Singapore will pay startups to solve its problems | Hacker News Reader

Singapore will pay startups to solve its problems

techworld.com

64 pointslx41 comments

Reminds me a bit of how New York's MTA handled realtime arrival information for their bus system[1]. Rather than bringing on an external company with a (typically) large contract, they hired a small team of tech-savvy MIT grads full-time to manage the project more like a startup.

The MTA gave them a small budget (at least, relative to other MTA projects) and limited the scope to what the team could actually accomplish. The team itself was in charge of designing the system and bringing on specialists/contractors where necessary.

What's notable is that the project accomplished more in the span of a few months than what many of MTA's major contracts accomplish in years.

[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-do...

Of interest to people who don't already know, the minister in context here is a technocrat and a maker[1] and the prime minister of Singapore himself has know to have been a very good mathematician and coder[2].

[1] http://vivian.balakrishnan.sg

[2] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/prime-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hsien_Loong#Education

Lee Hsien Loong is a very interesting person; I follow his Facebook account.

Not related with the content, but interesting observation:

I'm using adblockers, and this is what I see instead:

=================

We have been unable to show you advertisements on this page, which is likely to be the result of an ad blocker being installed on your device.

Techworld's journalism is funded by advertising, please disable your ad blocker and refresh the page to view the remainder of this article in full.

Please click here for information about how to disable your ad blocker and whitelist Techworld.

Thanks!

The Techworld team

===========================

interestingly, copy-pasting the "grass font" text yields the real content, e.g.:

The minister highlighted a few key issues the city state is facing: “traffic congestion is an issue, green energy is an issue, security of transactions are an issue.” Balakrishnan spoke specifically about becoming a hub for fintech, autonomous vehicles and medical technology (medtech), with the city state’s ageing population a priority issue.

I don't get that with uBlock Origin.

I put this in my JS console to make it readable:

  $(".r3z-hide").removeClass("r3z-hide")

You can nearly always work around those issues somehow. Most people don't know that though.

Very interesting technique:

  .r3z-hide, .r3z-hide * {
    color: lightgrey !important;
    text-decoration: none !important;
    font-family: redacted_scriptbold !important;
  }

There potential here as some of the problems they're trying to solve have solutions that were applied elsewhere. They just need to roll their own. Plus, I have a plan of my own for Singapore as they're in a near-ideal situation to be a supplier of trusted chips and hardware. Possibly software, too. I doubt anyone has introduced them to Cleanroom, Correct-by-Construction, etc. They have smart, cheap labor that could make high-quality software and systems cheaper. On top of secure hardware with more trustworthy manufacturing.

Lots of potential here. I wish I could get in touch with them to run some proposals. I'd have to do it face-to-face, though.

The government actively pursues areas in which Singapore might have a comparative advantage - and would discuss it with you in precise detail... They would wear a "technocrat" badge proudly.

btw : Is this "Correct-by-Construction" seminar [1] relevant?

[1] https://mysoc.nus.edu.sg/~cmsem/SemPDF/sem_12396.pdf

It's weak compared to most but still good as there's some adoption. I also have a someone over there pushing high-assurance security. He have me a list of problem areas they were funding in tech that are already solved in US and Europe. Singapore's smart engineers should be able to build knockoffs or independent versions but havent. Something holding them back, possibly culture.

Anyway, I'd love to mix some American style innovation with Singaporean talent. Plus, I bet Google etc might donate some brains if startups were building stuff that would benefit them esp at Asian prices. Lots of potential.

I worked in Singapore this year, and it is very nice! It is a clean and well run city, friendly people, and generally the place had a very good vibe.

I am in my 60s, but if I were younger, then Singapore would be high on my list of places to work and live.

What's it like for foreigners? Does one have to seek out the ex-pat crowd or does everyone mix?

I was with people who worked for my customer, and except for site seeing I didn't do much except work. I very much enjoyed my visit.

Probably not what u wanted to hear, but: When i was there: 30°C at day, 28°C at night, 100% humidy. Not really a place i want to live.

