Justyna Orłowska

Prime Minister’s High Representative for Government Technology, Poland

Justyna is a leading expert in corporate finance and fund management. Having previously worked in consulting, in 2016 she became an advisor to the Minister of Economic Development. Responsible for management of the State's innovative projects portfolio, she spearheaded the MinFinTech programme as well as digital initiatives in the fields such as education or finance. In 2017, she was appointed an Advisor to the Prime Minister on Innovation Policy and Finance. Since the GovTech Polska Programme’s establishment in April 2018, she is serving as Head of the GovTech Polska Programme - Poland's largest initiative aimed at bringing and implementing the innovation and digital revolution to the Public Sector. She was appointed the Prime Minister’s High Representative for Government Technology in March 2020 and currently serving as Head of the GovTech Centre in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. For her actions, she has received multiple awards, including Forbes 30 under 30, Digital Shape, the Digital Eagle award and the Innovation Eagle award.

Bidyut Dumra

Executive Director & Head of Innovation, DBS

With over 15 years of professional experience in multi-national organisations, Bidyut has taken on senior-management positions in media, entertainment, telecommunications, automotive, utility and aviation across markets such as Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Taiwan, India, Thailand and Vietnam.
His current role focuses on building and delivering ecosystems, partnerships, digital strategy and innovation. These involve setting principles and standards, identifying opportunities, training and applying design thinking and agile, rapid prototyping, structuring and financing products, implementing and operationalising systems, managing change and running programmes to invoke a culture of creativity and innovation across the bank.
Parallel to his corporate career, he has exercised his entrepreneurship by co-founding and partnering diverse ventures including a film distribution and production company, an international film festival, a boutique technology consultancy, an arts programme, retail lifestyle products and baby clothes. It was this diversity in experience, entrepreneurial instinct and evangelistic passion for agility and design that led him to take on an innovation-driven role at DBS Bank.
Bidyut graduated with a Master’s in Business Management (majors: Technology, Finance & Marketing) and has over the years developed strong commercial acumen and a holistic view of business imperatives and functions.

Li Hongyi

Director, Open Government Products, GovTech Singapore

Hongyi leads an experimental team of engineers, designers, and product managers who build technology for the public good. Projects they work on include Parking.sg – an app to replace parking coupons, Go.gov.sg — the official government link shortener used to help fight phishing, and RedeemSG - a redemption tracking system that has distributed over 8 million face masks to Singaporeans. Amidst Covid-19, he has also led the team to rapidly develop systems to support testing, quarantine, and vaccination rollout nation-wide. He believes in working on real problems, building for the user, and pushing for change.
Prior to joining the public sector, Hongyi worked at Google on the distributed databases and image search teams. He previously attended MIT, where he obtained degrees in computer science and economics. In his free time, he works on personal projects like typographing.com and chatlet.com.

Chong Mien Ling

Chief Sustainability Officer & Director, Policy & Planning, PUB Singapore

Ms Chong Mien Ling is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Director of the Policy & Planning Department of PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency, and currently oversees PUB’s sustainability efforts. Prior to her current appointment, Ms Chong was involved in water R&D for eight years in PUB’s Technology Department, where she was part of the team that developed PUB’s technology roadmap and sourced for water technologies from concept, development to eventual adoption. Ms Chong was also involved in the development of NEWater as a young engineer.

Gwenda Fong

Assistant Chief Executive, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA)

Ms Gwenda Fong is the Assistant Chief Executive at the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA). She is responsible for guiding and coordinating Singapore’s cybersecurity developments, which includes domestic and international strategies and policies. Since joining CSA in 2017, Gwenda has been involved in the drafting and implementation of the Cybersecurity Act that was passed in Parliament in 2018, as well as in the development of Singapore’s Safer Cyberspace Masterplan that was launched in Oct 2020.
Gwenda also holds a concurrent appointment as Senior Director (Futures) at the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), where she leads research on long-term challenges and disruptions in the areas of communication, information, and digitalisation.
Prior to CSA, Gwenda was Director in the Ageing Planning Office in the Ministry of Health. She has also held roles in the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Science & Technology Agency.
Gwenda holds a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a MSc in International Planning from University College London.

