With the blend of heritage, food and great scenery, the Lonely Planet ranked Ipoh as one of the best cities in Asia to visit. As a hotspot for tourism, the bustling city provides abundant business opportunities. The city has harnessed this potential by increasing the readiness of its digital infrastructure for mobile and fixed broadband internet.

Keeping this in mind, Ipoh envisions becoming one of the first smart cities in Malaysia by 2030. The Smart City 2030 action plan targets seven domains - Smart Living, Smart Environment, Smart Governance, Smart People, Smart Digital Infrastructure, Smart Economy and Smart Mobility – to effectively address urbanisation challenges faced by the people of Ipoh and to realise Ipoh as a Green and Low Carbon City by 2030. We are embarking on a journey to prepare for a digital future, with TM One acting as the digital enabler and provider to assist the city in its transformation.

In conjunction with the City Leap Summit 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was established between The Ipoh City Council and TM One. The strategic collaboration includes several initiatives that are planned and will be implemented:

1) Smart Traffic Management with Analytics Services (STARS)

One of the most remarkable achievements is the implementation of smart traffic lights. TM One’s STARS leverages AI-enabled sensors at intersections to measure the average waiting time and identify vehicle motions, thereby adjusting green light duration based on real-time congestion, and improve the journey time. This solution also help to reduce the carbon emitted by the vehicle that is using the junction and this is in line with Ipoh Green City Vision to achieve low carbon city. Additional to the benefits, STARS is a single monitoring platform that provides relevant personnel with a centralised viewing of road conditions and equipped with real-time fault notification that triggers alarms through the Telegram chat application. This will allow the relevant personnel to take swift actions and dispatching manpower on-site when needed.

As a result, the smart traffic light solution has improved traffic flow in one of the busiest streets, Jalan Sultan Idris, by 51%. This solution also has led to a 7,500 kg decrease in carbon dioxide emissions in a month – in line with Ipoh’s goal to be a Low Carbon City by 2030.

2) TM One Mobile Field Workforce (FORCE)

FORCE satisfies the need for a fluid system to connect the call centre agents, dispatchers and service technicians to attend to citizens’ complaints and inquiries for better communication and coordination. It allows the teams to promptly respond to public complaints and emergencies by accessing real-time ticket statuses. Also, the all-in-one platform automates task scheduling and team management, tracks real-time progress of on-site maintenance and provides access to customer profiles on the go – modernizing the city’s field service solution. FORCE is envisioned to be the system support for MBI’s existing myAduan@MBI citizen app to improve its customer experience, better cost management, and internal resource management.

3) Call Centre

The Ipoh City Council aspires to establish its first digital call centre via outsourcing. The digital call centre aims to solve the challenges of  handling multilingual support requests and reduce abandoned call rates, while elevating critical issues to relevant parties when necessary. Consequently, the city can free up resources and optimise costs, while ensuring the best customer service for the people of Ipoh.

TM One Business Services (BPO) with more than 15 years of contact centre experience in Malaysia, leveraging on our Center of Expertise will be sharing the best practice; which aligned to the Industry Standards and Best Practices to help Ipoh City Council to establish the citizen engagement centre and ultimately elevate the citizen experience to the higher level.

Ipoh aims to be one of the first cities in Malaysia to enable 5G, and TM One plans to support this vision with the provision of free 5G wifi in selected areas. Additionally, a digital fibre connectivity superhighway and smart surveillance systems is being planned for Ipoh citizens.

Smart technologies help Ipoh save cost, shorten commutes, reduce carbon emission rates, and most importantly boost the quality of life for the people of Ipoh. In the long term, smart cities will spur higher citizen and government engagement as they begin to remove the communication barriers and increase the trust between citizens and officials. With the great synergy between both parties, Dato’ Rumaizi aspires to achieve more milestones in collaboration with TM One.

“My hope is that together with TM One, we will explore even more opportunities and smart technologies towards enhancing lives for the people of Ipoh.” - Dato’ Rumaizi bin Baharin, Ipoh Mayor.

The post Celebrating Success: Ipoh Smart City – TM One and MBI breathes new life into Ipoh appeared first on TM One.

• Vancouver’s initiative in setting up accessible Wi-Fi in 755 public spaces, along with wired bike-sharing and video feeds,
• Hong Kong’s enhancement of digital security with biometric measures employing face and voice recognition across the city,
• Seoul’s installation of 50,000 sensors supporting the IoT (Internet of Things) to transfer urban life data into big data analytics.

While we are witnessing the transformation of several cities worldwide, what are the required factors that make a city ‘smart’?

6 key success factors of a smart city

1) Excellent vision

Developing a smart city is not a task that can be sustained with an ad-hoc approach. Instead, a holistic vision is required to steer decision-making and guide action plans toward implementing realistic solutions that deliver tangible results that can enhance the lifestyles and living quality of all citizens within the city.

The Malaysia Smart City Framework (MSCF) has offered several initiatives such as MyDigital, GTMP and JENDELA as official ‘textbook approaches’ or suggested priorities. Local councils or Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan (PBTs) can refer to these initiatives in developing the smart city vision that best fits their cities.

2) Solutions that realistically solve pain points of citizens

Behind the development of a successful smart city, lies an excellent core vision that is developed based on the citizens’ real-life experiences. The application of technology is moot if it does not bring tangible benefit to its end users.

The common occurrence of pilot projects being abandoned, with selected technologies being seriously under-utilised, is a result of decision-making without a clear understanding of the real-life pain points experienced by the end-user, the citizens themselves. For a smart city to truly elevate our lifestyles and quality of living, the solutions we choose must be people-centric and based on actual needs.

3) Sufficient funding

Critically, PBTs will require sufficient funding to set the ‘smart city’ ball rolling smoothly. However, based on a survey conducted during the previous TM One City Leap Summit 2020, only 2.6% of PBTs surveyed indicated that they have sufficient funds, while 42% of them responded that they required funding assistance.

