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Without a doubt, data is seen as a vital asset today for gaining insights into the market and for understanding consumer behaviour.
Data does not act alone; it plays a role in the use of technologies such as cloud services and artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies work hand in hand for managing the inflow and large volumes of data.
The modern data experience leverages the agility and innovation of multiple technologies to allow for better performance- increased productivity and efficiency of organisations.
Governments understand this and are leveraging on their large pools of data for policymaking decisions and improving citizen lives.
The OpenGov Breakfast Insight on 15 January 2020, held at Amara Singapore, was attended by delegates from the public sector who shared their insights on embracing the modern data experience.
Adopting the Right Strategies for Data Management


Data is getting structured. Consumers are collecting data without even realising it. Bite-sized pieces of data are being collected by the minute, creating a drip-feed of information.
Data is recognised as the new hero, but are we trusting it, was the question posed by Mohit Sagar, Group Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of OpenGov Asia, in his opening.
In the face of the government, bureaucratic and legal obstacles are reasons for the Public Sector having obstacles to achieving it. It is important to note that some governments are still using legacy systems for making data.
Singapore compares itself to Estonia a lot. But Singapore itself has a very deep legacy. Getting across to the line of digital transformation requires investment in new tools and systems.
Challenges will keep coming but they should be apprehended, one at a time.
“Get the right advice and then be a game-changer.”
Mohit Sagar
In addition to that, looking at top management and seeking help from a trusted partner is vital to overcoming these challenges.
Data will be best used and produce the desired results when the right strategies are adopted, to maximise the use of data. Mohit put forth that “adding ice” with more innovations and ideas will be fruitful in achieving the desired outcomes.
Legacy Approach is Holding Digital Transformation Back


The Digital Transformation journey is undertaken with investments made in 7 key areas which include business intelligence or data analytics solutions, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and cloud services/solutions, according to a report.
Data is at the heart of it all, impacting areas such as business analytics, cybersecurity, cloud adoption, application modernisation and DevOps, customer experience, and AI/machine learning.
The question is: how is data to be used for ensuring performance, agility, minimising cost, and reliability.
Sunil Chavan, Vice President of FlashBlade at Pure Storage, pointed out that with governments, the legacy approach to data is holding digital transformation back.
The same challenges are observed across governments and government agencies – fragmented silos, expensive to acquire, run and scale, retrofit, aging architectures, and being rigid and not upgradeable.
But these legacy infrastructures change with time, with the shift towards adopting a modern data experience. Sunil shared that there is a realisation seen in emerging markets to have optimal data centres.
Reiterating the focus of the event, Sunil said that creating the modern data experience is all about keeping it simple, sustainable, and seamless.
From a Pure Storage lens, they started with re-inventing the storage array, followed by delivering storage-as-a-service (SaaS) as part of creating the modern data experience. This includes activating real-time analytics and AI, enabling multi-cloud, accelerating core applications and modernising data protection.
“Embracing the modern data experience is about keeping things fast, using cloud, keeping it simple, and subscribing to innovation.”
Sunil Chavan
Disaster Recovery Requires Capable Data Centres


Understanding how digital transformation and data management have been approached, based on case studies from other countries gives insights.
Glenn Ashe, Chief Information and Technology Officer at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), shared on a few from Australia.
The AIHW is in the midst of moving its secondary data centre to a new area. The challenge it faces with its disaster recovery is that because of storage and insufficient funds, the disaster recovery centre is only able to provide 40% recovery. This will result in a slow recovery, delay of delivering reports, slowdown in incoming funding and loss of business.
An epidemic faced was the setup of a T-drive, which was meant to be a temporary drive. The misunderstanding of the purpose of the drive led to the failure of it, with the institute being down for 3 weeks. The aim now is to move up the capability of the data recovery centre to 70%.
Glenn stressed that the main drive for data is that there has to be an investment in the right technology. It is important to look at technology from the full cycle.
