The Minister of Education recently launched the AI for India campaign to evaluate, train, provide internships, allocate projects, and certify and employ 2.5 million citizens. The campaign is powered by a private tech giant and supported by the Ministry of Education and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
A government official stated that the AI for India initiative aims to bridge the gap between the supply and demand matrix in worldwide tech talent with Indian students. He added that they are changing the educational policies to skill and up-skill the youth and make them future-ready. AI for India will guarantee over 2 million internships, over 50,000 industries, and 36,000 institutions for digital India.
According to a report from the government’s AI portal, the campaign is divided into five events:
National Future Engineering Scholarship Examination: targets increasing AI adoption in classes 8-12, undergraduate/postgraduate levels, and among citizens that want to train in emerging technologies.
All India Skill to Scale Avenue: targets individuals that want to achieve the industry skill set requirement level for AI.
AI Ideathon: seeks the development of AI, cloud, or data-based solutions.
All India Data Engineering Quiz Competition: aims to broaden knowledge on emerging technologies across topics and verticals.
All India Jonathon for Cloud, Data, and AI Aspirants: through this, citizens that have participated in any of the four events will be able to seek positions in 100,000 jobs from industries in the country.
The campaign is a part of the government’s ABCDEFGHI programme. It was set up to train students in the areas of AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, data analytics and intelligence, extended reality (XR), electronics, energy solutions, full-stack development, gamification, GitHub, HTML5, human-computer interaction, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The government aims to train around 10 million students in these areas for 3 to 6 months.
In another bid to increase the adoption of emerging technologies, the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and the Indian Institute of Technology of Delhi (IIT- Delhi) in May announced they would design a curriculum for schools that include robotics, AI, machine learning, and data science. The curriculum is for grades 9 to 12 in schools affiliated with the CISCE board.
IIT-Delhi’s technology innovation hub, I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics (IHFC), and CISCE signed a memorandum to carry out the project. As OpenGov Asia reported, IHFC would help CISCE cut the syllabus to “reinforce 21st-century skills” and achieve targets set out in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Moreover, officials stated that they plan to upgrade the current STEM courses in line with NEP 2020.
A representative from IHFC stressed the need to strengthen the country’s capacity to master emerging technologies. As IHFC develops the curriculum, it will reflect the principles of experiential learning and aspects of theory. IHFC could play an important role in carrying out the project in about 2,700 schools affiliated with CISCE by providing guidance and technical expertise. Prime aspects of the project’s vision, according to the project director of IHFC, are nurturing teamwork, innovation, and knowledge to bridge the gaps between young engineering students and potential future robot enthusiasts.
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of the Philippines is now hiring more researchers, scientists, and engineers to assist the government and industry in making and implementing more science-based decisions and policies.
COVID-19 established the need for Science and Technology (S&T) Fellows, but the Philippines had been using science, technology, and innovation as decision-making inputs prior to the global health epidemic, according to Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, Undersecretary, DOST.
Recognising the potential threats humanity may face in the next years, the DOST deemed it vital to implement strategic measures that would ensure a stable and sustainable supply of Filipino researchers, scientists, and engineers. Guevara indicated that the DOST research and development (R&D) section will be manned by master’s and doctoral degree holders on a five-year contract in the context of the DOST S&T Fellows programme.
It has been over a year since the concept of increasing DOST agencies’ workforces with MS and PhD graduates from various S&T specialisations became a reality. To commemorate this momentous occasion, DOST hosted its first S&T Fellows Convention. DOST cited that it is in the hearts of Filipino scientists to share their knowledge and experience with the country, regardless of the money offered.
In the meantime, this initiative is not new in nations that strive to be leaders in technological growth and advancement overall. Around 51,000 students are receiving financial assistance from the DOST through the Science Education Institute (SEI), which administers all scholarship programmes at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the meantime, the department of science has 4,308 students enrolled in graduate programmes and 1,550 students working on their PhD.
In its hunt for outstanding individuals with backgrounds in science and technology from all over the world, the DOST is seeking to find academics like these. There is now a total of 32 S&T Fellows whose services are being utilised by various departments and agencies within the DOST. In general, the S&T fellows programme offers researchers, scientists, and engineers the chance to participate in important work within the country while also receiving income that is on par with other similar programmes.
