Singapore has always chased superlatives – from the world’s best airport to the planet’s largest glass greenhouse, the city-state pursues excellence with evangelical fervour.
Now it is setting in motion its“Smart Nation”initiative, the brainchild of incumbent prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. A wide-reaching and highly ambitious project, it is aimed at tackling social issues, healthcare, environmental sustainability, urban planning and transport through data collection via sensors implanted in every home, road, office and public space.
Over the coming years, Singapore will be rolling out self-driving cars, remote health monitoring and e-learning.“The goal is to bring our universities, research institutes, start-ups, government and investors together with a shared mission of tackling difficult challenges,”says Steve Leonard, executive deputy chairman of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), which is overseeing the implementation…