The Food Standards of Australia New Zealand agency took the approach of modernising their storage without downtime, through the combined usage of flash and cloud innovation. This switch of storage was made without any real disruption. All of their data was preserved when moving to a new infrastructure.
The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is one such other organisation which adopted a “pay for the storage you need, when you need it” approach, after experiencing a data breach.
Employing Pure Storage’s services, the organisation was able to add additional storage capacities, on-demand with minimal risk and with a predictable pricing model, that AIS could easily apply to the pricing it offered to its end users.
Glenn said that although it is often being said now that “data is the new oil”, there is so much of data but not enough of an understanding of what is to be done with it. “The more data you get, the more structured it has to become,” he said.
Where are Organisations at?
On the whole, the Singapore government views digital transformation and innovation as being a key IT priority. It has adopted a cloud-first initiative. Data is moved to the cloud platform for reducing maintenance costs.
Data also needs to be aggregated across different sectors for developing a common data governance approach.
Embarking on the digital transformation journey requires new IT strategies for evolving business value. Big government strategies are needed for delivering good outcomes for the people. But it is imperative to first understand new technology, to support current strategies.
New IT enablers, such as technology or people with skillsets, are important for driving these new IT strategies. Taking a look at the healthcare sector, it has a wealth of datasets. The challenge it faces with that is that as the needs of patients evolve, the fragmentation of systems and information becomes pertinent.
Digital risk is also a part of the transformation, where traditional IT strategies take 3 to 5 years to undergo changes.
Again, it is understood that the partnering of capabilities will bring more opportunities for overcoming these challenges. Solving business problems will increase business value, with IT enablers. Enhancing the customer experience is the focus but partnering capabilities is important to achieve it.


AI and Data analytics is a useful tool to adopt as it provides faster access to data to improve pre-emptive analysis. With the increasing reliance on data, AI will help to produce reports faster. But this does not translate to AI taking jobs away. It is more of job restructuring. Mindsets and culture have to change to embrace this inevitable change.
Having the tech tools for managing the data at hand is important but there are challenges that come with it. Gaining real-time insights into the data is highly common.
Data is fragmented and there is not enough sharing of it. This makes it difficult to implement in real-time. Different legacy structures of different agencies will also slow down data sharing.
Putting all this into perspective, it is understood that having a converged or aggregated infrastructure and data analytics capability are vital capabilities to possess for undergoing digital transformation.
Creating the Modern Data Experience
Data underpins the entirety of digital transformation. The convergence of infrastructure will be an upcoming trend, though there still is confusion around it. Using the right technologies and understanding how to manage data will help to achieve the digital transformation goals. This all comes together under embracing the modern data experience.


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All organisations that use alphanumeric Sender IDs to send SMS are now required to register with the Singapore SMS Sender ID Registry (SSIR) as part of the measures announced by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) last October. This registration is intended to protect consumers from non-registered SMS that may be scams, a press statement has said.
Starting from 31 January, any non-registered SMS will be labelled as “Likely-SCAM”. This functions similarly to a spam filter or spam bin. Consumers might get non-registered SMS labelled as “Likely-SCAM” and are advised to exercise caution. If unsure, consumers are encouraged to check with family and friends. This will improve IMDA’s overall resilience against scams.
All organisations that use alphanumeric Sender IDs must register early with the SSIR. This is to give adequate time as non-registered SMS Sender IDs after 31 January will be labelled as “Likely-SCAM”. Organisations that have not registered their Sender IDs are advised to do so, the statement said.
As of January 2023, over 1,200 organisations have already registered with SSIR, using more than 2,600 SMS Sender IDs. These include financial institutions, e-commerce operators, logistics providers, and SMEs that send SMS to their customers who have registered with the SSIR.
