8 November 2011 - Speech By RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore at the launch of Infopier.
Speech By RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore at the launch of Infopier, 8 November 2011, NTU@One-North, 4.00pm
Mr Alphonsus Pang, President, Singapore Computer Society
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good afternoon.
1. It gives me great pleasure to be here today for the launch of InfoPier. This portal will serve to foster a community for infocomm professionals in Singapore, where its members can network, crowdsource, collaborate and more. InfoPier will also be an online registry for members to interact with one another professionally and even socially.
2. The InfoPier initiative can contribute to the goals of IDA's Manpower Development Roadmap MDEV2.0 that we launched in March this year. This four-year roadmap aims to develop a globally-competitive manpower workforce and focuses on growing our infocomm leaders and experts. It enhances many of the ongoing manpower development initiatives that you would already be familiar with, such as the CITREP programme and NICF framework. It also has new ideas, such as the Hybrid Skills Development Programme to help professionals complement their infocomm skills with sectoral domain knowledge, and the Company-Led Training programme to help fast-track fresh infocomm professionals take on specialist-level jobs. It covers training in a wide range of areas, including growth and emerging ones such as Business Analytics, Cloud Computing and Digital Forensics.
3. In its validation of the potential of InfoPier, I know that the project team looked at the outcomes of online communities for various professional groups around the world. One of these was SERMO, a 120,000-strong online community for physicians in the US, which enables physicians to aggregate observations from their daily practice and then rapidly, and in large numbers, challenge or corroborate each others' opinions. This provides the physicians an accessible platform to discuss clinical observations in real-time, get insights on new developments and apply their collective knowledge for better patient-care.
4. InfoPier can similarly be a focal point for infocomm professionals in Singapore to come together to exchange ideas and learn from one another. More than that, InfoPier can also help our professionals to access resources and information on training programmes to plan their own development - InfoPier will be aligned to the NICF, which helps professionals to map their individual career paths. Being an online community with its social networking tools, InfoPier can enable its members to get advice from their peers on courses to go for, as well as to share their feedback on training programmes that they have attended.
5. InfoPier will also be a useful tool for us to better understand the trends and developments in the infocomm industry and the workforce. This will provide helpful inputs to us, as we formulate and shape our initiatives and programmes that aim to strengthen the capabilities of our professionals, so that these programmes can meet the ever evolving needs of the infocomm industry.
6. IDA has been pleased to support this industry-driven InfoPier initiative, since its conceptualisation early last year. We are happy to have had the opportunity to work closely with SCS at the various stages of the project. It is indeed heartening to note that InfoPier also enjoys the support of a wide range of industry bodies in the infocomm industry, namely ITMA, ITSC, SiTF, SPMI, ITSA and AISP. This clearly demonstrates the dynamism and commitment of our industry towards the professional development of its members.
7. Finally, I would like to congratulate SCS and all supporting organisations on the successful launch of the InfoPier. In particular, I would like to congratulate the InfoPier project team - Alphonsus Pang, Wilson Tan and all the other team members - for successfully bringing InfoPier into reality. I know they have worked hard in brainstorming and working through the concepts and details of the project, with much commitment and energy. IDA looks forward to continuing to work closely with SCS and other industry partners, in this InfoPier initiative and in our many other projects, in ensuring the development of our infocomm professionals will meet the needs of industry. Thank you.
.webp)