When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit in 2020, people in Singapore found themselves having to adapt to working or studying from home. It wasn’t easy but at least they had some of the most important digital tools on hand.  Fibre broadband and 4G services were fast enough for video calls. Educational content could be accessed online through prepared websites and apps. At no other time was the country’s digital savvy and network connectivity, often ranked highly in global studies, more important than during the pandemic. “We envisioned a lot of these uses in the early days of pushing for fibre broadband,” said Khoong Hock Yun, former assistant chief executive officer of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), who was instrumental in planning Singapore’s nationwide fibre network in the 2000s. The IDA was the predecessor to IMDA. “Without these digital tools and infrastructure in place, it would have been more difficult for Singaporeans to work or study from home,” said Khoong who retired from IMDA in 2018. Indeed, the story of Singapore’s digitalisation, from its early efforts at introducing computers to the civil service to today’s push for blockchain technology, now spans a good 41 years. It began in 1981 with a five-year national computerisation plan. Starting with the civil service, the country’s leaders sought to computerise many paper-based and manual processes and pave the way for adoption by the public. As a result, the ports would see container ships unload and load their containers much more quickly. The civil service could serve citizens faster because it could process requests more quickly. Even at this early stage, it was clear to the country’s leaders and citizens that they had to embrace a new technology that was going to constantly transform the way they worked and lived in future. When Singapore started its computerisation efforts in 1980, there were just 850 computer professionals, recalled Dr Tan Chin Nam in an interview in 2017. Dr Tan became the first general manager of the National Computer Board in 1982. The effort was important to make Singapore economically competitive and also to enhance the quality of life, said Dr Tan, who retired in 2007 as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. The key, as many who shaped the era’s computerisation efforts, was anticipating the big changes early and riding the waves of innovation instead of being overcome by them. Today, Singapore’s thought leadership in e-government, artificial intelligence and smart nation technologies is highly respected. To get here, it underwent several important phases of development over the decades. Planning the Digitalisation Journey The computerisation of the 1980s would be followed by a number of national masterplans to make computers more commonly used in offices and schools everywhere. computerisation and industry development to grow talent. By 1988, Singapore had 8,000 IT professionals, about 10 times the number in 1980. The rapid growth of computers everywhere would soon be joined by yet another transformative technology – the Internet. In 1994, the first home users in Singapore started hearing the familiar crackle of their dialup modem’s handshake sound.  In the 1990s, the Internet would connect homes, schools, libraries and workplaces everywhere. Faxes were replaced by e-mails that could be sent across countries instantly. Zooming ahead, Singapore launched Singapore One in 1997, in a bid to connect up homes, offices and schools with one of the first broadband networks in the world. Users could sign up for either an asymmetric digital subscriber (ADSL) or cable modem service. In this same year, Singapore also welcomed its second mobile operator – MobileOne. And by the close of the decade, the telecom market would be fully liberalised, with the entry of a third player, StarHub, that ushered in more competition and boosted mobile phone subscriptions. The turn of the millennium was greeted with relief, as the dreaded Y2K bug, which had threatened to damage records using two-digit year formats, didn’t cause planes to fall from the sky or government systems to stop functioning. However, much of the rapid growth and lofty promises of before had to face reality checks in the new decade.  In the 2000s, 3G mobile services initially struggled to deliver their promise of mobile Internet everywhere. It was almost 10 years later, with the advent of 4G, that speeds would improve enough to deliver a more satisfactory experience on the go. The broadband networks that Singapore had led the world earlier on also faced problems. Prices were high compared to other countries and users were unhappy with the speeds they had. This was one reason fibre broadband was introduced in homes towards the end of the decade. Not only did it boost speeds to 1Gbps, it also brought down prices by reshaping the telecom market. No longer would one or two telecom operators control all the cables across the island – instead, the government would invest to build a nationwide network that every operator would be able to access at a similar price.  This levelled the playing field, eventually bringing prices to their current S$40 or lower for a common 1Gbps service at home. The affordability helped boost adoption as well. Khoong, formerly of the IDA, said it was a tough battle to get Singtel, the biggest telco here, onboard with this change.  It was also tough separating the various layers of the market – from network owner to service provider – as it was a first for a regulator. But this fibre network created the foundation for even more advanced services in the years to come. Telemedicine, for example, was once a nice technology demo but is now a reality for many seeking basic consultation for Covid symptoms. Such applications would be among the country’s Smart Nation push in the 2010s, as it sought to be the digital capital of the region and the world. A new government agency – GovTech – that was spun off from IDA in 2016 would be key to digitalising government services. One of its first apps solved a common bugbear – paying for parking at public carparks. On the surface, the Parking app looked simple. Building it required the cooperation of many agencies like URA and HDB because they owned the data namely the locations of car parks and the rates charged. This was also an era when technical skills were once again fancied and in demand. In the early 2000s, the government had focused on making Singapore attractive to manage and service projects, be it mobile app development or other IT services. Many big projects were outsourced.  However, in the 2010s, it was clear the country needed professionals with technical skills – those who knew how to manage a network, secure a computer system or write code for the big applications people use every day. In 2016, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong even called on Singaporean talents based overseas to return to help build up engineering expertise at home. It is no surprise that, with many talents from not just returning Singaporeans but also around the world in recent years, the Republic has built a vibrant startup ecosystem. Unicorns have appeared too. The race does not stop for Singapore, of course. Today’s biggest technology headlines include blockchain, Web3 and the metaverse, new areas that once again are exciting to the country. And once again, there is a need to develop the talent and find a niche to play in. In particular, the people creating original content in a visual-based metaverse will be critical, say experts. With Web3, content that you create will be owned by you instead of a platform like Twitter or Facebook, pointed out Khoong. This also means that digital identity would be important, to prove who you are, he said. “Identity could be the best use of blockchain, something possible perhaps in 10 years’ time.” In 2021, Singapore eclipsed London to take the number one spot in a biennial study that ranks the top 50 smart city governments in the world.  Additional investments in smart city research and plans will add to the work of the past 40 years, further advancing Singapore’s position as Smart Nation.  Alfred Siew is a freelance writer.