In recent months, IMDA reached out to organisations through aggregators and associations such as the Singapore Business Federation, Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, and Association of Banks in Singapore, to encourage them to register with the SSIR. The mandatory SSIR regime is part of a broader effort to protect against scams, which also includes working with telecom operators to reduce the number of scam calls and SMS coming through the communication networks.
Since the implementation of the SSIR in March 2022, there has been a significant decrease in scams reported through SMS, with a 64% reduction from the last quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022. Additionally, scam cases perpetrated via SMS dropped from 10% in 2021 to 8% in Q2 2022, down from 10% in 2021.
To effectively combat scams, a collective effort from society is needed. Despite implementing various measures, scammers may adapt their methods and tactics. IMDA will continue to collaborate with other stakeholders in the fight against scams, but individual vigilance and awareness are crucial. Consumers should remain vigilant and share scam prevention tips with friends and loved ones, the statement said.
IMDA leads Singapore’s digital transformation with infocomm media. To do this, IMDA is working to develop a dynamic digital economy and a cohesive digital society, driven by an exceptional infocomm media (ICM) ecosystem. It fosters talent, strengthens business capabilities, and enhances Singapore’s ICM infrastructure. IMDA also regulates the telecommunications and media sectors to safeguard consumer interests while fostering a pro-business environment and enhances Singapore’s data protection regime through the Personal Data Protection Commission.
Scams and unwanted commercial electronic messages and calls are an international problem with scammers continuing to prey on unsuspecting parties. Last year, IMDA and Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to boost cooperation and fight scams and spam. The agreement covers cooperation in information sharing and assistance in investigations relating to scam and spam calls and short message services. The two sides also agreed to mutual exchanges of knowledge and expertise and collaboration on technical and commercially viable solutions in relation to scam and spam communications.
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The Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has said that with the involvement of an artificial intelligence (AI) layer, the country’s architecture will become more sophisticated in the future.
He was addressing the first India Stack Developers conference, which aimed to facilitate the adoption of India Stack for countries that are keen to integrate it as per their requirements and to create a robust ecosystem of startups, developers, and system integrators working around it on next-generation innovation. He said the government wants to offer India Stack or part of the stack to those enterprises and countries across the world who want to innovate and further integrate, execute, and implement digital transformation. India Stack is a set of open indigenously-developed APIs and e-governance and public applications.
“What we have now is just [the] India Stack 1.0 version. It will evolve and become more sophisticated and nuanced,” Chandrasekhar explained. A smart dataset programme will be launched soon, and an AI layer will be built into the stack. Seven countries will sign up with the Indian government to use India Stack.
The conference was conducted to bring together the developer community, start-ups, corporations, and foreign governments who are inspired by the India Stack and want to adopt digital public goods like Aadhaar, United Payments Interface (UPI), and Digilocker. Senior officials from Aadhaar, GeM (Government e-marketplace), Diksha, a public ed-tech initiative, and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission gave presentations on the strategies of each platform. Over one hundred digital leaders from industry associations, system integrators, and start-ups attended the event. It also saw participation from delegates of G20 countries.
Debjani Ghosh, President of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), stated that India using digital means has achieved financial inclusion for 80% of the population in 6 years as compared to the projected figure of 46 years.
The CEO of Aadhaar, Saurabh Garg, spoke about the impact the biometric identification system has had in the country. It has recorded over 1.3 billion sign ups till now and handles around 75 million daily transactions. The transactions involve e-authentication by various organisations such as fintech, banks, and other Aadhaar-enabled payment services.
Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identification card that serves as proof of identity and address for Indian citizens. As per the latest government data, in November, 287 million e-know your customer (e-KYC) transactions were carried out using Aadhaar, a 22% growth over the previous month. By the end of November, the cumulative number of e-KYC transactions had reached 13.5 billion. As OpenGov Asia reported, the Aadhaar e-KYC service is playing an increasingly crucial role in banking and non-banking financial services. It provides transparent and enhanced customer experiences.
