Industry Coalition Groups Alliances for Action

EST Alliances for Action

To act swiftly and decisively in this global economy, we have convened the Singapore Together Alliances for Action (AfAs), which are industry-led coalitions that work in partnership with the Government to seize growth opportunities for Singapore.

Working collaboratively with both industry and government, these AfAs explored, prototyped, and executed ideas using sprints. They represent a new way forward for collaboration between the private and public sectors.

The following nine AfAs were formed under the EST:

		1. Digitalising the Built Environment Digitalisation has been a key thrust of the Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs) under the Future Economy Council (FEC)’s Built Environment (BE) Cluster. Even as the industry copes with the challenges arising from COVID-19, the crisis has increased collaboration across all parts of the BE value chain. This is thus a window of opportunity to accelerate the digitalisation push to raise productivity across the BE value chain – from concept and design, to construction and site management, and facilities management.
		2. EduTech COVID-19 has accelerated the global adoption of EduTech, from home-based learning to online professional education and training. This is an opportunity for Singapore to take our education and human capital brand global.
		3. Enabling Safe and Innovative Visitor Experiences COVID-19 has fundamentally changed travel and tourism. In this new normal, Singapore must pioneer new ways to enable safe transit, safe business, and safe leisure travel and tourism. This is to ensure that Singapore remains a Global-Asia node, and a leading hub for business and enterprise in Asia Pacific, despite a potentially long COVID-19 shadow.
		4. Facilitating Smart Commerce in Singapore While COVID-19 has accelerated e-commerce adoption among consumers and retailers (especially SMEs), physical retail is likely to persist in Singapore due to the convenience of neighbourhood stores and retail hubs situated next to transport nodes (e.g. MRT stations, bus interchanges). We therefore have the conditions to create a ‘smart commerce’ ecosystem that blends digital and physical retail, and allows local stores to tap into a global consumer market. Such a system would require the complete reimagination of the online and offline shopping experience.
		5. Robotics The pursuit of higher productivity and solving manpower challenges remain key for Singapore. At the centre of this is the use of technology and robotics solutions to improve productivity, transform existing jobs and create new ones, generate spinoffs for SMEs, and drive economic growth. At the same time, Singapore has had to adopt novel and innovative solutions to minimise social contact and maintain high health standards during COVID-19 – from cleaning and construction robots to autonomous healthcare and public land transport systems.
		6. Supply Chain Digitalisation Digitalisation of global supply chains has been uneven and hampered by low adoption, lack of data sharing, and a preponderance of different platforms. With stronger concerns about supply chain resilience, and a likely move towards regionalised supply chains post-COVID-19, there will be increased demand for end-to-end supply chain visibility. It presents a huge opportunity for advancing digitalisation technology and usage for our supply chain ecosystem players (logistics, regulatory, and financial) and cargo owners alike.
		7. Sustainability The focus on sustainability and on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards is likely to increase post-COVID-19. This provides the opportunity to become a centre for ESG-related solutions and services, serving our own commitments as well as global demand. The services will need to leverage on policy frameworks, technology, financial and legal ecosystems – all Singapore’s strengths. Can Singapore capitalise on this and become a Bright Green Spark?
		8. MedTech Given the growing prevalence of both chronic and infectious diseases, the AfA has identified the in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) as a key area of opportunity in the MedTech sector. It aims to strengthen Singapore’s position as an end-to-end hub for MedTech product development and commercialisation, with speed-to-market and access to the region as Singapore’s differentiating advantages.
		9. AgriTech We envision building a world-class Agri-Tech ecosystem as we support Singapore’s food resilience goals, and establish ourselves at the technological frontier to export AgriTech solutions to the world. To do so, we have to address the fundamental problem of scale for local production, charting a possible pathway towards the economic viability of indoor vertical farming.