SINGAPORE — Since April, ordinary Singaporeans have responded to over 80 potential cardiac cases, thanks to the Government’s myResponder mobile application, which alerts users to help needed for a possible cardiac case in their vicinity.

Developed with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), more of such apps are in the pipeline as a new government unit of coders and engineers aims to develop digital services that can bring people together.

The Government Digital Services unit will be part of the Software Design and Development Centre of Excellence, which will provide facilities for user-research, experience testing as well as consultancy services for government agencies. The centre is located at the Sandcrawler, Lucasfilm’s Singapore campus at Fusionopolis, and is expected to be officially launched next month.

“My personal belief is the Government can be a platform,” said Director of IDA Singapore’s Government Digital Services Mark Lim Choon Lye. “In the past, it was always about the Government rolling out services to the citizens ... we can become, to some extent, a platform that citizens can plug in and get notified or get alerted and have services pushed to them, instead of them trying to say, ‘oh! I need to have this, I need to have that, and I need come to the Government’.”

The myResponder app, he said, is an example of this concept in its “early days”. “I really believe in this concept of kampong spirit. Use technology to bring people closer together, and it can be done. The myResponder is only one,” he said.

“It can also be done for other things. For example, helping the elderly. Use technology to bring people who want to help the elderly together. And we are also talking about ideas to do with blood donation, to do with other forms of crowdsourcing of help and bringing people together.” IMELDA SAAD