An e-KYC transaction is executed, only after the explicit consent of the Aadhaar holder, and eliminates physical paperwork, and in-person verification requirements for KYC. Telecom operators and fintech firms, among others, have seen ease in the onboarding of new customers through eKYC. In November, 1.95 billion Aadhaar authentication transactions were carried out, 11% more than in October. Most of these monthly transactions were carried out by using fingerprint biometric authentication, followed by demographic and OTP authentication.
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The Ministry of Administrative Reform and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB) join forces with a government IT firm to create a digital Public Service Mall (MPP). The initiative is a follow-up to President Joko Widodo’s directive to establish MPP Digital.
According to Minister PANRB Abdullah Azwar Anas, the IT government company is more advanced in digitalisation implementation. MPP Digital incorporates numerous services into the hand to make it easier for people to access high-quality government services.
“MPP Digital provides effective and efficient service delivery while enhancing information security for government digital services. The government IT company team will expedite the President’s vision for MPP Digital,” he explained.
MPP Digital is also expected to increase investment by allowing for faster and easier licencing, leading to job possibilities. In addition, the local administration will not need to construct a massive MPP building but will rely on digitalisation that everyone can access.
MPP Digital is expected to be ready by May 2023, following the President and Vice President’s directives. The creation of MPP Digital is also under the government’s present implementation of the Electronic Based Government System (SPBE).
At the same time, Ririek Adriansyah, the Main Director of the government IT company, declared his willingness to support the government’s initiative. He conveyed that the construction of MPP Digital was proceeding as planned because the digitalisation of services has enormous potential benefits for both the government and the general public.
Additionally, the government is working hard to progress SPBE, including introducing Digital Public Service Malls (MPP) as one of SPBE’s expressions. SPBE is also a component of President Joko Widodo’s Thematic Bureaucratic Reform, which is aimed at digitising government services.
The next Electronic-Based Government System (SPBE) aims to strengthen unity by offering a single access system for the country’s digital services, resulting in higher public service quality. Nowadays, the state’s digital public sector is still fragmented by agency, sector, and silo-based systems. As a result, citizens are frequently required to submit similar data and register several accounts to access various digital-based public sector services.
As a result, Anas will pursue a single sign-on account for users to access various government services. Users can utilise their accounts to access all public services e-services, such as population issues, business permissions, and other certifications. Digital MPP has done so following President Jokowi’s and Vice President Ma’ruf Amin’s objective to achieve bureaucratic reform with simple, powerful, and quick replies to the community.
More MPPs have been built and inaugurated by the government. In the future, all regions will have physical and digital MPPs, with all government services based on demographic numbers (Digital ID). MPP Digital, on the guidance of the President and Vice President, has become the PANRB ministry’s short-term focus.
As of December 2022, 103 MPPs (20% of the total of 514 regencies/cities in Indonesia) had been inaugurated in regencies and cities. Thus, fewer than 80%, or approximately 411 districts/cities, still need MPP. The Vice President aimed for roughly 150 new MPPs in 2023, with all towns and regencies having MPPs by the end of 2024.
The Ministry of PANRB has evaluated 10-15 MPPs (Public Service Malls) for inclusion in the future Digital MPP development process. These MPPs were chosen for their uniqueness, benefits, and good qualities. In general, the MPP Digital application development will be divided into four stages: requirements, design, testing, and upgrading.
Anas emphasised that government digitisation is a critical driver in enhancing the quality of public services, which would increase people’s well-being. Bureaucratic reform must increase investment and streamline business services, boosting the economic level of society. Improving the community’s financial level will undoubtedly influence the lowering poverty rate.
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Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Minister of Health, announced the development of SATUSEHAT, an interoperable Indonesian health data system. Budi aimed to complete the digitalisation of health data by January 2024. In keeping with the spirit of an impactful bureaucracy, the Minister of Health is sure Indonesians would benefit from digitisation.
