it comes to government innovation, digital government is a uniquely level playing field, where nimble and lean bureaucracies are just as likely to set the pace as the world’s most innovative digital governments.  

The inaugural GovMesh event saw the participation of senior officials coming from digital government agencies in Bhutan, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Montenegro, Germany, as well as the United Nations Project Office on Governance (UNPOG). 

The dynamic format allowed countries to be selected based on their specific complementary strengths and weaknesses. 

The second and final day of FOI 2025 will resume tomorrow. One of the highlights of the day will be the announcement of the winners of the Festival of Innovation Awards. 

Featuring 13 categories that received over 170 submissions, the awards celebrate the outstanding efforts and contributions of individuals and agencies in advancing innovation and digital transformation within Asia-Pacific's public sector.