Since I arrived in Singapore in 2015, I often get the feeling that I'm living in the future. I cruise through immigration at Changi Airport, scanning my passport and thumb without breaking stride. I surf a 1Gbps fibre connection at home and work from a buzzing co-working space full of startups. Through the Grab ride-hailing app, I can call a Robocar, one of the first public trials to bring self-driving cars directly to consumers.
Could this be the Britain of the future? Brexiteers suggest that, outside the regulatory constraints of the EU, the UK could become an international hub for business and innovation - a "Singapore-on-Thames". The comparison invokes Singapore's deregulated economic structure, as well as its tech-powered infrastructure. Yet, whereas the model is compelling in theory, on the ground the reality is not seamless.
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From New York to New Delhi, few "smart cities" can match Singapore's commitment to experimentation. A state rich in capital and without lobbies to block pilot projects, when Singapore decides to implement, it does so nimbly and quickly. Surface-street trials of self-driving cars and buses address congestion. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is testing internet-of-things devices in government-built housing developments, including smart lighting, pneumatic waste-collection and sensors to monitor elderly people who have fallen. Incubator spaces, government contract incentives and coding programmes entice startups and entrepreneurs. In Singapore, it's called Smart Nation, a master plan for development to make the "little red dot" a global technology leader.
Yet even in this efficient, technocratic island paradise, not everything runs smoothly. Delays to the Smart Nation plan have triggered at least three different government reorganisations in as many years, with Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong admitting that the programme is "not moving as fast as [it] ought to". Rich data from an expansive sensor network has yet to be integrated across government. Plans for interoperable cashless payments fight against proprietary banking systems. At times, Smart Nation seems like little more than a branding campaign - buzzwords deployed as a rallying cry to co-ordinate ministries and draw attention to the country's advancement.
Even the few apps trotted out as exemplary successes - such as the Beeline crowdsourced public-transit routing service or myResponder for crowdsourcing first-aid volunteers - suffer from low adoption rates, because efforts are not grounded in citizens' practical needs and desires. To preserve a sense of privacy, older participants in pilot smart flats cover motion sensors with towels, putting in sharp focus what it's like for a human to make this so-called living lab their home. Local sceptics ask, "For whom is this nation smart?" Post-Brexit, Britons may find themselves wondering the same thing.
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Perhaps the biggest problem is that the master plan comes into conflict with the risk-averse and rules-based culture the state has long encouraged to ensure a harmonious society. Singapore is learning that a Smart Nation can't be willed into existence. There's a comparison here with the British communities who voted for Brexit. How will a "Singapore-on-Thames" proposal based largely on foreign investment and talent be greeted by groups who have made their opposition to immigration very clear?
Look behind Singapore's Smart Nation rhetoric and you find a familiar impulse: a survivalism that has driven campaigns to prove the country's global relevance ever since its 1965 independence. Indeed, that may be what Singapore and Britain now share: technocentric visions for future progress on their own, with an undercurrent of existential angst acknowledging a perpetually vulnerable state. If there's anything that Britain might learn from its fellow island nation, it's that a smart plan cannot quell deep-seated anxiety about a tenuous future - the pressure to be exceptional is a powerful focus.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