“The concept is interchangeable; (health facilities) can use the information anywhere: all hospitals, both public and private, pharmacies, clinics, health centres, and labs throughout Indonesia will use the same data format, and (the data) can be exchanged,” he said at the launch of the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) Space in Jakarta.
SATUSEHAT is a health platform that serves as a forum for various health apps from companies in the health business. As a result, all applications and health service facilities on the SATUSEHAT platform, including vertical hospitals, government hospitals, private hospitals, health centres, Posyandu, laboratories, clinics, and pharmacies, must adhere to the Ministry of Health’s criteria.
People no longer need to carry physical medical record files while moving hospitals because of this platform. All patient medical record resumes have been digitally captured on the SATUSEHAT platform, which can be viewed from anywhere and at any time using mobile phones.
“For certain users who haven’t been able to produce health applications, we can aid later. (And) We can eventually give standard and free applications for significant stakeholders such as Puskesmas (community health centres) and Posyandu (toddler integrated service post). This way, we can do data integration elegantly on the same platform,” Budi confirmed.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Health established DTO as a Ministry of Health work unit dedicated to implementing the Healthy Indonesia programme by developing effective data-driven policies and digital technology products. User-Based Technology Development, National Health Data Integration, Technology Capacity Building, and Data-Based Policy Making are the four principles of digital transformation being implemented.
Budi directed the DTO and the Data and Information Centre (Pusdatin) to take meaningful actions to expedite national health data digitisation. DTO must complete nationwide health interoperability that is transparent and accessible to all parties. The merger process started on July 6, 2022, and is expected to be finished by the end of 2023.
Another challenge is to combine clinical and genomic data to assess the health of the Indonesian population deployed with Artificial Intelligence to create more detailed and exact results. AI will subsequently support the Ministry of Health’s clinical and genomic data. The services are designed to help Indonesia advance health biotechnology.
During the inauguration ceremony, the Minister for Administrative Reform and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB), Abdullah Azwar Anas, praised the Ministry of Health’s digital transformation in the healthcare system. He anticipated that the shift would affect at least five items. First and foremost, it increases the quality of healthcare services. Second, it improves access to healthcare services. Third, raise the added value of the health sector economy with a focus on domestic goods.
Fourth, speeding the achievement of the government’s main healthcare projects, such as lowering stunting prevalence. Fifth, strengthen health human resource expertise while guaranteeing equitable distribution across the country.
“For example, we may ensure that a health concern is treated by integrating data, then monitoring therapy until the assessment is entirely digitally driven. We can learn from the Covid-19 pandemic, in which health technology was extremely useful in combating the pandemic,” he went on to say.
Anas believes that the Ministry of Health’s SATUSEHAT will soon be merged with the National Electronic-Based Government System. He praised the tremendous efforts made by the Ministry of Health to implement digital transformation.
The Ministry of Health’s consolidation initiative can serve as a model for other Ministries/Institutions looking to increase work units’ roles in supervising the government’s digitalisation activities. Anas is optimistic that the integrated ecosystem of digital health data will be a huge step forward for the country’s health sector.
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Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda urged the government to prioritise cell sites in geographically isolated and disadvantageous regions (GIDA), indigenous villages, and other upland places. In addition, she advocated that the government’s digitalisation and internet connectivity initiative be implemented throughout Antique province in the future years.
In her hometown of Antique, 40% of the populace uses Globe and Smart connectivity. However, their tower locations are focused on urban regions. As a result, Legarda requested that WiFi hotspots be deployed throughout the province.
Legarda discussed her proposals with Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo, Undersecretary Angelo Nuestro, and Assistant Secretary Philip Varilla at the Senate of the Philippines.
Around 18 Antique towns will undergo digital transformations to improve municipal services to be more accessible, faster, and more efficient. Legarda, the primary author of Republic Act No. 10844, the law that established the DICT, underlined the importance of ICT infrastructure, systems, and resources in ensuring universal access to excellent, cheap, dependable, and secure ICT services.
