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April 15, 2024

GovTech sparks AI innovation among public agencies using a platform built with Azure OpenAI Service

With generative AI, making government services more efficient is easier than ever, and no one knows this better than GovTech, the technology arm of the Singapore government. Using services such as Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, the agency created LaunchPad, a platform where government agencies can explore and harness the potential of AI, browse through prototypes and central products, and learn from each other. With more than 3,000 monthly active users across all government agencies, LaunchPad has already sparked more than 400 ideas and 20 prototypes, laying the foundation for the government to harness the power of Generative AI.

GovTech

“Engineering Digital Government, Making Lives Better,”—reads the mission statement of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore, or GovTech for short, the technology implementation arm of the Singapore government. The agency is at the forefront of the city-state's ambitious Smart Nation vision, developing digital government services like Singpass for convenient and secure access to services and GoBusiness to support businesses across Singapore. It builds technology for the public good to improve the lives of Singaporeans and boost the economy, as well as supports public agencies in managing enterprise IT operations. Its other responsibilities include overseeing and safeguarding key government ICT infrastructure, as well as regulating public sector ICT procurement, data protection, and cybersecurity.

“Our aim is to enhance productivity significantly and advance the capabilities of public officers to better serve citizens, and we’ve been exploring how generative AI can assist us in performing tasks that were previously unattainable or perform them faster and more efficiently,” explains Jason See, Senior Director of the Data Science and AI Division (DSAID) at GovTech.

When ChatGPT became the talk of the town, GovTech started looking for ways to tap the ideas of public officers across the whole public service. “We envisioned a platform to bring together ideas from public officers and help them discover products and exciting prototypes that would help them in their work,” adds Jason.

This paved the way for LaunchPad, which started out as an AI innovation and experimentation platform and education tool, with plans to go broader than AI.

In its current form, LaunchPad, which uses Azure OpenAI Service, makes it easy for public officers to explore, discover, and experiment with AI technology. To spark ideas, LaunchPad’s gallery showcases various GenAI prototypes while its Hub helps public officers discover central products and programs that they can immediately use. To encourage adoption, LaunchPad also offers training resources such as a Prompt Engineering Playbook. “Our vision for LaunchPad was to spin up the flywheel of innovation with AI. We capture ideas from all agencies and also facilitate the building of prototypes,” explains See.

Since its debut in April 2023, LaunchPad has grown in popularity. “Today, there are about 3,000 monthly active users from multiple government agencies contributing their own ideas, experimenting with GenAI, and discovering the products we offer,” shares See. “Around 400 ideas have already been pitched in, and more than 20 prototypes have been experimented on through LaunchPad.”

“Today, there are about 3,000 monthly active users from multiple government agencies contributing their own ideas, experimenting with GenAI, and discovering the products we offer.”

Jason See, Senior Director, Data Science and AI Division (DSAID), GovTech

Public service augmented by AI

To encourage upskilling and awareness, GovTech also runs the Prompt Royale Award, a prompt engineering competition, which is truly the first of its kind. It encourages public officers to pick up prompt engineering skill sets. From 400 participants, the top 3 finalists are put on stage to compete using their prompt engineering skills to best complete a series of five tasks.

LaunchPad’s collaborative platform design also led to the development of Appraiser, a product that simplifies and speeds up the process of writing testimonials for teachers. First contributed by a polytechnic lecturer, the idea was upvoted by the community, which led to an initial prototype a month later. With further iterations with the users, the prototype was eventually developed into a full product that has served up more than 40,000 testimonials so far.

Charting the future of innovative governance

With the solution ready, GovTech’s next goal is to double down on how they can use LaunchPad to help the wider public service ideate, discover, and learn, with plans underway to support agencies on the use of LaunchPad for their own ideathons and hackathons.

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