While procuring sufficient funds may be an issue, we can look to Indonesia to overcome the same challenge. Under West Java’s Digital Villages Theme, the West Java Provincial Government started their digital transformation of rural fisheries by installing basic smart auto-feeders in 4289 ponds across West Java. Instead of immediately using high-end tech solutions, the deployment of basic technology allowed the fishermen to empower their own productivity, resulting in a 30 to 100% increase in earnings and effectively generating their own initial capital for more cutting-edge solutions. On top of that, there was the added benefit of increasing digital literacy among the fishermen to be more receptive to newer technological solutions.

4) A great project management office

With a vision outlined and action plans identified against the available funding, the next key factor in creating a successful smart city lies in the capabilities of the project management office to turn the vision into reality. Key traits of a great project management office are:

1. A strong “citizens-come-first” mindset: PBTs need to commit to continually steer the smart city vision toward solving the needs of citizens.
2. A spirit of partnership & collaboration: PBTs will need the support, guidance and inputs from several parties such as academics, urban planners and tech experts to fully execute their vision.
3. A definitive but flexible blueprint: Smart cities aren’t built in a day. A project management office needs definitive roles, regular review processes and transparent policies to ensure that its smart city development journey is sustainable and future-proof.  

5) Buy-in from all stakeholders

It takes more than a day and more than just a single person to build a smart city. In fact, stakeholder management is critical in garnering support and alignment toward the outlined vision of smart city development. Effective stakeholder management requires a deep understanding of all parties who will benefit from implementing smart cities. These benefits include more efficient public services for citizens, data-driven disaster mitigation strategies for local governments, and more diverse revenue streams for investors.

Communication and outreach are vital in building the required understanding among stakeholders. Examples of campaigns designed to encourage stakeholder involvement include PLANMalaysia’s Libat Urus Pemegang Taruh involving government agencies, stakeholders and research teams for cities such as Ipoh, Johor Bahru and the Federal Territories.

Learning from our Indonesian neighbours again, the West Java Provincial Government has taken on a ‘Pentahelix Collaboration’ model, with initiatives geared towards encouraging collaboration and participation from authoritative bodies, media bodies, businesses, academics and local communities.

6) Good governance

Good governance is the final thread capable of tying all of the above factors together. Implementing strong top-down leadership and transparent policies can crystallise each PBTs smart city vision. Good governance can also help develop sustainable funding schemes according to each PBTs needs while delivering the talent required to project management offices. It will also support communications campaigns to encourage the stakeholder buy-in needed for successful execution.

After several years of conversation, the time is ripe for Malaysia to transform its cities. The rakyat already stands to gain much more from a smart city transformation. With the effects of climate change already rearing its ugly head at our mobility, agricultural production and air quality, Malaysia is ready to accept solutions that promise to solve day-to-day difficulties. However, the advancement of smart city technologies stands to take us even further beyond problem-fixing – smart city technology now can elevate Malaysia towards a cleaner, safer, more sustainable, higher-quality way of living.

The post Trends & Digital Strategy: 6 Key Factors in Building a Successful Smart City appeared first on TM One.

A brief look at the global smart city landscape reveals good progress in making our cities intelligent. Examples of the international efforts to build the foundations of next-gen digital playgrounds include prominent cities:

• Barcelona boasts over 20,000 active telemetry sensors to capture surrounding data;
• Copenhagen with a network of 380 intelligent traffic lights;
• Cape Town reducing local crimes rates using 42 round-the-clock cameras and many others.

Malaysia is rising up to its global peers on this front. The national policies under the Malaysia Smart City Framework (MSCF), which includes MyDigital, IR4RD, JENDELA and GTMP, is set to enable the translation of blueprints into meaningful action plans.

Setting the course

From a survey held during the previous City Leap Summit 2020, TM One collected insightful grassroots data from 33 local councils or Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan (PBTs) on smart city implementations. Results displayed that most respondents were not ready to turn plans into actions due to gaps in infrastructure, shortage of financial resources, and below-average talent capabilities.

In addition, PBTs in Malaysia focused their efforts on basic systemic issues surrounding security, safety and transportation that have already been experimented on in other countries. Out of all the solutions introduced to local leaders, smart security & surveillance, smart traffic lights and smart parking systems were the top 3 priorities to help citizens achieve a better quality of life.

While the results may reflect the state of mind two years ago, we need to think bigger. A powerful catalyst for PBTs is to reimagine how their cities can create better living experience for Malaysians. While the extensive list of smart indicators provided by ISO 37122 may appear intimidating, the journey toward building smart cities begins with a single step forward.

A look at smarter cities

Many around the world have already mastered of the art of building smart cities. So, as we celebrate the remarkable technological developments in major cities worldwide, we should also learn from them. Here are a few examples of cities that have embodied the critical success factors that contribute to a winning smart city:

• Rio de Janeiro takes a holistic approach toward smart city development by developing a common IT infrastructure and integrated platform to enable a myriad of applications to gain a more comprehensive view of the city.
• Copenhagen prioritises a “citizens-come-first” mindset and translates that customer-centric focus into long term infrastructures and initiatives, enabling citizens to become co-creators of their future city.
• Hangzhou in China encourages public-private partnerships to harness the mutually-benefiting capabilities in designing and implementing smart city projects.
• Seoul embraces an open culture, making city datasets and platforms freely available to citizens and businesses so that they can leverage accurate data to create innovative solutions.
• Singapore, our neighbour, focuses heavily on government efficiency and ensures that all smart city initiatives align with the larger municipality or government programs.

TM One, the trusted partner

TM One is in a prime position to support the government’s vision for smart and sustainable cities around the nation. While fancy solutions may capture headlines, we understand the importance of a strong foundation.  

We provide an unparalleled level of robust and secured digital connectivity, coupled with a solid digital infrastructure. This includes Hyperscaled intelligent cloud solution and data centre infrastructure and services that protect data sovereignty.

As TM One continues to build solutions for the needs of tomorrow, we offer a wide array of smart city solutions to address the immediate PBT needs of today. Smart city applications, dashboards, smart street and traffic lights, smart parking systems and deep surveillance are great examples of our market-ready solutions to bring our customers closer to smart and sustainable cities. In fact, 25 PBTs around Malaysia have already deployed our smart surveillance systems to keep our citizens and utility infrastructure safe.