There is more to the work that the S&T Fellows conduct than simply the results and outcomes of research and development. They put in a lot of hours working in laboratories, coming up with ideas for road plans, analysing materials, and conducting experiments; the results of their effort will be beneficial to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Filipinos. Furthermore, the National Academy of Science and Technology of the Philippines (NAST PHL) recently held the Grand Launching of PAGTANAW 2050.
DOST is optimistic about the institutionalisation of PAGTANAW 2050, as it is a long-term policy instrument that requires regular review and updating to remain relevant to the times. Aside from its review, there is also a need to continuously fund the initiative, which extends beyond term limits and administrative appointments.
The initiative is a significant step toward designing and implementing integrated yet time-specific strategies for a prosperous, inclusive, and agile Philippine future in which the shared vision of the Philippines as a Prosperous, Archipelagic, and Maritime Nation can only be realised by diplomatically asserting rights over marine resources.
The foresight will provide clearer direction on developing enabling mechanisms to further accelerate scientific growth and innovation that will serve the nation’s interests and benefit the Filipino people.
Governments around the world are under great pressure to deliver services to citizens and businesses quickly, accurately, and efficiently. At the same time, citizens and businesses are demanding that government leaders uncover and minimise possible vulnerabilities in existing programmes, as well as investigate and prosecute crime when it occurs, as countries begin to recover from the pandemic.
This tension is driving innovation – using data analytics – to allow quick delivery with strong integrity. Programme Integrity can be implemented by altering current programmes or creating new ones that are sufficiently resilient against fraud, waste, and abuse.
When adopting new programmes, and allocating funding, governments can prevent harmful long-term impacts and be better prepared for future risks by focusing on monitoring, oversight, and design. This applies especially to those technology-inclined programmes or projects. As a result, the funds can achieve their goals and achieve the anticipated outcomes.
Governments have begun to invest considerably in analytics and data to explore and manage the dangers brought by digitisation, particularly as nations look to be more inclusive. There is a significant trend to invest in pandemic-related data analytics and innovative technologies to operate more economically, efficiently and effectively to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse in the government sector.
Data analytics boosts productivity, efficiency and revenue. Analysing data sets allows an organisation to know where it can optimise its processes to increase cost-effectiveness. Areas that are unnecessarily hoarding a company’s resources can be identified and decisions can be made about technologies that can reduce operational and production costs.
Shaun Barry, Global Director, Fraud & Security Intelligence, SAS, revealed in an exclusive interview with Mohit Sagar, Group Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, OpenGov Asia, that data and analytics are governments’ secret weapons to deal with fraud and scams in the digital era and is essential in any public sector fraud management strategy.
“There is no longer this trade-off between speed and accuracy; you can-do real-time fraud detection in sub-seconds. And you can also use analytics on the vector side, to be able to use artificial intelligence or machine learning to look for patterns that government leaders may have never thought existed or did not know were happening,” says Barry.
The heart of the response that government leaders should have is to adopt data and analytics in real-time to be able to enforce and promote integrity throughout society.
Agencies should roll out data and analytics initiatives to incorporate controls in their accounting and disbursement systems in real-time with great deliberation and must be able to keep up with the volume or number of transactions.
Countries that have performed well in terms of integrity are those who have planned for it – it does not occur by luck or by accident; they have built integrity into their systems. As governments roll out new programmes or evaluate how their present programmes are managed, they must ensure that honesty is at the forefront and the centre of everything.
“What does integrity do? It builds trust among people and it helps to make sure that these people and businesses trust the government and recognise that it is a force for good in society,” Barry emphatically states.
Governments around the world are under great pressure to uncover and minimise possible vulnerabilities in existing programmes, as well as investigate and prosecute crime when it occurs, as countries begin to recover from the pandemic. Programme integrity can be implemented by altering current programmes or creating new ones that are sufficiently resilient against fraud, waste and abuse.
When adopting new programmes and allocating funding, governments can prevent harmful long-term impacts and be better prepared for future risks by focusing on monitoring, oversight and design. This applies especially to those technology-inclined programmes or projects.
3 Vs that Increased Significantly because of Digitisation
According to Barry, 3 Vs were the main reasons for the drastic changes in the government sector – Volume, Velocity and Vector.
The Volume of transactions in and for governments has increased substantially as services move online; subsequently, the volume of fraudulent transactions is increasing as services are being digitised. Fraudsters attempt to use volume to their advantage – hiding bogus claims among the millions of valid transactions that governments process.
