SINGAPORE--Driven by the country's stimulus spending, the nation's public sector will increasingly adopt cloud computing and green IT in the near future, said Springboard Research.
In a report released Thursday, the research organization noted that many Asian governments are committing to economic stimulus spending, while their citizens are demanding for more responsive public services. These two factors have laid the ground for countries in the region to transform themselves into digitized cloud nations.
Dane Anderson, CEO and executive vice president of research at Springboard, said in the report, as governments grapple with the challenges of how to prioritize needs and seize opportunities, they must focus on ICT as a key component of their strategic economic recovery plan.
"Singapore is among the most advanced and progressive public sectors in the world in terms of ICT investments and vision, and the government is continuing to invest in IT to further transform the public sector," he added.
Springboard said US$14 billion had been earmarked by Singapore as governmental stimulus spending to spur the use of IT in the public sector so as to transform the nation's healthcare and transportation sectors as well as improve broadband connectivity.
It also noted that in 2008, the public sector spent an estimated 22 percent of the country's total IT spending of US$4.4 billion. Education was the largest vertical for public-sector IT spending, followed by defense and public safety, and healthcare.
As part of the country's green efforts, Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) funds a number of schemes, including the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Documentation Grant announced in 2008, that companies can tap onto for consultancy services relating to energy efficiency or fuel switching projects.
The agency has also earmarked S$22 million (US$15.13 million) to help companies defray the cost of purchasing energy efficient technologies and equipment under the Grant for Energy Efficient Technologies (Greet). The NEA will co-fund up to 50 percent of the qualifying costs of energy efficient equipment or technologies, or up to S$2 million (US$1.37 million) per project, whichever is lower.
Based in Singapore, Konrad Foo is an intern with ZDNet Asia.
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