I was in Singapore in April and I liked the weather. The people I worked for did tell me that in the summer the weather was not so good.

it's a place to break up your marriage if you are in one :) no empirical data, just experience of friends and people around them, and quite consistent

The startup scene tends to be more foreigner friendly. For corporates/enterprises it's a mixed bag because some of the rank and file locals view foreigners as people who have taken jobs/opportunities away from locals.

My friends who worked there (in their 20's and late 30's) both said it was great at first but boring as hell long term.

The VR porn comments were strange to me given its Singapore which is super conservative and has laws against distribution and production of porn.

Yes, but prostitution is legal in Singapore.

to view the article with adblock enabled: $('.r3z-hide').removeClass('r3z-hide');

How about stop being jquery dependant once and for all: document.querySelector(".r3z-hide").classList.remove("r3z-hide")

No need to use a third party library

Since document.querySelector only returns the first instance, you will need to run this for the number of redacted paragraphs. The above jQuery solution doesn't have this problem. You really would need a snippet with querySelectorAll and a loop. Since the page has jQuery, there's nothing wrong with providing a solution using it, and particularly since people just want to read the article.

Yeah you are right... I didn't take into account if there is more than one element with that class, I was just trying to show that jQuery should not be the default solution when the language itself provides one

Singapore sounds like the most forward-thinking nation, until you remember being gay is illegal there...

... and no freedom of speech

Well, there's tech to deal with all of the above, but someone, somewhere isn't going to like the solution.

... and death penalty for caring drugs, and caning for minor offences, and that chewing gum could be obtained only by doctor prescription, and that you will be followed by secret police if you look suspicious (you have wrong color or whatever), and tons of other stuff.

> caning for minor offences

Which minor offences? I've been under the impression that offences punishable by caning are quite severe: robbery, rape, assault, piracy (in the actual piratical sense of violent robbery at sea) and the like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Code_(Singapore)

graffiti is the most notable one

Again, the cases I've read about have been more than just scribbling a few letters on a wall. They have involved a planned operation to break and enter (breaking doors or cutting fences) in order to vandalize.

I don't say caning is right for that either, but these are not "minor" offences. There's no fear that you could be caned for accidentally doing something like this.

> Which minor offences?

Vandalism, drug abuse, illegal money-lending, 'rioting' as defined by a government that doesn't tolerate assembly..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore#Offences_p...

There's also the problematic government support of corporal punishment for children..

> There's also the problematic government support of corporal punishment for children..

There might have been implicit government support in the past, but today teachers are not allowed to hand out corporal punishment to children.

People that keep track of this kind of thing disagree. I'm no expert but I'd be curious to hear what you think;

http://www.corpun.com/usscr2c.htm#singapore

These don't look like "minor offences" to me either, except perhaps drug abuse. Big-time illegal money-lending is serious financial crime and not a minor thing. And again, from what I've read, the rioting cases where caning has been ordered by Singapore courts have involved real, actual violence: things like throwing rocks at policemen and rescue workers and setting things to fire, and have gone with prison sentences of years.

The point being, you won't be caned for small things that you could do out of a little negligence or thoughtlessness. You have to understand that you're doing something serious. (At least that has fit the description of all cases that I have read about.)

But they look the other way. Singapore has an open gay scene. I suspect it's like many laws in many countries; if the government wants to nail you, then it'll get used.

As an aside, being gay isn't illegal; acts of "gross indecency" between men are illegal.

Actually if I recall correctly, an absurd law was passed that would seem impossible to enforce, and it stated that it was illegal to walk around your own house in the nude. I don't know if that law is still around, but it was active a few years ago when I lived there.

Or the internet is censored

I'd be interested in partnering with Singapore Airlines or Changi Airport, so this might actually be an interesting opportunity.

"the foreign minister for Singapore spoke about VR porn"

"I told Mark, actually, the real killer app for augmented reality is not games, it is actually virtual sex."

"If you can successfully master virtual sex in augmented reality you will have devised the ultimate UX, user experience. The point is that this is another area that is exploding"

Hmm, in the context of American politics, it would be pretty shocking for a senior level politician (aside from outliers like Trump) to acknowledge anything sex related. After all, it wasn't that long ago that we fired our Surgeon General for stating that masturbation is part of human sexuality. So is it normal for a Singaporean foreign minister to discuss such matters in public?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com