The icing on the cake is our integrated operation centre (IOC) which is a robust platform designed to efficiently consolidate various data types from networks and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices to intelligent applications. This integrated monitoring system will enable local governments to make quick decisions and changes in response to real-time conditions.

TM One is the one-stop hub to support Malaysia’s smart city needs

What are the next steps?

While our solutions are ready to help PBTs in their mission to roll out smart city projects, we encourage a more structured approach.

The first step is to design a smart city blueprint that narrows down the PBTs’ concerns. We no longer need country-level frameworks; we need immediate action plans. Start by finding local priorities and focus on the key problems that would best benefit the citizens when addressed.

Next, implement solutions that have quick wins and solve the core issue. Take the initiative to experiment with niche smart city solutions and validate their benefits.

Last but not least, be open to exploring different types of collaboration models. Often, private-public partnerships are good ways to leverage the unique strengths of two distinct organizations to create a powerful solution. TM One is committed to helping Malaysia move toward smart and sustainable cities for a better future.

The post Building Smart and Sustainable Cities - Rejab Sulaiman appeared first on TM One.

“Smartness” is not a measure of how advanced or complex the technology being adopted is, but how well the solutions solve the society’s problems and address existential challenges”

– YB Datuk Seri Reezal Merican bin Naina Merican, Minister of Housing & Local Government

Smart City has been a hot topic of discussion for the past decade. With the advent of IR 4.0, the technology underpinning smart cities has matured significantly. Over the years, the Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan (PBT)’s understanding of the potential benefits to be reaped through the implementation of smart cities has also evolved. The next big challenge is in making the implementation of smart cities successful. There are two key imperatives in making this possible, viz., (a) developing a holistic smart city plan and (b) a blueprint for turning fundamental concepts into action. 

Developing a holistic smart city

Smart cities cannot be developed in silos – it requires a network of connected solutions that are effectively integrated, with data feeding into each element to ensure all facets of city-dwelling are elevated to the same level of capability and efficiency. An effective smart city is both holistic in nature and all-encompassing. The network of connected solutions also needs to be functional, providing tangible solutions to actual issues faced by citizens.

Even at a conceptual level, holisticness and people-centricity need to be embedded into smart city development to guide decision-making and ensure the solutions chosen are people-oriented and realistic. For this to happen, smart cities require careful planning and development, with each decision accounting for infrastructure, city operations and digital capabilities to create the solutions capable of elevating all elements of city-dwelling.

PBTs should prioritise taking this holistic approach into the conceptual framework of smart cities:

• Priority 1 – Users: To ensure functionality and usefulness, the city residents themselves, along with their actual habits, are what should drive the how-to implementation of digital services and applications. This is the core principle of a People-Centric Smart City.

• Priority 2 – Services: Envision strategies and solutions to enhance a city’s information systems, digital applications, and electronic services linked to all-digital economy sectors and social services. Enhancing service capabilities through digital integration is the booster shot to improving a smart city’s quality of life and efficiency.

• Priority 3 – Data: Effective data management acts as both the backbone and crystal ball of smart cities.  It enables the generation of meaningful insights used to improve services. Effective management of smart cities’ data also enhances capabilities to plan for the future based on trends displayed through the data (e.g. flood mitigation measures or planning roadworks based on traffic patterns). To reap both benefits, a powerful, integrated data platform and analytics system is required and must be capable of collecting, processing, verifying, organising, analysing, integrating and enriching the data obtained from information systems, city sources and public networks.

• Priority 4 – Digital infrastructure: In creating services designed for citizens and generating meaningful data, the right infrastructure must be present to support the technology needed. This encompasses networks and telecoms systems, data storage and processing centres, data privacy centres, etc., to provide the required connectivity to bring smart cities online.

Turning fundamental concepts into action

While a holistic, all-encompassing conceptual framework underpins smart cities’ strategic development, implementing the said framework presents an entirely different challenge. Concrete action plans based on a flexible, adaptable blueprint is the surest way forward in making smart city initiatives a success.

In creating an adaptable blueprint, PBTs need to ensure that all the 4 fundamentals of smart city planning are covered. While the overall action plan can be carried out incrementally through stages, each stage needs rigorous review. Subsequent actions need to be adapted to fit needs of citizens and PBTs accordingly as new findings arise across the journey. The blueprint can broadly be classified into three distinct phases.

• Stage 1: Early Analysis:  The step-by-step phases for the analysis phase include:
  • Review current agendas & policies
  • Conduct urban challenges assessment
  • Carry out our “smart initiatives” assessment
  • Create tailored benchmarks for smart city
  • Assess citizen readiness level
  • SWOT analysis

• Stage 2: Preparing the action plan: Following the analysis phase, the action plan needs to be developed. The steps involved include:
  • Create specific smart city aspirations
  • Define quick vs long term wins in smart city action plan
  • Define roles and streamline organisation chart
  • Deployment of digital infrastructure
  • Pre-planning development of Integrated Operations Centre
  • Data integration

• Stage 3: Roll out and monitor:
  • Initial execution of smart city
  • Establish pioneer projects
  • Project assessment and improvement
  • Adaptation to public
  • Comprehensive mass roll-out
  • Attain smart city accreditation

The role of PLANMalaysia in the Smart City agenda

As the Federal Department of town and country planning for Peninsular Malaysia, PLANMalaysia’s role in the smart city agenda is to guide and support local councils in realising their smart city aspirations. Our work encompasses the four areas which are detailed below.   

Creating Smart City blueprints: Effective smart city planning and implementation cannot be one-off decisions. Each element needs to feed into one another to create a network of systems and solutions. With that, PBTs need a blueprint that strikes a balance in being both definitive and flexible, and to assist decision-making when it comes to choosing solutions and deciding ways forward – this is where PLANMalaysia comes in, to guide PBTs on blueprint formation and ensure decisions made are holistic and adaptable to future needs.