Prof Dean Ho

Director, N.1 Institute for Health, Director, Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM), Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS)

Prof. Dean Ho is Provost’s Chair Professor, Director of The N.1 Institute for Health (N.1), Director of the Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM), and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Singapore.
Using his CURATE.AI platform, Prof. Ho has led multiple pioneering clinical studies that have validated the promise of N-of-1 medicine, where only a patient’s own data is used to personalise their treatment.
Prof. Ho is an elected member of the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI and Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and Fulbright Scholar. Prof. Ho appeared on the National Geographic Channel and his discoveries were featured on CNN, The Economist, Forbes, NPR and other news outlets. He served as the President of the Board of Directors of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), a 26,000+ member global drug development organisation.

Honor Harger

Executive Director, ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Honor Harger is the Executive Director for ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands. A curator from New Zealand, she has a strong interest in artistic uses of technologies and in science as part of culture. Honor brings with her over 15 years of experience of working at the intersection between art, science and technology. She is responsible for charting the overall direction and strategy for ArtScience Museum.
Honor has lectured widely including at the conferences TED, and LIFT, as well as at the European Space Agency, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, California Institute of the Arts and the American Film Institute.

Rahul Daswani

Head of People & Culture, Open Government Products, GovTech Singapore

Rahul is an intrapreneur, designing and implementing initiatives to build capabilities and culture. His experience over the last 12 years includes founding or being in the early stages of 5 government startups: Open Government Products, Strategy Group in Singapore's Prime Minister's Office, SkillsFuture Singapore, Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation Agency, and Papua New Guinea's Climate Change Development Authority.
Rahul is currently Head of People and Culture at Open Government Products (OGP), GovTech's experimental unit which built products like Singapore's National Appointment System for Covid-19 vaccines, Homer (location self-reporting app for people on Quarantine Order or SHN), and Parking.sg. OGP went fully remote in Mar 2020, introducing a slate of new practices and tools so employees were connected, and moved to a hybrid model since July 2020.

9:00

Opening Keynote: Tech for Good

Justyna Orłowska, Prime Minister’s High Representative for Government Technology, Poland

9:20

Fireside Chat: Next-Generation Leadership

Gen Y leaders share how the importance of innovation and tech is enabling the public sector to serve citizens better.

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• Yudhistira Nugraha, Director, Jakarta Smart City, Indonesia

• Li Hongyi, Director (Open Government Products), GovTech, Singapore

• Interviewer: Poon Yun Xuan, Deputy Editor, GovInsider

10:00

Democratization of Cybersecurity: How Cloud Helps Make Cybersecurity Accessible

Governments around the world recognize the importance to strengthen national cybersecurity as strategic priority. With global shortage of skilled cybersecurity workforce, ensuring access to cybersecurity across public services and agencies would be an uphill challenge. This session walks you through on how cloud helps to address this challenge through economies of scale, continuous innovation, and automation.

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Agus Komang Dimas Opandi, Senior Security Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

10:30

Panel: Digital Defence and Cybersecurity

The rise of digital technology and innovation are often seen as an obstacle or direct conflict to digital defence and cybersecurity. When quick deployment is prioritized, how and where cybersecurity should be integrated into the innovation process? The panel will discuss the critical role of digital defence and cybersecurity play in both businesses and governments.

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• Mihoko Matsubara, Chief Cybersecurity Strategist, NTT, Japan

• Gwenda Fong, Assistant Chief Executive, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA)

• Vincent Loy, Assistant Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore

• Andrew Hodges, Senior Security Advisor, World Wide Public Sector APJ, Amazon Web Services

• Moderated by Amit Roy Choudhury, Senior Journalist & Media Consultant

11:30

Driving Operation Excellence with The Power of Compute on Cloud

Akanksha Balani, Regional Alliance Head — Team AWS, APAC & Japan, Intel

12:00

Fireside Chat: Driving National Growth with Tech Inclusivity

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• Prof Dean Ho, Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, NUS, Singapore

• Interviewer: Akanksha Balani, Regional Alliance Head - Team AWS, APAC & Japan, Intel

14:00

Fireside Chat: Digital Recovery

The pandemic has brought many changes to the world, and digital technologies like cloud and AI have proven to help sustain global economy. Find out how government leaders across ASEAN are using tech for economic recovery, and how cloud and AI can help boost public–private partnerships.

