On 19 Jan, I attended #SGGovCamp organised by Microsoft Singapore and the stage was set for people from the government, from the private sector, technologists and even web enthusiasts came together to share ideas.
There were lots of talk about how Gov2.0 should happen and someone also mentioned about Citizen2.o where citizens should also step up. I believe we all want to move forward, but somehow it seems to be not happening fast enough. Dr. Pallab Saha picked up a bottle of water and asked, “where do you think the bottle neck is? Its at the top.”
He also shared on “Embracing Gov 2.0: What Does it Really Mean?” during the panel session and his quick pace on those few slides really packed in a punch for the morning session. Just his “Gov 2.0 Maturity Matrix” slide would cause quite a few civil servants to sit up. It address how so many government bodies adopt Web2.0 technologies while having Gov1.0 mindset which cause them to become pretenders that did nothing more than change the facade. I’ve done quite a few projects just as he described.
In the afternoon session, there were a lot of talk about making data open and Project Nimbus was brought up. It tries to avail datasets to the general public and even provides sufficient documentation for anyone to create innovative applications and tools based on these data.
Stuart Smith brought up how US and UK opened up its data and how tools have been pouring in. There were even usage that the governments would not have even imagined. He also highlighted Guardian’s Data Store which used open data for journalism. Its pretty neat.
Should Singapore government open up its data? If so which ones? Its a chicken and egg situation. If the data is not made available, no innovation can happen. If there are no success stories, data owners might not be motivated to make their data available. I think running a country is very much like parenting. Kids always want things their way without knowing what’s good for them. However, parents also don’t give kids enough responsibilities, so how do you expect kids to be responsible? I say, lets give it a go and see what happens, I do think we are now in a good position.
I can’t wait for the day when the Gov2.0 mindset is prevalent and www.data.gov.sg open its doors, that will be the time Singapore takes its quantum leap. That will be the time where we will have more information to make better informed decisions.
Photo Credits:
Do check out Project Nimbus. It provides data and services access from SG govt & commercial entities http://projectnimbus.org/
yup, the link is in my post already. ;)