Running Malaysia Urban Observatory (MUO): Data collection and interpretation are integral to smart cities. MUO is a data-sharing platform that enables public data sharing and supports decision-making. PLANMalaysia’s custody of MUO ensures that all local councils can benefit from the federal department’s collaboration and support, effectively interpreting public data in enhancing services tied to smart city systems. 

SmartCity Accreditations: Involved in the makings of the standards or benchmarks for smart cities and data integration. To ensure usability of data and effectiveness of smart city implementation, certain criteria needs to be met to ensure systems chosen are in fact beneficial, functional and can be used to generate the right insights to enhance public services.

Increasing Awareness: One of the vital challenges to smart city implementation is stakeholder management, and there are many. PLANMalaysia endeavours to manage vital stakeholders by running several campaigns and programs to align all relevant stakeholders, from investors to local authorities to local communities. This fuels understanding of the ultimate goal of transforming into a smart city and the benefits that stand to be gained by all stakeholders.

When addressing smart cities in the past, we may have been uncertain of what was needed. We may have not fully grasped the technology or were not aware of what we wanted out of it. Today, we are in a much more secure position – enriched by knowledge, alongside the maturation of the technology, we are more ready than ever to be elevated towards a smarter future. The road ahead may not be simple or straightforward, but we are equipped with guides, blueprints and action plans which are both symbols and roadmaps to success. They represent our common goals is our binding objective in uniting all stakeholders towards a smarter, healthier, more sustainable Malaysia.

The post Blueprints for Building Smart Cities of the Future - Md Farabi Yussoff appeared first on TM One.

The biggest challenge by far is the complexity of the initiative and managing the collaboration between the multitude of stakeholders needed to make smart city initiatives a success.

There are three crucial building blocks to overcoming the main challenges of smart city implementation:

1. Understanding technology and its potential impact
2. Developing a visionary perspective of the ideal smart city
3. Having the right governance and program management teams to execute this over time.  

Technology and its potential impact

Let’s start with technology which is what a smart city is all about. Technology plays a crucial role in the transformation of smart cities, with benefits that stand to be gained by all stakeholders. The role of technology can be dissected into seven key aspects:

1. Manpower: Smart digital solutions can streamline efficiency and increase productivity with the same number of resources (eg. Smart waste management system, pothole reporting)
   
2. Mobility: Autonomous public transport and edge computing traffic monitoring can create a safer commute experience and reduce traffic congestion.
   
3. Machinery: Advanced data collection and self-diagnostics in smart equipment will only require predictive maintenance and experience fewer performance errors.
   
4. Methodology: Enabling local council apps and citizen reporting of urban issues improves response time of city councils in tackling reports and service malfunctions.
   
5. Market: Test bed for innovative technology will expand market reach globally and attract investors.
   
6. Money: Smart service implementations (eg. Public wifi, charging stations) can create new business models and generate diverse revenue streams.
   
7. Management: Faster data collection and data synthesis will allow for data driven decision-making and more transparent data.
   

Developing the vision

Smart city development cannot be done in an ad-hoc fashion. The various elements need to come together to form a uniform vision and serve a core purpose – to solve specific problems of the city’s residents and improve quality of life. The development of a smart city vision should embrace the following four principles:

1. A holistic approach

A smart city should aim to embrace technology across all aspects of the citizens lifestyle and tight integration of a range of services from transportation, health, education, etc built around citizen journeys.

 2. Citizen-centric drive

The citizens are the heart-beat of every city. A successful initiative involves building trust between the citizens and the governing body through citizen-centric decision and policy making as well as transparency of data and information. Providing citizens smart tools helps with the data collection effort. This helps mitigate the “black hole” problem, with information on any pressing issues reported by concerned citizens made readily available for authorities to address them at the earliest.

3. Synthesis of data

Through widespread data collection, smart cities can solve many problems quickly, made possible by insights from data. An iterative approach that enables constant problem solving is crucial for long-term success. Data insights can also help city managers and planners address the core issues that impact every citizen and minimize chances of recurrence. 

4. DNA of a smart city

Another concept that smart cities should internalise is the DNA of a smart city, namely, Devices, Networks, and Applications. A successful smart city harmonises the interaction between its devices used in daily operations, connected by a network that sustains it, and managed through the use of applications and software’s to ensure a seamless operation and function void of errors.

The execution

A successful smart city implementation cannot be achieved without the proper governance and management, support from stakeholders buying into the idea, and the feedback from the citizens living within. Vision and ideas are relatively simpler to define, the challenge is the execution.  The key success factors include:

1. A disciplined project management office
2. The right funding models
3. Buy-in from all stakeholders
4. Good governance.

While the task seems daunting, there are many global best practices we can follow. The technology has matured and the right funding models are coming into place. We need to act with a sense of urgency. As we embrace the new post-pandemic future, the time to act is now. Failing which we will have only compounded the many challenges for our already fast-growing cities.

Learn more on how Smart City contributes to our nation’s aspiration in becoming a Digital Malaysia.

The post Learn from Industry Expert: Smart Cities for All - Dr Mazlan Abbas appeared first on TM One.

"Because convenience is not for a few, but the masses"

Setiaji, Chief of Digital Transformation Office at Ministry of Health / Assistant of Minister for Health Technology, Indonesia

Half of the world's population are city dwellers, and with the breakneck speed of technological advancement, a government that fuels digital technologies stands to endure significant long-term economic benefits. Cities that are slow to embrace the digital race risk falling further behind the pack.

With an average density of 1,400 population per square kilometer, West Java is home to 50 million people across 27 regencies and 620 districts. While it is the most populous province in Indonesia, its human development index is lower than Indonesia's national average. Wide socioeconomical and digital gaps are spread within its 1,576 urban villages and 4,301 rural villages.

Pemerintah Jawa Barat or the West Java Provincial Government understands that to inch closer to the smart city pole position, its version of smart city needs to be inclusive of the rural areas. Faced with complex government bureaucracy, compounded with a lack of innovation in the government service, West Java Provincial Government initiated an in-house digital team — Jawa Barat Digital Service or Jabar Digital Service. Early in our journey, we saw that to build a smart city tailored to the West Java ecosystem, we needed to bring together best-in-class tech talent and institutional stability in one team. Jabar Digital Service, in essence, is a start-up under government purview with a massive scale to impact.

