What is it?

Smart Nation is an initiative that seek to improve living, create economic opportunity, and build a closer community by the involvement of the citizens using current technologies, with support by the government.^[i]

It started in November 2014 and has 5 key domains that they aim to tackle^[ii]:
Transport
Home and Environment
Business Productivity
Health and enabled ageing
Public Sector Services

They want us citizens and businesses to co-create impactful solutions to address our challenges and the government strive to facilitate innovations by the public and private sector through appropriate policies and legislations.^[ii]

Benefits

From this initiative, it has opened up many job demands in the area for Information Technology, like engineers, cyber security experts, and data analysts^[iii].

Through this initiative, it will also enable people living in Singapore, especially the younger generation to feel more involved with the building of and being part of Singapore, through the active involvement of the use of the data available and the applications for it.

Other considerations

However, there is a slight risk to the building of a Smart Nation. In an article by The Straits Times in May 24, 2016^[iv], it states that the budget for the building of the Smart Nation have been exceeded for the two years since the start in 2014.
Even if we do develop a Smart Nation, if we continue to spend over the budget catered for the Smart Nation development, we might face more problems in the future that could impact us in other aspects, creating problems that could be prevented at the start.

This initiative is very promising and as it develops more, it will improve our living standards, have more opportunities to develop economically and also bring us closer to one another, if we are willing to share information. As it was stated in the article[iii], one of the concerns is the idea of sharing information with one another. That could only be done if we are convinced and assured of a good cyber security network around.
For us to progress smoothly in this direction then, we have a lot of factors to consider and we cannot rush into them at once.

For a media art intervention plan, check out Media Art Intervention for Smart Nation

[i] Smart Nation website Homepage
[ii] Smart Nation website About Page
[iii] Smart Nation report card: Let’s get digital, The Straits Times article, May 22, 2016
[iv] Smart Nation push to see $2.8b worth of tenders this year, The Straits Times article, May 24, 2016