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• Debashis Nag, Regional Digital Transformation Specialist, Bangkok Regional Hub, United Nations Development Programme

• Interviewer: Kuan Hian Tan, Editor, The Birthday Book 2021

15:00

Accelerating Insights: Democratize Data Access with AWS

Data, unlike most resources, is not consumed by use. The key to extract all the value contained in your data is to make it available in an easy, governed, and timely way to all the right stakeholders. In this session you will discover how to make this happen with AWS.

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Marco Ullasci, Senior Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

15:30

Fireside Chat: Leading the Government's RPA Shift

This session will explore database migrations for governments and public sector officials; data sharing and collaboration across different government agencies and streamlining government e-services; the future of future labs - foresight practice, data analytics, and collaboration platforms.

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• Dennis Lui, CEO, VITAL Shared Services, Ministry of Finance, Singapore

• Interviewer: Shirley Tay, Senior Reporter, GovInsider

9:10

Information Governance: Citizen to Public Administration

in partnership with OpenText

In an era where data-driven government is key to providing a better citizen experience, effective information and data governance workflow that provides organisation resiliency, frictionless services, and platform to scale is imperative. Join us in a session to discuss information governance and how they are best used in the whole of government.

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• Sau Sheong Chang, CEO, SP Digital

• Mohamed Hardi, Director & Chief Information Officer, National Heritage Board, Singapore

• Brian Chidester, Head of Worldwide Industry Strategy for Public Sector, OpenText

• Moderated by Amit Roy Choudhury, Senior Journalist & Media Consultant

10:15

Panel: Citizen-Centric Innovation

in partnership with Zendesk

The world is rapidly going digital, including public service. How can public sector leaders address the diversity of needs across various demographics and ensure that innovation is human-centric and results in better social outcomes?

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• Bruce Liew, Director, Sector Digitalisation and Transformation Office, National Council of Social Service, Singapore

• Mohamed Hardi, Director & Chief Information Officer, National Heritage Board, Singapore

• Malcolm Koh, Director, CX Practice, Global Customer Engagement, Zendesk

• Moderated by Cherie Tseng, Editor, The Birthday Collective

11:15

Panel: Innovation for sustainability

In the post-Covid world, government agencies and businesses are turning to innovation and technologies to create new sustainable policy and drive sustainable infrastructure and growth through public private collaboration. The panel will discuss how technology can help to monitor and tackle climate change and new innovations for the environment and food sustainability.

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• Sau Sheong Chang, CEO, SP Digital

• A/Prof Tan Tin Wee, Chief Executive, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC)

• Prof Loh Xian Jun, Executive Director, Institute of Materials Research and Engineering Executive Director, Urban and Green Technology Horizontal Technology Programme Office (UGT HTPO), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

• Moderated by Poon Yun Xuan, Deputy Editor, GovInsider

12:15

Fireside Chat: Innovations & Water Sustainability

• Chong Mien Ling, Chief Sustainability Officer and Director, Policy & Planning Department, PUB, Singapore

• Interviewer: Poon Yun Xuan, Deputy Editor, GovInsider

14:00

Panel: Digital Education & Upskilling

in partnership with Intel

In a post-pandemic work landscape, where new skills, and new jobs are continuously emerging, employees are looking for the resources, skills, and support to level up alongside the pace of digital acceleration. The panel will discuss how to provide the relevant resources for citizens to adapt to the new normal in a digital age.

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• PeiChin Tay, Policy Lead (Digital Government Unit), Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

• Yasas Thalagala, Strategic Engagement & Exploration Lead, Citra Social Innovation Lab, Sri Lanka

• Kenny Sng, Staff Solution Architect, Intel Corporation

• Interviewer: Cherie Tseng, Editor, The Birthday Collective

15:00

Leading healthcare and healthtech organizations use AWS to streamline innovation

To deliver patient-centered care, organisations in the heavily-regulated healthcare industry — from providers and payors to healthtech — need to increase the pace of innovation and unlock the potential of data, all while keeping health information secure and private. AWS empowers health organisations to improve patient outcomes and accelerate the digitisation and utilisation of their data with the broadest and deepest portfolio of cloud services and purpose-built partner solutions.