There are three anchor drivers that propelled West Java into becoming one of the region’s fastest smart city adopters: People. Process. Technology.

1. People – Fostering digital talent

For a city to become a leading smart city, the importance of talent is second to none. However, according to the World Bank, Indonesia will have a 9-million digital talent shortage by 2030 if initiatives are not taken to address this in the interim.   

To fill this potential gap, Jabar Digital Service launched its inaugural Candradimuka Jabar Coding Camp in 2021. This first batch of full-fledged coding camps received 11,730 applicants, with 844 being successful in their applications. Additionally, and more impressively, 18.9% of the 844 successful applicants are among the underprivileged, disabled or high school leavers. All graduates of the coding camp are now either absorbed in Jabar Digital Service,  assimilated into the Indonesian technology industry, or opted to become freelancers taking advantage of the budding gig economy. As a result, we now have more than 300 new additions to the digital workforce consisting of mainly young, exuberant talents mentored by senior government officials and private sector experts.

2. Process – Facilitating new business models, streamlining regulations and supporting interactive innovation

An advocate of the 'Right First, Fast Later' mantra, Jabar Digital service believes a deep and resilient process is the cornerstone of any smart city. There was a perception that regulations were a barrier to innovation. Hence, the first point to address was to fine-tune existing regulatory policies to foster regulator engagement in the innovation process.

At a broader level, to invigorate a culture of innovation at various levels and among diverse stakeholders, we took a 360° view and synergised the business process with governance and infrastructure to support this interactive innovation. All this, of course, needed to align with our budget and stretch every Rupiah.

3. Technology – A customer-centric product

Smart cities may have become one of the main agendas for governments worldwide, but there is still a substantially unmet need for the largely overlooked and underserved population.

As West Java comprises of primarily rural locations and with our citizens only being able to afford basic technical equipment, our smart city technology of choice needs to be brought down to the lowest common denominator to make it inclusive for everyone and reduce the digital divide.

At Jabar Digital Service, we believe the launching of a digital blueprint is not enough. The execution must be accessible for all stakeholders to be able to develop at a furious pace.

Here are some examples of our flagship products that have impacted the West Java society significantly.

The Jabar Command Centre is a data visualisation and monitoring centre which centralizes and integrates data from all operations and public services available to citizens of West Java.

Public Gathering Monitoring, Smart CCTV surveillance that feeds the command centre with information of an estimated number of mass gatherings, average density and peak hours. The collection, monitoring and analysis of information allows the government to monitor public protocols and coordinate for security measures whenever necessary.

Ekosistem Data Jabar (EDJ)， EDJ is a data ecosystem which integrates data from four main sources (OpenData, SatuData, Satu Peta & Core Data). Information gathered from this integrated ecosystem generates ‘smart’ insights which, in turn, supports data-driven decision making. The use of public and open data has also heightened transparent leadership while encouraging public participation in the urban development of West Java.  

Sapawarga, the West Java government’s Superapp was launched in 2019 with 3 main purposes:

1. Effective, widespread and efficient delivery of government information to citizens
2. Encouraging citizen interaction and feedback to government bodies
3. Enabling citizens to gain easier access to government programs and public services

Pikobar, A day after West Java declared a state of emergency due to the COVID19 pandemic, JDS launched the Pikobar website. The Pikobar app was released 16 days later. Since the launches, Pikobar has been releasing real-time data and enabling integrated COVID-19 related services via both app and website. The services include 32 features such as teleconsultation / telemedicine, multivitamin prescription, delivery and administration of oxygen and more.

The overall objective of the Digital Villages Theme is to overcome the digital divide in rural areas, by covering 3 major pillars:

1. Providing basic digital infrastructure for rural residents to access the internet
2. Increasing digital literacy and ensuring residents are capable of using the internet for communication and information access

• Increasing internet optimization with Internet-of-Things (IoT) and E-commerce to allow residents to independently and sustainably empower their own productivity.

There is one key trait driving the success of West Java’s smart city transformation: unity. From governments and local officials having a clear and aligned vision of a smart West Java, to an inclusive action plan that aims to elevate the lifestyles of all members of West Java’s society; the province is an undisputable example of the value of unity and cooperation of all stakeholders in making smart city transformation a success.

The post Digital Transformation to Build Metropolitan, Regional and National Smart Cities - Setiaji appeared first on TM One.

In this year’s City LEAP Summit, we readdress the PBT challenges and reorient our efforts. Our renewed vision and clearer pathways helps us forge forward to make the smart city aspirations a reality with every PBT and its people.

In line with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT)’s initiative in creating a “Liveable Malaysia”, TM One is committed to pioneering and co-creating digital transformation for the cities of the future. Championing a Liveable Malaysia through the creation of smart cities is very much aligned with our goal of becoming a human-centred technology company and our belief in “Life Made Easier”.

The advent of smart cities will help create a higher quality of life for citizens by using technology to support local business communities, thereby increasing the efficiency of public services and creating a more sustainable, friendlier environment.

4 key elements for an effective smart city transformation

The implementation of an effective smart city transformation is easier said than done. Challenges await each PBT with many moving parts and considerations to be made. However, in our endeavours and experience in cooperating with several PBTs, we have identified four key elements for success:

1. Solutions to meet the specific needs of the city’s residents: There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for creating smart cities, as not all cities face the same challenges or are on the same scale. While technological solutions may broadly be capable of fixing many of humanity’s problems, it is only truly effective when tailored to a specific purpose (i.e. being human-centred). This principle forms the theme for this year’s City LEAP Summit – Solutions Built for Citizens.
   
2. A strategic and integrated execution plan: While several smart city solution providers exist in the market, the key to effective execution lies in integrating systems to seamlessly share and accurately interpret data to ensure the continuous generation of useful insights. Strategy and integration may be enablers, but they also appear to be the biggest challenge for several PBTs. Therefore, the solution lies in selecting a provider who can offer robust and integrated, long-term implementation strategies with end to end managed services capabilities that can support and enable PBT’s and its people’s requirements.
   