“We are doing this in Antique, and we will do it in other areas of the country. With our stronger cooperation with the DICT, we want every community, even our indigenous communities, to be digitally linked so that they are not left aside,” she added.
Meanwhile, Lamentillo said the DICT would pursue its mandate to build the digital infrastructure connecting communities, especially those in far-flung areas. The connectivity programme also provides citizens with better quality of life by delivering speedy and efficient government services to the people.
“We thank Senator Loren Legarda for her unwavering support to the DICT, from its inception and up to the present as we strive to ensure that every community in the country is digitally connected,” she declared.
Under President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., the Philippines has strengthened efforts to develop the country’s internet connection. He promised his administration would do all its power to offer free internet connection to rural communities. The government plans to roll out the “BroadBand ng Masa Programme” (BBMP) to all isolated islands, especially those without a mobile cellular connection.
BBMPs across the country give free internet access to students and teachers from geographically isolated and disadvantaged regions (GIDAs). As part of the programme, an additional 628 operational free WiFi sites were installed, increasing the total amount of such WiFi sites throughout the Philippines to 4,757. At least 2.1 million unique users, or around 100,000 families, can access the government’s free internet connections. Interconnectivity and government services will benefit from digital technologies.
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy was optimistic about the programme’s ability to help develop a “direct relationship” between GIDAs and the government. Establishing the Free WiFi for All Programme is one of the government’s accomplishments in boosting connection. He committed to increasing efforts to extend internet connection to more remote places.
Indonesia is made a similar push to persuade local governments to accelerate the provision of digital infrastructure for telecommunications and internet needs in rural locations. To service the community in all villages/sub-districts in Indonesia’s most remote, outlying, and underserved (3T) sites that have yet to be served by a 4G signal network. The BTS was built with funds from the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget by the Ministry of Communication and Information.
The BTS will be a downstream facility allowing the public to benefit from upstream infrastructure such as a broadband fibre-optic cable network. Another method for providing internet connection to rural schools and health care facilities is the SATRIA-I Satellite and the Hot Backup Satellite.
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Researchers from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) have created a dolphin-like sonar device with a new echo processing technique that enables clearer underwater images compared to the traditional signal processing method of visualising sound echoes.
The new sonar processing method could have potential benefits in underwater commercial or military sonars. It could be used to scan the seabed to search for features that can be used to aid navigation. The sonar’s compactness also makes it suitable to be mounted on underwater robots for ocean exploration.
The processing method is based on the hypothesis that dolphins use prior information about their environment, apart from broadband sound pulses, to interpret their echoes. The sonar uses information on the sparsity of objects, which allows for a better interpretation of sound echoes.
According to a press statement, the new device provides a better trade-off between sonar-image clarity, the number of sensors, and the size of the sensor array used as compared to current sonars of similar size and purpose. Conventional echo processing techniques tend to fail when sensors are limited in number or widely spaced. The new sonar processing method, however, can extract information and yield image clarity even in these situations.
The researchers noticed that dolphins had the ability to scan underwater objects acoustically and match them visually, indicating that a dolphin’s sound echoes emitted off an object contain information about the object’s shape. They then recorded the echoes emitted by dolphins when scanning an object in the water.
Using their observations as a guide, the team constructed a biomimetic sonar that mimics a dolphin’s sonar system. The device, which is about the size of a dolphin’s head and measures 25 cm in width, is designed to emit sharp, impulsive clicking sounds, similar to those used by dolphins for echolocation.
The team employed three transmitters to send sounds from different directions. They then analysed the echoes produced by both the dolphin and the biomimetic sonar to visualise what information about the object’s shape was revealed in the echoes.
