82 Projects, 200 Students, 1st Data Visualisation Video Challenge: Who will best use open government data to improve lives?

SINGAPORE, 30 SEP 2017 | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[CANCELLED] The scheduled hearing has been cancelled as both parties have reached an amicable settlement in the Registrar’s Chambers. The Court has approved the Union’s request to withdraw its application for hearing in respect of IAC D7 of 2014 and D1 of 2015.

(15.04.2015)

The two cases involve the Singapore Industrial & Services Employees’ Union and First Defense Services Pte Ltd, relating to the annual increments for 2012, 2013 and 2014 to be paid to employees of the company.

(19.03.2015)

Is ownership of public housing a sure win for financial gain? Will chances of returning to crime be reduced with greater social acceptance of ex-offenders? These were some ideas from participating teams at the finals of Government Technology Agency (GovTech)’s inaugural National Data Visualisation Video Challenge held today.

The Challenge, themed “How Open Data makes a difference for you and me”, saw over 80 submissions by more than 200 students from Universities, Polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education (ITE). Following eight months of preparation and selection, 12 teams made it to the finals to create a video with data visualisation to share how open data could improve lives.

Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Education, and Minister-in-charge of GovTech, was the Guest-of-Honour for the Finals. Dr Janil presented prizes to the top three winning teams.

The 12 teams used a myriad of open government datasets, including the number of seniors and locations of eldercare services, data on water consumption and water supply sources as well as recidivism rates to draw out interesting insights and present them through a video story.

“The Challenge allowed us to freely explore data and find meaningful use of data to improve our daily lives.”
MS WANG ZEJIA

From the datasets, the teams unearthed new insights such as the towns in Singapore that would require more eldercare facilities, the pressing need for water conservation in Singapore, and the importance of social acceptance to prevent ex-offenders from re-offending.

The Challenge, supported by six industry partners namely Amazon Web Services, Carousell, Cloudera, Microsoft, Google and The Straits Times, also displayed ability of students to cross-analyse data and come up with tools such as automating the income growth and key expenses of users until their selected retirement age. Please see Annex 1 for more details on the projects.

“It was a chance for us to showcase our creativity through data analysis and we learnt a lot from the Challenge.” TEAM N.I.C.E.

Ms Jacqueline Poh, Chief Executive, GovTech, and one of the judges in the Finals, said, “I am impressed with the videos and encouraged by the strong support from industry partners. Aimed at driving Singapore’s open data movement, this Challenge brought together students from different tertiary institutions in Singapore, and enabled them to see the usefulness of the open government data that is available to the public. GovTech will continue to cultivate this culture of co-creation with our citizens and industry.”

Ms Wang Zejia of Team TongQiang, formed by two female undergraduates from National University of Singapore, said, “The Challenge allowed us to freely explore data and find meaningful use of data to improve our daily lives.” Team N.I.C.E., one of the three ITE finalist teams, said, “It was a chance for us to showcase our creativity through data analysis and we learnt a lot from the Challenge.”

In line with Singapore’s Smart Nation vision, the Challenge encourages greater use of open government data, starting with students, to raise awareness, catalyse innovation and create greater economic value.

Launched in 2011, the country’s open government portal, data.gov.sg, was enhanced in late 2015 and has seen an increase of 40% in unique monthly visitors to about 94,000 in the last year. The number of quality datasets have also increased to 1,200 since inception. These datasets are available to citizens, developers, researchers and students to develop new ideas and make better use of open government data.

ISSUED BY COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING GROUP
GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY AGENCY OF SINGAPORE