3. Unbreakable cybersecurity: Technology presents huge benefits for the planning of cities but also places considerable risks on security. Connected cities presents or open up to a new profile of cybersecurity attack risk. Critical attention needs to be paid to smart city cybersecurity to ensure safety, functionality and efficiency.
   
4. No more delays: The time has never been more right to implement smart cities. The climate and our environmental landscape is rapidly changing. With that comes natural disasters, unpredictable weather and other risks that we must mitigate. Thankfully, our technological capabilities have matured beyond mitigation and can now play a role in helping our world and our cities heal. PBTs must take advantage of the technological readiness to safeguard our homes against the challenges that are already knocking on our doors. From its capability to mitigate flooding to lowering carbon outputs through effective traffic control, smart cities hold the key to a safer, sustainable living environment for all our citizens.

Our progress so far

To date, we have made several initiatives with PBTs:

1. The implementation of Smart Traffic Lights in several states: Kelantan, Perlis, Penang, Selangor and Johor now experience better traffic control, shortened commute times and receives automated notifications to local councils on traffic light malfunctions in real-time, thanks to the implementation of Smart Traffic Lights and traffic optimisation, powered by Artificial Intelligence. The local council of Ipoh has also recently joined in on Smart Traffic Light implemenatation, with significant results to show for it. With the abundance of vehicles on the road, smart traffic management is key to reducing carbon footprints in the cities.
   
2. We have also implemented the Smart Safety and Security System in 25 local councils nationwide. This system is supported by Integrated Command Centre. The combination of sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence are helping PBTs detect, respond, predict and prevent more effectively to ensure the safety and comfort of the citizens and communities, contributing towards lowering crime and delivering emergency assistance more efficiently.

We are forging ahead, co-creating with PBTs on various digital services for the seamless use and benefit of the people and businesses. TM One remains a committed strategic partner to all PBTs in realising their aspirations toward becoming smart cities. Our objectives are clear – to implement the best-in-place integrated solutions that cater to each city and champion human-centred technology in accomplishing a “Liveable Malaysia”. TM One is the trusted partner who enable PBTs’ next advantage, today and tomorrow.

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As cities around the world reopen their economic activities, traffic congestion once again beset the life of city dwellers. One way to relive the "optimised" vehicle flow, as we briefly experienced during MCO phases, is through traffic lights. 

TM One, the business solutions arm of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM), has developed a system that can programme traffic lights to respond to real-time data collected by connected cameras and sensors. The Smart Traffic Analytics and Recognition System (STARS) employs a combination of cloud and edge-based computing and analytics to automatically adjust traffic lights to optimise the traffic flow through a junction. Alternatively, engineers can remotely monitor real-time information via the STARS IoT dashboard on a laptop or mobile device and alter the sequence of the traffic lights accordingly. The solution leverages TM’s mobile network to relay data from the traffic controller unit to the IoT platform. 

The information collected by the system can also be analysed to identify any faults in the traffic signals, enabling field engineers to be deployed quickly to minimise traffic disruption. The municipality can predefine various events that will prompt STARS to trigger an alarm alerting the relevant teams, enabling any issues to be identified and resolved quickly and efficiently. 

Real-world Deployment – Municipalities in Malaysia 

First launched in 2016 in Malaysia, STARS has been deployed by local municipalities in Cyberjaya, Kelantan, Pengerang and Penang. TM One believes it could ultimately be deployed at approximately 1,800 junctions nationwide across Malaysia. 

For drivers, STARS is reducing travelling time. For example, in Cyberjaya, the waiting time for the traffic along Persiaran Multimedia was reduced by 65 per cent. During peak hours, it would take approximately 32 minutes to drive from one end of the Persiaran Multimedia to the other. However, with the new system, it takes only 8 to 11 minutes. 

TM One has now transitioned to STARS 2.0, which is able to analyse six months or more of traffic data to enable predictive analysis so that traffic lights can be programmed based on a range of external factors, such as weather, events and holidays, as well as real-time traffic data. 

With the rollout of 5G connectivity in Malaysia, TM One had piloted the 5G-enabled smart traffic light solution in Subang Jaya city and Langkawi Island, as part of the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) Demonstration Project. The 5G capabilities allow the streaming of real-time video from road-side cameras to artificial intelligence systems that can estimate waiting times for each vehicle, count the number of vehicles, classify them according to type and recognise vehicle registration plates. Capable of detecting ambulances, police cars and fire engines, the system will be able to automatically adjust the operations of traffic lights to let these emergency vehicles drive through a junction safely. 

Both traffic light junctions in Subang Jaya city and Langkawi Island were specifically selected due to traffic bottlenecks at peak hours, and with the pilot implementation, there was notable reduction of long vehicle queues for both junctions. With 5G connectivity finally being rolled out and ready for service soon, road users will definitely welcome the full implementation of 5G-enabled smart traffic light management. 

Originally published and updated from: APAC Internet of Things Case Studies

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Malaysia remains steadfast on its vision of becoming a regional digital leader as evidenced by the launch of its MyDIGITAL, a 10-year bid to revitalise its digital economy vision. As part of a nationwide implementation campaign, two digital companies – Cloud Connect and TM One, the enterprise and public sector business arm of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) – have collaborated to establish the Cloud Connect Academy. It aims to upskill government officials, and is part of a wide-scale effort to digitalise Malaysia’s public sector.

The academy will inculcate individuals with the necessary skills to work with digital technologies associated with Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT). Hanafiah Hassan, Managing Director of Cloud Connect shared further insights into the academy’s role in supporting Malaysia’s overarching digital transformation.

Pivoting to ‘future-ready roles’

We have seen a significant shift in public sector careers, Hanafiah said. System analysts and website developers are in the process of being replaced by ‘future jobs’ – such as ‘cloud consultants’ and ‘cloud engineers’, he said.

“Cloud Connect Academy aims to upskill civil servants to meet new demands on the job. It will equip them with knowledge on AI, big data, IoT and cloud computing,” he noted.

