2021, a year like no other.

As 2021 draws to a close, we look back at how our tech solutions have helped you, our fellow citizens and residents of Singapore, live a little better and stay a little safer.

Here’s a story that we all might be familiar with - a story of time and how we never seem to have enough of it. As we went about our daily lives in the past year, we hope the use of our tech helped give time back to spend with your loved ones and on things that matter most.

What an eventful year 2021 had been. The 2nd year under the pandemic, our fight against the evolving coronavirus continues, as the world adjusts to its ‘new normal’ We at GovTech continued to harness the power of technology with the goal of making lives better in Singapore, even as some of our teams were at the ‘frontline’ of developing and enhancing products that help in our management of COVID-19. Here’s a look back at some of the projects that we are most grateful for in 2021:

• Singpass

Starting us off, we are proud to be celebrating 18 years of Singpass! There are over 3.2 million Singpass app users, and about 300 million personal and corporate Singpass transactions every year. Also, you can now leave your IC at home and flash your Digital IC wherever you go!

• TraceTogether

One of our nation’s key tools against the pandemic, TraceTogether has become a big part of the nation’s effort to keep safe during this pandemic. With TraceTogether, the time it takes for contact tracing has reduced from four days to just a single day! Lastly, there are the cute otters that we can’t seem to get enough of.

• Notarise.gov.sg

With Notαrise, citizens and residents are now traveling internationally with recognized HealthCerts, making their travels smoother and easier. You can even store and access your digital vaccination cert through the use of the Google Pay App.

• GALE

Government Assisted Living Ecosystem, or GALE is one of our proudest projects capable of handling urgent or life-threatening cases of the elderly, all in a day’s work for GALE. To date, GALE has helped more than 10,000 elderlies through assisted live monitoring to live safely and independently.

• 5G

Did you know that the fastest 5G network in Singapore is on Sentosa? As one of our most exciting projects, the 5G@Sentosa trials is a step towards the nationwide 5G rollout in 2025, opening bigger and better possibilities in Singapore.

• The heros behind the scenes!

With all the amazing #TechforPublicGood that we’ve worked on in the past year, there’re just as many amazing men and women in the tech sector keeping the bugs out and the gears oiled, round the clock.

Here’s to these unseen tech heroes and their contributions! If you know one of them personally, send them a message of encouragement to round up the year!

• LifeSG & GoBuisness

Whether it is growing your business or helping in your child’s growing up journey, creating user-centric services like LifeSG and GoBusiness is what we do! Businesses can receive guidance from the nifty GoBusiness e-Advisers while the LifeSG app has added a brand-new dashboard that helps you check out government benefits.

• Safe Distance@Parks

After a long day of working from home, it is a great idea to head to the park for a breath of fresh air. But make sure you check out Safe Distance@ parks before you head out! Get information on the crowd situation at all the gardens and parks in Singapore. Keep your distance and keep safe.

• VRP

Interested to help keep our systems safe? The Vulnerability Rewards Programme is open to the international white hacker community for continuous systems and reporting. Basically, you can hack for good while earning money, this kind of a good deal, go where find?!

• The Digital Academy

We are committed to upskilling Singapore public officers’ digital competency. Launched in June, The Digital Academy was set up as a ‘Practitioner for Practitioner’ academy to give all public officers a platform to ‘level up, skill up and gain XP’, by offering a robust suite of information and communications technology (ICT) programmes that are contextualised to the public service! Armed with new and/or updated digital skills and know-how, public officers can contribute confidently to the digitalisation of public service and thrive in their careers!

• Community Outreach The tech community doesn’t stop learning! The STACK-X Meetup aims to engage the tech community by sharing Government products and practices to co-create and improve the way we deliver services. Join the 4,500 other members in our vibrant community on Meetup or through the [STACK-X Telegram group] (https://go.gov.sg/stackxtelegram).

• Government on Commercial Cloud (GCC) After much feedback from the community, we are proud to introduce GCC 2.0 which boasts new features and capabilities such as easier cloud adoption, technical and operational cost-effectiveness and more.

• SG-Teams (Whole-of-Government Microsoft Teams) It is now possible for public officers to use their personal devices to participate in SG-Teams meetings, as a way to enhance productivity. SG-Teams also enables new work and collaboration paradigms, by shifting discussion correspondence to persistent topic channels, and reducing email sprawl.

• Looking forward to 2022

We at GovTech believe that technology can serve, aid, and improve the lives of all Singaporeans. As we look forward to 2022, we remain steadfast in our mission. Engineering Digital Government, Making Lives Better.

Enjoyed this article? Check out this article to out about how tech is making travel in the time of covid less painful or this article to find out how reserviors are being used to harness the power of solar!.