Velocity is the speed at which those transactions come. They are coming literally at the speed of light because of the digitisation of services that governments rolled out, especially during the pandemic.
Simultaneously, the speed of fraud is increasing exponentially. As governments undergo digital transformation – moving more services to electronic channels – fraud schemes can be perpetrated instantaneously.
Vector deals with where the threats are coming from. There are state actors who are targeting governments and programmes, there are non-state actors and there are organised crime syndicates. Primarily, these are not the result of mistakes made by individuals or corporations, even though these still exist wherever it is indicated that the vector has shifted.
Fraud schemes are now being perpetrated by criminal networks and organised crime syndicates. Fraudsters are creating synthetic identities with data stolen from breaches. They probe for control weaknesses and exploit vulnerabilities. This level of sophistication adds magnitude to fraud schemes and patterns.
Understanding the Context of Fraud, Waste and Abuse
Fraud in the government sector is a false representation or any deliberate misrepresentation intended to deprive a government.
Threats are accompanied by some indicators like a sudden spike or an unexpected surge in expenditure or unexplained entries or manipulated records in a certain programme area. The absence of substantiating documentation, unauthorised dealings or transactions using non-serialised numbers are reliable indicators of wrongdoing as well. Cash payments in abnormally huge amounts are red flags as is a lack of internal controls.
High employee turnover could lead to or indicate fraud. People may also notice posts on social media, where people are communicating about a method to cheat the system, a means to acquire money when they should not be able to.
Of course, it is vital to understand if these signs of poor operation practices, systemic issues or staff challenges. The answer is often a mix of all. Fraud can take place due to poor operational practices, systemic issues or staff challenges. However, even a robust internal control environment cannot guarantee that no fraud will take place within an organisation.
Traditional fraud management is no longer sufficient, and intelligence technology is needed to mitigate fraud. It would be best to combine technologies such as AI, behaviour analytics and data mining, combined with the auditor’s experience and policy checking to help mitigate risks.
SAS uses industry-leading data analytics and machine learning to monitor payments and non-monetary transactions, as well as events, enabling you to identify and respond to unwanted and suspicious behaviour in real-time.
The Pandemic and Trends in Cybersecurity
Barry is quick to point out that the pandemic has not caused an increase in fraud, but the digital response to the pandemic has created opportunities that fraudsters have taken advantage of it. Bad actors certainly were aware of the significant digitisation in governments and have exploited vulnerabilities.
In their haste to serve people and control the pandemic, governments around the globe rolled out relief programmes quickly and without normal controls, opening up a wider attack surface for bad actors. It is pertinent to note that the pandemic also accelerated the pre-existing trend of digital transformation in government – yielding more opportunities for fraud.
COVID-19 caused huge disruptions which organisations across all sectors are still dealing with – all while fraud chances have multiplied and become more difficult to detect.
Bad actors are quickly growing in strength and effectiveness. Nearly 70% of organisations experiencing fraud reported that the most disruptive incidents came via an external attack or collusion between external and internal sources.
Many employees are now working in a less secure setting as a result of the unexpected move to remote and hybrid working environments. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in internet activity, making it harder to monitor and restrict fraudulent activities.
According to the Cybersource 2021 Global Fraud Report, there has been an increase in fraud attacks and the rate of fraud, especially for organisations based outside of North America. Companies based in the Asia Pacific region have been hit hardest, prompting an increased focus on fraud management and increased spending in this region.
Barry understands that citizens want good information – relevant and timely – not just raw data. They are looking to give leaders actional intelligence and deep insights at the right time. This allows for better decision-making that considers the risks and rewards comprehensively. The public sector must now implement and strengthen controls with robust cyber resilience initiatives.
Public Sector Fraud Management in the New Normal
PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2022 revealed that across organisations of all sizes, including the government and public sector, cybercrime poses the most significant threat, followed by asset misappropriation and customer fraud.
Even before the pandemic, the Asia Pacific region faced the highest incidence of medical claims fraud, according to a global claims fraud survey by reinsurance firm RGA. “Survey results suggest that the global incidence of claims fraud is 3.58%, with high claims fraud incidence in the Asia Pacific region.” That trend is widely expected to have increased during the pandemic.
The rise of digital fraud has forced organisations to work hard to enhance technical capabilities and implement more robust internal controls as well as reporting measures.