According to Hanafiah, public sector staff will learn how to create apps through the academy, which will enable the government to expand its digital services. One example is MySejahtera, Malaysia’s all-in-one app for managing its national Covid-19 vaccination programme as well as to help with contact tracing, connect citizens with testing and support facilities, and mapping Covid-19 hotspots.

Public sector workers will be introduced to DevOps, a systematic approach that helps development and operations teams to build and roll out tech services more rapidly and efficiently, he explained.

In addition, the academy’s offerings include new methods of website creation for public sector IT services, Hanafiah said. “Previously, it took three months to build a site; however, the introduction of these new systems will reduce the development time to a matter of just 15 minutes – without requiring any change to the coding language.”

He revealed that the programme was initially aimed solely at IT staff within the public sector agencies but later was extended to include all public servants. “This is in line with Malaysia’s digital transformation strategy, which plans to have 100 per cent of civil servants become digitally literate, and 80 per cent of the government will use Cloud storage.”

Cloud’s pivotal role

When the Malaysian government’s Economic Planning Unit (EPU) announced the MyDIGITAL initiative in February 2021, one of its key goals was to reskill the current workforce. This would ensure Malaysians ‘stay relevant’ in a world rapidly moving into the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).

Cloud technologies and systems form a fundamental part of the MyDIGITAL initiative, wrote the IDC. TM, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have been appointed to build and manage Cloud services in Malaysia. These initiatives will help to reduce operating costs and enhance analytical efficiency, IDC highlighted.

Hanafiah confirms that: “TM has helped to support the academy’s Cloud computing curriculum. Its lead role as a Cloud service provider to the government is testament to TM’s world-class level of skills and extensive experience.”

Extending the talent base

Looking ahead, Hanafiah commented: “Cloud Connect Academy can play a significant role as an upskilling platform, not only for the public sector but also for graduates. The academy’s vision extends to support the new generation that is now entering the workforce to acquire the essential future-ready skill sets to greatly enhance their employability level.”

“Students will be taught ‘modern application’, ‘modern infrastructure’ and ‘modern processes,” he further explained. “Modern applications require moving away from older programming systems like Java and pivoting to programming frameworks that are more convenient and useable by a greater range of staff.”

“Modern infrastructure involves transforming legacy hardware into a Cloud environment,” he added. “The curriculum for graduates encourages the incorporation of new Cloud-native technologies into existing infrastructures, as part of an essential and timely shift from legacy systems.”

“Additionally, a modern process which involves Agile practices that advocate adaptive planning, cross-functional teams, evolutionary development, early delivery and continual improvement, encourages flexible responses to change,” concluded Hanafiah.

The upskilling of public sector staff is vital as key component of Malaysia’s vision to accelerate the implementation of digital technologies into its public sector. In addition, this talent push will help smooth the transition from old job roles into the future ready roles.

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The public sector needs to catch up. Citizens now expect a level of service that can match the digital native businesses they often interact with on daily basis. Consider e-hailing, e-commerce, and e-wallet players — they provide a comprehensive service completely through digital means. Coupled with the advancements in e-KYC for digital onboarding, it comes with no surprise; citizens expect the public sector to follow suit.

The governments of today recognise this trend. In order to meet their citizen’s expectations, many government agencies are adopting Cloud computing progressively to enable their digital transformation. Recently, more than 60% of the governments’ Cloud initiatives have been successful, proving the effectiveness of this strategy.¹

Some of the key benefits driving Cloud adoption among governments are:

1. The ability to leverage up-to-date technology
2. Faster production, deployment, and time-to-market for government services
3. The ability to streamline workflows, data management, and computing resources across ministries
4. Reduces costs and improves the scalability of government services
5. Allow ecosystem partners to collaborate with the public sector

By outlining the clear benefits of the Cloud, we want you to understand how governments are using it. Here, we will provide insights into how Singapore government agencies implement their Cloud strategy and share examples of services hosted on the Cloud.

GovTech Singapore

In order to understand Singapore’s Cloud transformation, it is important to understand the role of GovTech first. Established in 2016, GovTech is the main entity spearheading the digital transformation of Singapore’s government services.

Parked under the Prime Minister’s Office, GovTech oversees the digitalisation of all the ministries and agencies of the government. It plays a central role in the 5-year plan (initiated in 2018) to migrate the government’s IT systems onto the commercial Cloud. GovTech has since migrated nearly 600 systems to the commercial Cloud.²

The role that GovTech plays here is vital; it helps the country’s agencies and ministries to move away from the traditional silos that government agencies typically operate under. Moreover, having a centralised agency to implement the digital transformation ensures that all ministries advance consistently.

Building the Singapore Government Tech Stack

A very distinctive feature of GovTech’s role is the development of the Singapore Government Tech Stack (SGTS).

Here, GovTech built a centralised technology stack hosted on a commercial Cloud. This technology stack acts as the backbone of all the government agencies’ digital services. It consists of three (3) main components –

• infrastructure (e.g., AWS)
• middleware (APIs, application testing, DevOps)
• microservices.³

All these components make it easier for Singapore government agencies to deploy and maintain applications.

For example, in the past, each government agency would typically build their applications on top of their dedicated infrastructure.

These layered steps severely limited the speed and scalability of building applications for the public sector. The agencies had to maintain each application individually with different sets of architectures. With time, this gets harder to sustain.

With SGTS in place, the base application becomes easily reproducible. Depending on the service that the agency wishes to provide, they can now customise the solutions on top of that base application.

As such, this substantially speeds up and eases the process for Singapore government agencies to provide digital services. More importantly, the agencies can focus primarily on delivering value without the need to manage its underlying infrastructure.

The benefits don’t end there. Here are some other key benefits of this approach:

1. Shifting from a monolithic model to a microservices model with SGTS

In simple terms, a monolithic model application works as a single unit. This means that the agency must make any updates and maintenance to the entire application’s codebase. The model essentially limits the scalability and agility for pushing out new services.

In contrast, a microservices model breaks down the application into smaller independent components. Hence, agencies can apply updates without the need to deploy a new version of the whole application.

