Singapore’s Info-communications Media Development Authority
(IMDA), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Singapore and Singapore-based
startup, DEX have entered
into a collaboration to co-develop a Trusted Data Framework for safe, transparent, auditable and
secure data exchange, that is compliant to regulations and scalable. (According
to Channel NewsAsia, this model will not be the only project supported by
IMDA.)
A blog
post on Medium by Dex describes the objective of the collaboration as addressing trust and
security concerns and introducing a new model where data providers and
consumers can transact in a safe and secure manner to solve common social and
business challenges.
The framework is expected to help businesses leverage and
monetise their data. The technology and software will be open sourced to facilitate
replication of the model and enable the creation of more solutions on the blockhain-based
Ocean protocol built by DEX, to enable
data exchange. The Ocean protocol helps to unlock data, particularly for AI. It is a tokenised service layer that
exposes data, storage, compute and algorithms for consumption with a set of
deterministic proofs on availability and integrity that serve as verifiable
service agreements.
IMDA will
provide regulatory guidance and co-create new codes of practice to mitigate
risks in order to ensure appropriate data practices in usage, handling and
sharing. It will also work towards further government understanding of
commercial sharing arrangements between companies; and where appropriate,
consider regulatory sandboxes to facilitate further innovation.
PwC Singapore’s
role would be to assist in in the design of the Trusted Data Framework to underpin
the Data Marketplace. The Framework is intended to offer companies a means to
establish coherence, consistency and interoperability across information
assets. The framework would address issues with regard to data privacy and the rights
of companies to buy and sell data.
To support the development of the data exchange framework
and marketplace technology, six industry-led pilots have been launched in the
Built Environment, Finance, Healthcare, Mobility, Consumer Goods & Retail,
and Utility sectors.
These pilots would improve understanding of the challenges
and requirements of commercial sharing arrangements between companies and
if regulatory sandboxes are necessary to facilitate further innovation. The
development sprints are expected to take place over approximately 12 months
each, and each sprint will be launched at a different time.
The blog post talks about some of the examples of pilots
from the health and retail areas.
Sharing healthcare
data
Anti-coagulation therapy with blood-thinning medication like
warfarin is used as a treatment for patients with heart conditions or following
a mechanical heart valve (MHV) replacement surgery to prevent blood clots and
ultimately heart stroke. The demand for anti-coagulation care is rising, with
the growing number of elderly and increasing prevalence of chronic heart
disease and conditions, such as atrial fibrillation (AF). For these patients,
regular testing of the International Normalised Ratio (INR; a test to
determine the clotting tendency of blood) levels is necessary to ensure the
right dosage and effectiveness of therapy. The wrong dosage can potentially
lead to complications such as bleeding or stroke.
Roche
Diagnostics intends to collaborate on a pilot project to study the safe
and secure transmission of the INR results of patients on anti-coagulation
therapy from the home monitoring device to the hospital information system.
The Bluetooth-enabled Roche CoaguChek home monitoring device
allows patients under therapy to conveniently test and monitor their INR
levels, in less than five minutes. With this automatic real-time result
transmission, health care professionals can more effectively manage their
patients on coagulation monitoring.
Ageing-in-place
With Singapore’s ageing population, there is a rise in
chronic diseases and dependence on social care. One-third of people aged 65 and
over in Singapore live alone, and this number continues to rise. There is an
increasing demand for services that support independent living while delivering
quality care.
ConnectedLife is
a home monitoring solution designed specifically for older adults and their
caregivers. It combines Internet of
Things (IoT) devices such as ambient sensors monitoring motion and sound, 24/7
personal assistance, and unique insurance coverage provided by Aviva. The
solution aims to allow older adults to live independently while enabling family
members to safeguard their loved ones and providing care professionals
real-time information.
As part of the installation of the smart sensors and
devices, ConnectedLife is required to document the individual home
(photographs, survey, comments) and record various wellness indicators of the
older adults, such as weight and mobility, etc. This data, alongside the daily
free-living data collected by ConnectedLife has enormous value for government
agencies (housing development), integrated health clusters, and insurance
applications (risk of accident).
Ensuring safe, secure and trusted access to the data assets in
an even wider ecosystem could enable the development of even more valuable and
impactful applications.
But ConnectedLife does not want to lose control over the
data assets or risk non-compliance with the Personal Data Protection Act 2012
(PDPA) of the Republic of Singapore and EU General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR). Similarly, Government agencies, Healthcare and Insurance providers will
not want to lose control of their data assets and applications with
ConnectedLife.
Through a pilot, ConnectedLife and other stakeholders can
leverage the Trusted Data Framework and decentralised data exchange platform to
demonstrate how access to, and exchange of, additional, alternative data assets
can transform analytics, prediction, and prevention, supporting Ageing-in-Place.
Customer insights
Multi-national national consumer goods leader, Unilever invests a significant amount of
resources to understand shopper behavior in order to offer consumers customised
best in class products and services.
Acquired retailer data can help in such analysis, but it
tends to be limited and fragmented, making it difficult to aggregate. Hence, the
available data may not provide a comprehensive representation of the reality.
By participating in the development pilot with IMDA, DEX,
and PwC, Unilever can extract meaningful shopper insights from conventional as well
as non-traditional sources, and explore trusted access and fair value exchange
to higher-resolution and alternative data assets to improve customer
understanding.
Supporting smallholder farmers
Unilever is also looking to help smallholder farmers achieve
better efficiency and productivity by improving and accelerating access to data
that is already collected, but not shared, by various ecosystem actors. This
would be explored with support from IMDA, DEX, and PWC.
Unilever, is working with Grow Asia in this area. Grow Asia is a
multi-stakeholder partnership platform that aims to reach 10 million
smallholder farmers by 2020, helping them access knowledge, technology,
finance, and markets to increase their productivity, profitability, and
environmental sustainability by 20%.
Unilever and Grow Asia understand that oil palm cultivation
has become important to rural livelihoods in Indonesia, particularly among
smallholders. Access to information, credit, and services could help these
farmers adopt sustainable production practices, thereby improving their
livelihoods and driving more sustainable outcomes.