In the government and public sector, this fraud trend also makes the need to upgrade the government’s fraud management and technology even more crucial to prevent losses and misuse of funds and safeguard the government’s integrity as fraudsters are moving targets and becoming more specialised and professional. As soon as an agency identifies a scheme and puts in controls to mitigate it, the fraudsters quickly find new ways to exploit the system.
From a market growth perspective, the global market size of fraud detection and prevention solutions is predicted to grow from US$ 30.65 billion in 2022 to US$ 129.17 billion in 2029. Governments across countries, including countries in the Asia Pacific region, invest in implementing advanced fraud prevention solutions.
Investment in government fraud technology for detection and prevention can deliver big payoffs – typically 10 to 100 times ROI.
Border Protection During the Pandemic
“I believe that governments have increased their response to the pandemic to safeguard their borders. They must know the commodities and services entering or leaving their country,” Barry observes.
Of course, borders are only one of the many areas in which nations are beginning to invest in response to the pandemic. Governments across the world are beginning to extensively deploy analytics and big data solutions to assess the risks they may face at the border or within.
From the citizen’s viewpoint, people are concerned with financial fraud and want to be confident that the government collects the required customs duties, so those funds can be ploughed back into ongoing national development.
On the immigration side, people are aware of the potential risks associated with illegal immigration, overstays, as well as the risks of terrorism and contraband. Barry shared many nations are undergoing massive reformation that involves examining the entirety of their Immigration and Customs procedures. It employs and integrates real-time analytics to precisely identify these types of risks.
“There is certainly a very big trend that we’re seeing in the market, where government leaders, especially at borders, are investing in analytics coming from the pandemic,” Barry acknowledged.
Customs and border control are important operations not only because they have wide-ranging implications for a country, but also require close cooperation between many organisations to be truly effective.
Long before the pandemic, the ASEAN region has always been one of the world’s largest trading blocs, placing its member states at greater risk of various transnational crimes. The ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint 2025 prioritises and encourages ASEAN countries to strengthen cooperation on border management in accordance with respective domestic laws, rules, regulations and policies and to jointly address matters of common concern, including forgeries of identification and travel documents, as well as to explore the use of relevant technologies to manage borders to stem the flow of potential terrorists and criminals, and to coordinate border patrols and inspections.
When COVID-19 emerged in 2019, many countries imposed strict border control measures to mitigate as well as slow the spread of the virus. As global travel restrictions begin to ease and countries reopen their borders, governments expect border control measures to be different in the post-pandemic world.
The effects of the pandemic will remain as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and experts predict that the disease will presumably become endemic. Border control systems are facing more complex challenges, and border officials have the monumental task of managing dynamic health control measures to ensure safer travel to protect their citizens. Therefore, governments have to rethink and redesign how border controls operate.
Advanced data analytics and automation technologies can support government agencies by giving them relevant information to make better decisions on a real-time basis. Once data is collected from multiple sources, artificial intelligence or machine learning is applied to collected and historical data to develop real-time watchlist management, risk assessment and investigation management systems. The automated system can accommodate unstructured data in different forms and from multiple sources.
Adopting a risk assessment engine that allows automation as part of the modernisation, therefore, helps governments ascertain the risks and give them relevant information to make better decisions on a real-time basis while adjusting to the new reality and strengthening recovery.
Automation is not to replace customs inspectors and immigration officers, but to enhance border control management. Data analytics help turn the data into meaningful information quickly, so immigration officers can focus on the outcomes of the analysis.
SAS Support for the Public Sector
SAS has the tools, expertise capability and experience to determine the best strategy for effective fraud detection and prevention in agencies. They are one of the leaders in the space of advanced analytics and AI supporting the public sector. SAS helps governments in predictability and manage risk and identify opportunities by leveraging AI and Analytics. Everything SAS does is designed to empower better decisions.
As fraudsters get more sophisticated with their tactics, agencies are also required to get more sophisticated at fighting back. Digital fraud needs an approach with a faster, more accurate response to new threats.
The key strategy is to move from a reactive to a proactive approach. The SAS Detection & Investigation for Government Solution proactively prevents fraud, waste, abuse and improper payments. It provides a holistic view of fraud based on multisource data points and takes a multifaceted approach to detect hidden relationships and seemingly unrelated events.
Advances in fraud detection technologies can give agencies a more accurate and efficient arsenal than ever for attacking fraud and financial crimes. Sophisticated technology-based approaches can eradicate fraud and find it before the losses mount. Whether it’s contract fraud or Medicaid fraud, a criminal act or the sole attempt of a dedicated fraudster, fraud can be discovered and prevented.
