Singapore’s Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) is to launch an academy later this year aimed at helping Public Servants build up digital skills in areas such as data analytics and cyber-security.
Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, Vivian Balakrishnan (pictured) said the initiative would offer 95 training programs and train more than 6,000 Public Servants within the first year.
Speaking in Parliament, Dr Balakrishnan said the COVID-19 pandemic had been a “real stress test” for the Smart Nation initiative.
“New solutions were rapidly developed by engineers from the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) and other public Agencies,” Dr Balakrishnan said.
“These achievements have only been possible because of our relentless recruitment of talent and especially in-house engineering capabilities before the crisis hit,” she said.
Dr Balakrishnan said there was a need to double down on building up the nation’s people, building up its capabilities and its agility and to use the latest cutting-edge technologies.
“The Government will continue to tap on its Smart Nation Scholarships and other talent development programs to attract and nurture top talent in ICT within the public sector,” the Minister said.
In a separate media release, the SNDGG said the new digital academy would offer programs that were “contextualised for the Government’s systems and operating environment”.
“This will start with 55 programs in various fields such as applications development, data and analytics as well as digital leadership. Another 40 programs will be made available by the end of March next year,” the SNDGG said.
“Programs will be conducted in multiple formats, ranging from in-person or virtual lectures to instructor-led workshops, tech talks, hackathons and on-the-job training opportunities,” it said.
Dr Balakrishnan said COVID-19 did not change history, but it had accelerated both the needs and opportunities arising from the digital revolution.
“Our Smart Nation initiative has put us in a good position to seize the moment and to prove that we can and do solve real-world problems quickly, and to differentiate ourselves in a post-COVID world,” she said.
Singapore, 28 February 2021