The shift to a microservices model provides the much-needed agility for Singapore government agencies to develop digital services faster. Moreover, this approach is crucial; the public sector needs to adopt agile software development practices, similar to what the private sector is already using.

• Ability to use up-to-date technologies

Running on legacy systems with outdated security practices may leave the government applications vulnerable to cyberattacks. SGTS ensures that all government applications come with modernised security practices and data protection policies.

This situation extends to services beyond security. For example, having a modern architecture with SGTS allows government agencies to adopt advanced analytics tools similar to those used in the private sector.

With the speed and agility provided by SGTS, the public sector can now keep up with technology developments. Moreover, this can also benefit the public sector by attracting and retaining top tech talents.

• Integrating data across government agencies to improve digital services

Traditional application infrastructures meant that Singapore government applications operate in silos. Hence, they were not able to integrate data across agencies.

SGTS’s architecture loosens these barriers. Using a set of secured Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), the agencies can now share confidential data securely. Furthermore, GovTech complements this initiative with the development of the Application Programming Interface Exchange (APEX).⁴

APEX enables the secure transmission of confidential citizen data. It is a centralised API exchange that allows government agencies to tap into the wealth of data acquired across the government. This ability significantly improves the speed at which data can be shared and creates a more streamlined business process.

• Ability to co-develop solutions with industry players

Another game-changing benefit is the ability to enable collaborations. The technology industry is a rapid race. Open-source tools are dominating the scene with innovations every day. Without access to these tools, the public sector may inevitably fall behind.

Having a common platform with SGTS creates the opportunity for the government to co-create solutions with the ecosystem players. In 2020, GovTech chose 17 companies to co-develop solutions using the SGTS platform.⁵

This was simply impossible in the past. The private sector typically worked as outsourced contractors but not as collaborators. This approach changes that dynamic by allowing the government to foster closer relationships with the private sector to build valuable citizen services.

Example applications hosted on commercial Cloud

Let us see how these developments have advanced Singapore’s citizen services. We cover the top three (3) applications that work on SGTS. This will give you an understanding of how impactful cloud can be for improving government services.

a. Singpass

Singpass is Singapore’s national digital identity system. Through this system, citizens can gain access to over 340 government agencies with over 1400 digital services. This singular platform eliminates the traditional customer experience of having separate logins for different government services.

Singapore citizens widely recognise Singpass as one of the best government services. It is ranked as the fourth (4^th) most popular app in Google Play Store there, with an average rating of 4.8 stars. To date, there are more than 2.5 million users, with over 90% of them having at least one interaction per month.⁷

b. LifeSG (formerly known as Moments of Life)

 LifeSG consolidates the best of Singapore’s government services onto one common platform – like a super app. Previously named Moments in Life, the updated app personalises a citizen’s journey based on their life stage. The services include birth registration, school registration, job-seeking portals, parking services, taxations, etc.

LifeSG simplifies the citizens’ search for information on relevant services. In addition, the app also has a user-friendly interface, giving an easy overview of important information. The application is widely in use, with over 140,000 downloads and 7 out of 10 Singaporeans registering births via LifeSG.

c. Health Hub

Health Hub aims to make it easier for Singapore citizens to access their health information and services under one platform. Built in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the Health Promotion Board, this service contains information like immunisation records, medical appointments, prescriptions, dental appointments, etc.

This was possible by integrating several systems, ranging from the National Electronic Record System, School Dental System, School Health System to the National Immunisation Registry. The integration of multiple systems is a clear feature of how Cloud services have enabled the government to build this service. To date, the application has over 730,000 downloads and scores an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on the Google Play Store.⁶

Meeting the expectations of citizens

Ultimately, customer experience matters the most. For the public sector, results are not as quantifiable in comparison to the private sector. Hence, metrics such as delivery time, user satisfaction surveys, and application ratings are applicable in performance reviews.

Singapore conducts the Survey on Satisfaction with Government Digital Services (Citizens) annually. Its recent results showed that their citizens rated the government digital services at the highest since FY2012. 86% of respondents said that they were extremely satisfied with the digital services. In addition, over 90% of respondents rated the government digital services as one of the best digital services they have used.

Lessons from GovTech

The approach taken by the Singapore government acts as a prime example of how governments can move forward in this digital era.

Singapore placed a strong priority on truly understanding their citizens’ pain points, which takes precedence over tools. For instance, each application goes through several rounds of pilots and surveys. Based on the feedback, the government agencies then apply amendments.

This is where migrating to the Cloud becomes valuable. It is not merely a ‘lift and shift’ process, but it enables the government to change how they build solutions for their citizens. Initiatives such as SGTS, APEX, data sharing, and fostering collaborations with the private sector are vital components of this renewed approach of building citizen services.

References

1. Gartner_Inc. (2021, June). 5 actions to bolster cloud adoption among governments. Retrieved October 07, 2021, from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/how-can-governments-scale-up-cloud-adoption
2. Increased ICT spending in FY2021 to accelerate government digitalisation. (2021, June 23). Retrieved October 08, 2021, from https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/media-releases/2021-06-23-increased-ict-spending-in-fy2021-to-accelerate-government-digitalisation
3. Media Factsheet Singapore Government Tech Stack. (2018, September). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://www.tech.gov.sg/files/products-and-services/sg-tech-stack-media-factsheet-sep-2018.pdf
4. Getting to know nectar and Apex. (2018, July). Retrieved October 07, 2021, from https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/getting-to-know-nectar-and-apex
5. GovTech Annual Report 2019/2020. (2020, July). Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.tech.gov.sg/files/media/corporatepublications/GovTech%20AR%202019_MAIN.pdf
6. Enriching - HPB. (2020). Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://www.hpb.gov.sg/docs/default-source/pdf/hpb-annual-report-2019-2020.pdf?sfvrsn=9ae640ef_2
7. Asian Development Bank. (2021.). Cloud computing as a key enabler for digital government. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/707786/sdwp-077-cloud-computing-digital-government.pdf.
8. Tham, I. (2018, July 27). GovTech launched to lead digital transformation in the public sector. Retrieved October 04, 2021, from https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/govtech-launched-to-lead-digital-transformation-in-public-sector

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