Here are 3 essentials for winning the battle against fraud, waste and abuse:
Barry is firmly convinced that utilising analytics in daily operations will spark innovative discoveries that propel the advancement of citizen outcomes and experiences – ones that dismantle siloes, deliver on mandates and offer efficiencies.
There are a plethora of ways that data analytics can be valuable – to what extent relies largely relies on the organisation. But at its foundation, Barry says, it’s all about assisting the organisation in making the best business decisions to serve citizens.
By examining how the microphysics of collisionless plasmas affects macroscopic astrophysical processes, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new paradigm for understanding the origins of magnetic fields.
The research was made possible by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States of America elaborated on the theory that underlies the phenomenon and carried out numerical simulations on supercomputers to demonstrate how macroscopic magnetic fields can be seeded in addition to the fundamental processes that are taking place. The model replicates magnetogenesis on a cosmological scale.
People can now start to figure out how the universe got its magnetic fields, which they can see with the Event Horizon Telescope around supermassive black holes and the Solar Telescope as well, according to Vyacheslav (Slava) Lukin, Program Director, NSF’s Division of Physics.
Magnetic fields can be found anywhere, even in the vast space between galaxies and clusters of galaxies, where there is nothing but emptiness. Even after decades of intense study and research, cosmologists still don’t know where these mysterious magnetic fields come from.
Plasmas between stars and galaxies are not very dense. This means that in cosmological plasmas, the particles never touch each other. This is a key property that the researchers put into their model. The model shows that flows in plasma that don’t hit each other can make magnetic fields on their own. It does this by showing how small-scale plasma dynamics affect large-scale astrophysical processes.
Because they are made by the mechanical energy of turbulent motion, magnetic fields can change how plasma moves. The team wrote about what they found in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Furthermore, the study is a step toward figuring out what makes magnetogenesis happen in the universe. Astronomical observations show that magnetic fields that are dynamically important are all over the Universe, but nobody knows where they come from.
This work shows how the effects of the microphysics of collisionless plasmas on large-scale astrophysical processes can help us figure out where cosmic magnetism comes from. The study shows that the first magnetic fields can be made by generic motions of astrophysical turbulence using kinetic plasma physics. This means that all plasmas in the universe are magnetised.
The theoretical and numerical results set the stage for figuring out how these “seed” magnetic fields are further amplified by the turbulent dynamo, which is another important and long-standing question. This helps move forward a fully self-consistent explanation of how cosmic magnetogenesis happens.
Researchers had looked at the creation of “seed” magnetic fields by the Weibel instability in an initially unmagnetised plasma driven by a large-scale shear force. This was done in a fully kinetic framework. They make an analytical model that shows how phase mixing causes thermal pressure anisotropy, how magnetic fields then grow exponentially in the linear Weibel stage, and how the Weibel instability ends when the seed magnetic fields are strong enough to make particles spin around and stop them from moving freely.
Simulations of a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional electron-positron plasma using the particle-in-cell method confirm that the predicted scaling dependences of the saturated fields on key parameters like the ratio of system scale to electron skin depth and forcing amplitude are correct.
This work shows that a collisionless plasma can become magnetic on its own through large-scale motions as simple as a shear flow. This has important implications for how magnetism forms in astrophysical systems with few particles.
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, is helping to tackle the growing threat of cyber-attacks facing Australia by providing free research and development support to businesses working in the cyber security sector.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working on new cyber security solutions can join the free, 10-week online Innovate to Grow programme, offered by CSIRO, to support their commercial idea with research and development expertise. Upon completion of the programme, participants will be able to access facilitation support, through CSIRO, to connect to research expertise nationally, along with dollar-matched R&D funding.
The SME Collaboration Lead at CSIRO stated that the COVID-19 pandemic had led to an increased risk of cyber security attacks. He noted that as in many other parts of the world, Australia’s dependence on the internet saw a big increase during the pandemic, with many services moving online and more people working from home than ever before.
According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, there was an annual increase of 13 per cent of cybercrime reports in the 2020-21 financial year. To stay ahead of these cyberattacks, new solutions are required, and much of this is driven by SMEs developing new products and services through R&D. SMEs make up 99.8 per cent of all businesses in Australia. However, R&D can be an expensive undertaking for businesses and risky for those without the right guidance and support.
