Prof Alex Siow is currently a Professor (Practice) in the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. and concurrently Director of the Advanced Computing for Executives Centre, the Strategic Technology Management Institute (STMI) and the Centre for Health Informatics.
Prof Alex, who is also known as Singapore’s first CIO, rose to prominence in the 1990s when he was appointed as CIO by the Housing and Development Board, Singapore. In 2003, he joined the private sector and became the Senior Vice President in StarHub. He held various portfolios including Business Market, CIO and Head-Enterprise Risk Management and more. He moved out of the corporate ladder after serving a stint at Accenture as Managing Director-Health & Public Services.
He has given decades to corporate, SAF and Singapore’s government bodies. He is currently Chairman of Toffs Technologies Pte Ltd, a member of Temasek Polytechnic Board of Governors, a member of the Board of Trustees of Singapore University of Social Sciences and a member of the Board of Directors of the Ang Mo Kio Thye Hua Kwan Hospital.
In a candid conversation with ETCIO, Siow talks about the innovative culture of Singapore, how the island city is fostering emerging technologies and giving birth to new opportunities for foreign talent, and technology leaders reshape their career in better ways.
“Singapore has been instrumental in IT planning and scaling out a digitisation roadmap since the early 1980s. I remember the time when Singapore started to adapt to mobility and digital interfaces replacing manual operations. Singapore’s financial sector is one of the frontiers which disrupted the consumer banking space around the world. We have advanced algorithms and use cases of blockchain technology in place even before the world started to trust new-age technologies,” Siow said.
Singapore: A BFSI hub
Singapore is headquartered by the world’s leading banking and financial institutions. The island city is globally acknowledged for its work in innovating the banking sector and customer experience. From traditional cash book maintenance to now fostering a fully connected consumer banking experience. Singapore has transformed the way its citizens operate in their day to day lives.
“Today companies are acting like banks in a way to redefine the monetary experience of customers. Today, from Fintechs in Singapore to companies like Uber, and other e-commerce websites, every business operating in Singapore is giving features such as buy now and pay later which is like a loan or debt on a customer. The entire ecosystem of BFSI in Singapore is fueled with innovation and technologies such as blockchain, AI, etc,” Siow emphasised.
According to Prof Alex, Neo banks and fintech are giving tough competition to legacy banking and financial institutions. The region is absorbing financial technology to every possible process and operation.
In Singapore, banking and financial institutions are using every possible new-age technology such as RPA, AI/ML and a few born-digital BFSI companies are leveraging algorithms for stock trading and audits.
“Singapore’s BFSI sector has the zeal yet pondering about the use of cryptocurrency. Several companies here in the city are working on innovative projects with the same decentralised ledger system and using techniques like cryptography. I believe that this technology can do wonders but has to be regulated before becoming traditional in Singapore. Regulators are worried about this virtual currency and similarly, banks are taking smaller steps decoding cryptography,” Siow added.
Digital healthcare ecosystem
The Healthcare sector was affected by the onset of Covid-19, but the island city started to recover and gained control over the pandemic with the availability of digital healthcare solutions distributed in a low population density.
“Technology is being leveraged for contact tracing, telemedicine, digital delivery of healthcare services in Singapore. With all major technologies in the healthcare sector, we faced challenges in the area of cybersecurity. Hackers targeting healthcare institutions, patient’s medical records leak and spread of fake information were major worries in Singapore. The government has also taken necessary steps in the area of enhancing cybersecurity, investing in threat intelligence and many security tools and solutions. But still, there will always be a risk of getting hacked in a digital native environment,” Siow highlighted.
Today healthcare institutions and government bodies are collecting data from various sources and leverage technologies such as AI and analytics to enhance healthcare services delivery. According to Siow, with the great benefits of digital-enabled healthcare services, systems are getting vulnerable every minute. Hackers are trying unique methods to crack the data safe and misuse the information of Singapore’s citizens.
He further added that going forward in 2021, private institutions to government bodies, IT spending in the area of cybersecurity will be prioritised. Cybersecurity budgets will be increased and investments will be steered towards blockchain security solutions, advanced threat monitoring tools, AI-driven security solutions, and more.
The Singapore CIO community
“CIOs in Singapore are planning their IT spending on innovations and setting up R&D. There’s an overhaul in the migration of legacy systems. CIOs are also deprioritizing a few IT projects after this pandemic hit. The Singapore CIO community is now focused on cybersecurity and digital security solutions. Enterprises and homegrown startups are now increasing investment in keeping applications, network, and key systems secured. The region has observed a few major cyberattacks and amid this pandemic, companies are working towards protecting data, as the information is the new fuel to drive revenue and innovation,” Siow said.
Siow also highlighted that organisations in Singapore are redefining the CIO designation. According to him, technology and function-specific roles in IT are getting preference. Roles such as CTO, CDO, CDIO, CTIO are among the trends in technology leadership hiring in Southeast Asia.
“Today technology leaders are stepping into the board of management to add the technology angle to the top and bottom lines of the business. CIOs can get on the board, all they have to do is develop a business mindset and management skills. Traditional CIOs with only technical knowledge face challenges as the key to the board seat is how a CIO can use technology to increase revenue. In these pandemic times, CIOs should look at technology as their core business function and support line for their organization,” Siow concluded.