To complement the hardware, the team developed software that improves the visualisation of echoes. The researchers incorporated the concept of sparsity into the sonar’s software. This assumes that out of the space scanned, only a small percentage is occupied by the object. According to Hari Vishnu, Senior Research Fellow at NUS TMSI, “Using prior information, such as the idea of sparsity, is intuitive. It is something humans do all the time – we turn our understanding of reality into expectations that can speed up our inferences and decisions. For example, in the absence of other information, the human brain and vision system tend to assume that in an image, the light on an object will be falling from above.”
The effectiveness of the software was demonstrated when it was able to visualise information from a dolphin’s sonar echoes when scanning an object, as well as sonar signals produced by their compact sonar. A conventional approach to processing both sonar echoes resulted in noisy images. However, the novel processing approach gave better resolution and therefore sharper images. The software is also able to generate visualisations with a mere three clicks from the sonar, thus allowing it to be operationally fast.
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Abdullah Azwar Anas, Minister of State Apparatus and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB) observed that the state digital public service sector is still fractured by agency, sector, and silo-based systems. As a result, citizens must frequently enter similar data and create several accounts to access various digital-based public sector services. Therefore, the next Electronic-Based Government System (SPBE) aims to improve unity by providing a single access system for the country’s digital services, resulting in better public service quality.
“The Presidential Decree on the Architecture of the National SPBE also aims to integrate separate digital services into an inclusive digital service through the National Government Administration Portal and the National Public Service Portal, aka digital Public Service Mall (MPP),” Anas explained in a meeting with representatives from various ministries/agencies at the Ministry of Home Affairs office in Jakarta.
The government is making significant efforts to advance SPBE, including introducing Digital Public Service Malls (MPP) as one of SPBE’s manifestations. SPBE is also a part of President Joko Widodo’s Thematic Bureaucratic Reform to digitise government services.
The Thematic Bureaucratic Reform focuses on five areas: poverty reduction, increased investment, digitisation of services, domestic spending, and inflation management. The thematic bureaucratic reform scheme has been implemented and will be applied inside the TNI (national army), Polri (federal police), and the Attorney General’s Office.
Furthermore, the government has physically constructed and inaugurated more MPPs. In the future, all regions will have MPPs that are not only physical but also digital, containing all government services based on population statistics (Digital ID). According to the advice of the President and Vice President, MPP Digital has become the ministry’s short-term focus.
As a result, the Ministry PANRB, in collaboration with the Ministries of Home Affairs, Communication and Informatics, BSSN, and Finance, is working to execute Thematic Bureaucratic Reforms. According to the President’s directives, the programme must impact society through the execution of SPBE.
The PANRB ministry would continue supervising SPBE implementation through the SPBE Coordinating Team. To design SPBE architecture, the team requires a plan and linked steps. The national SPBE architecture is supposed to maintain the integration of National Digital Services while handling the national programme theme.
The plan clarified each job description to eliminate overlapping work and maximise the coordinated approach. The structure will also serve as a guide to align digitisation initiatives to make them more effective and efficient. In addition, a timeframe for the implementation plan has been established to simultaneously carry out the National SPBE Architecture strategic effort.
Johnny G. Plate, Minister of Communication and Informatics, who also participated in the coordination meeting, explained that the Ministry of Communication and Information is currently building a National Data Centre (PDN), a government service liaison system, and an intra-government network to support SPBE. In addition, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics also develops and harmonises applications, creates SPBE super-apps, and employs big data analytics and artificial intelligence in collaboration with other ministries/institutions.
President Jokowi indicated that the bureaucracy movement must relate to the government’s main aims for the bureaucracy to impact society. With 4.2 million government employees in Indonesia, the government created a new performance measure for them. All the KPIs (key performance indicators) are aligned with the government’s main initiatives, which include investment, poverty, digitisation, inflation, and TKDN (domestic component level in government spending).
Assessment of bureaucratic reform (RB) of ministries/agencies and regional governments as of 2023 must be more directed towards fixing downstream community problems that are the government’s priority, namely poverty eradication, improved investment, digitising services, spending on domestic products, and inflation control.