The programme extends beyond cyber security companies into a range of other industries that offer online solutions to their customers – such as agriculture and health – and want to improve the cyber security aspect of their offering.
Participants will receive help to refine a new idea they want to explore and to better understand their idea’s business and scientific viability. They will also be exposed to industry knowledge, hear from innovation and industry experts, and work with an R&D mentor. Companies will also tap into CSIRO’s own cyber security expertise through Data61, CSIRO’s data and digital specialist arm.
While collaboration is crucial in driving good R&D outcomes, research that was released in 2021 found that less than 15 per cent of Australian businesses engage universities or research institutions for their innovation activities – this programme is to up that percentage.
CSIRO’s Innovate to Grow: Cyber Security programme, commences on 26 July and is available for 20-25 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The Innovate to Grow programme is a self-paced and virtually-delivered programme to boost the innovation performance of SMEs in high-priority sectors.
The course will provide tools and information to help businesses better understand what’s involved with R&D and key things they will need to consider at each step of the process. Participants will be able to apply this knowledge to advance their innovation journey. They will also be exposed to industry knowledge, hear from innovation and industry experts and work with a sector or R&D mentor. Throughout the course, participants will also work alongside other like-minded SMEs and build networks.
This programme is perfect for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) currently working in cyber security who are either:
As part of Innovate to Grow, participants will be exposed to research and development opportunities, industry knowledge, and will hear from innovation and industry experts and work with a sector or R&D mentor.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to deepen their partnership and foster university-industry collaboration. To nurture innovation and technology (I&T) talent and support start-ups, the partnership will focus on promoting the exchange of industry insights and addressing I&T needs over the coming year.
This will contribute to the future industrial development of Hong Kong by leveraging PolyU’s latest technological and scientific research and proactively promoting the development of Hong Kong’s I&T and related industries.
PolyU and FHKI will strengthen their cooperation to encourage exchange and collaboration between industrialists and innovative research teams. The two parties will also share resources and networks to support the integration of start-ups and industry through various start-up support schemes. Under the MoU, FHKI members and the PolyU Entrepreneurship Investment Fund plan to co-invest in PolyU-related technology start-ups and provide systematic support to accelerate their growth.
Both parties expect to inject new impetus into the industry and further deepen university-industry collaboration by providing PolyU’s students and the new generation of start-ups with a better understanding of industry needs, as well as the difficulties and challenges faced by the industry.
PolyU is committed to accelerating knowledge transfer, propelling innovation and entrepreneurship education, and bringing the needs of the industry to its campus. Now, by combining the extensive experience of the industry with the academic and scientific research excellence of PolyU, greater synergies will be generated, contributing to Hong Kong’s re-industrialisation in the long run.
The President of PolyU stated that the University is committed to meeting market needs through the provision of excellent education and conducting innovative research. PolyU has been working closely with industry over the years. Through its partnership with FHKI, the aim is to strengthen mutually beneficial collaboration between innovative research teams and industry by leveraging PolyU’s expertise in innovation and entrepreneurship education as well as FHKI’s market intelligence and extensive network. The partnership will furthermore reinforce the application of PolyU’s research excellence to different industries and help nurture young talent for I&T industries in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of FHKI, noted that this kind of university-industry collaboration reflects the joint dedication to fostering Hong Kong’s advanced manufacturing, re-industrialisation and I&T development. He said that the close working relationship and exchange between the two parties will strengthen the University’s knowledge transfer endeavours, creating more sustainable social-economic values.
Talent is crucial if Hong Kong is to become a world-class advanced manufacturing and I&T centre. It is expected that the collaboration will provide more opportunities for PolyU’s students and research teams to leverage their expertise, and attract more young people to join the advanced manufacturing and I&T industries, bringing in new energy and creativity, the Chairman added.
PolyU and FHKI will work together to explore more partnership programmes tailored for PolyU’s students and research teams. These include joint innovation challenges, mentorship programmes, translational research grants, talent exchange, nurturing schemes, and more.
The collaboration will cover a wide range of disciplines, such as electric vehicles; biotech; property tech; environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles as well as other I&T areas, aiming to apply research results to society and accelerate the commercialisation of start-ups.
The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has revised its passport issuance procedures. The current resources devoted to managing long lines and on-site requests will be reallocated to accelerate passport processing and issuance. As a result, ICA will only accept walk-ins for applicants who have been contacted to obtain their passport, present supporting documents, and resubmit photographs beginning on 13 June 2022.
Since March 2022, the ICA has been generating and issuing passports at an unprecedented rate in response to an increase in passport applications. Currently, they give more than 5,000 passports per day, about three times as many as they did before the implementation of Covid in 2019. Additional personnel have been redeployed to process and produce passports around the clock to address the increased demand.
The number of people who come to the ICA Building to collect their passports and make other inquiries has also increased. Visits to check on the status of passport applications and requests to accelerate the process of applying for or collecting a passport are examples of these types of interactions. Because of this, the lines at the ICA Building are long, which has necessitated hiring more ICA officers to assist with crowd management and other services.
To get access to the ICA Building, applicants for passports are required to present one or more of the following documents: E-appointment booking for passport collection at the ICA Building requires manual collection slips for passport collection; alternatively, an online notification or pink notification card indicating their passport is ready to be collected can be provided to the customer. On the other hand, an email notification is used to resubmit supporting papers, and online information is used to resubmit images when submitting or resubmitting documents or photographs.
In addition, applicants who need to collect their passports from the ICA Building are encouraged to do so on their own to reduce the number of people waiting in line at the ICA Building. People of any age who require exceptional support, including children, the elderly, and others, are permitted to have one additional person accompany them.
ICA also recommend qualified candidates collect their passport at one of the 27 post offices rather than at the ICA Building to avoid the lines there. When applicants pick up their tickets at the post office, they won’t be charged any additional fees.
Passport applicants with additional questions should contact ICA through alternative channels:
Those unable to accomplish the tasks and do not have proxies may visit the ICA Building for assistance in submitting their passport-related appeals online.
Officers from the ICA are working hard to process the passport applications. The management is seeking the Singaporeans’ understanding of their new process, which will only accept walk-ins for passport concerns. The preceding exclusively applies to passport services and has no bearing on other ICA services.
Ha Long, a city in Quang Ninh province, aims to have a 20%-25% average annual growth rate in the number and value of cashless payments by 2025. Officials recently held a teleconference discussing the implementation of a project for non-cash payment development for 2022-2025 across the city’s 33 communes and wards.
The project aims to bolster the growth of cashless payment in the local economy by making digital payment methods a habit of residents in urban areas. Gradually, it will develop the technology in rural areas and reduce social costs related to cash, a report has stated.
Ha Long plans to secure cashless payments, improve the banking system’s operational efficiency and state authorities’ supervision and management effectiveness, and use emerging technologies to develop a robust payment infrastructure system. By 2025, it expects that at least 90% of the residents aged 15 and above will have cashless transaction accounts. Up to 99% of contributions to the State budget and 100% of tuition fees at local schools and educational establishments are expected to be paid through digital methods.
Other sectors of the city’s economy are also implementing ways to pay for services electronically. In April, the Quang Ninh People’s Committee agreed to pilot a smart tourism model without cash at the Tuan Chau international tourism complex in Ha Long. Starting from May, the model will be piloted for 12 months.
In February, Ha Long put into use a smart application to promote digital transformation. The application is part of the city’s intelligent operations centre (IOC), and through it, people can send reports to authorities, access online public services, and use a map to find departmental headquarters, tourist attractions, hotels, schools, etc. It also provides information from local administrations and media outlets. Users can look up health stations and easily access COVID-19 treatment advice.
All public opinions submitted on the application will be sent to the IOC and then to the agencies in charge of the issues mentioned for settlement. Settlement results will also be publicised on the app so that people can check and assess state agencies’ performance. Authorities have noted that the app will help increase state agencies’ interaction with locals, thereby contributing to a civilised, modern, open, transparent, and friendly living environment in the city. More functions will be added to the app to further connect people.
The moves by Ha Long are part of Quang Ninh’s efforts to develop the digital economy and establish itself as a leader in comprehensive digital transformation at the provincial level. Among the targets for 2030, the province hopes the digital economy will account for about 30% of GDRP, and labour productivity will increase by over 13% annually.
Further, it aims to have all documents and papers at the district and communal levels handled digitally, 99% of the local adults to have e-payment accounts, and 90% of state agencies’ monitoring activities be conducted on information systems. It plans to host at least 500 digital businesses by 2030. Quang Ninh ranked fourth among the country’s 63 provinces and cities in the 2020 Digital Transformation Index rankings, following Da Nang city and the provinces of Thua Thien-Hue and Bac Ninh.
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