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• Leon Jackson, Healthcare Chief Technologist, Asia Pacific & Japan, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

15:30

Panel: Healthcare for Tomorrow

With the increase in remote treatments and telehealth devices, healthcare is more connected, yet more disparate, than ever. Governments and public sector leaders in charge of leading national healthcare sectors through - and out of - the pandemic, are looking to new digital strategies, solutions, and business intelligence to navigate this new digital ecosystem in a holistic way and provide better care for patients and deeper insights for governments.

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• Prof Dean Ho, Director, N.1 Institute for Health, Director, Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM), Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore

• Sutowo Wong, Director, Analytics & Information Management, Ministry of Health, Singapore

• Chevy Beh, Founder & CEO, BookDoc, Malaysia

• Dr Julian Sham, Healthcare Lead, Asia Pacific & Japan, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• Moderated by Dr Adam Chee, Chief, Smart Health Leadership Centre, Institute of Systems Science, NUS

9:30

Panel: Cloud Cyber

in partnership with Elastic

Throughout the public sector, there is a rising awareness that collaboration and partnerships are crucial to set standards, benchmarking, and clear governance infrastructures to manage innovation and build resilience at national level. The panel will address how governments can establish the right governance infrastructures and solutions for innovation at national level.

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• Marcus Tan Cheng Lin, Head of Cybersecurity Department, Institute for Infocomm Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore

• John Lim, Manager, Nanyang Polytechnic & Information Security Specialist, Singapore

• Nicholas Lim, Principal Solutions Architect, Elastic

• Moderated by Amit Roy Choudhury, Senior Journalist & Media Consultant

10:30

Panel: Data-Driven Government

in partnership with Cloudera

Southeast Asia is undergoing an AI awakening. The increasingly sophisticated technologies are making artificial intelligence an economic enabler, and a critical tool for post-pandemic resilience. The panel will address how governments are looking for the new innovations and innovative solutions to plan an effective AI roadmap and bring their nation from AI awakening to AI acceleration.

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• Dr Goh Han Leong, Senior Principal Specialist, Platform Services, Data Analytics & Ai (DNA), Integrated Health Information Systems Pte Ltd (IHiS)

• Bruce Liew, Director, Sector Digitalisation and Transformation Office, National Council of Social Service, Singapore

• Robert Carey, President, Cloudera Government Solutions Inc. & Vice President, Cloudera Public Sector

• Moderated by Poon Yun Xuan, Deputy Editor, GovInsider

14:00

Fireside Chat: Asia As The Next FinTech Hub 

Growing digital economies present significant national opportunities, including more seamless digital transactions, and empowering the nation’s unbanked. The panel will address how governments and public sector leaders are looking for the solutions and strategies to ensure a strong, stable and secure digital financial infrastructure.

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• Tan Bin Ru, CEO (Southeast Asia), OneConnect Financial Technology & Co-Chairwoman, Blockchain Association Singapore

• Interviewer: Cherie Tseng, Editor, The Birthday Collective

15:00

Panel: Smart Cities, Smart Nations, Smart World

Driven by the global pandemic, and the increasing pace of digitalisation, a strong global innovation infrastructure has become imperative, not only to protect and empower citizens and nations, but also to strengthen and diversify national – and global – economies. This panel will bring together international perspectives on innovation on a global scale, and how the right partnerships – both between governments, and with the right technology partners – can help digital economies on their road to post-pandemic recovery.

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• Kate Sutton, Global Leader and Head of the Regional Innovation Centre, UNDP

• Dr Lim Keng Hui, Executive Director, Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), Artificial Intelligence, Analytics & Informatics Horizontal Technology Programme Office (HTPO), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

• Dr Ronald Chung, ASEAN Smart Cities Solution Architect Lead, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services

• Moderated by Shirley Tay, Senior Reporter, GovInsider

16:00

Fireside Chat: The Future Of Work

The post-Covid future of work looks set to be a hybrid model. How can the public sector leaders continue to provide the right agile infrastructure to adapt to the dynamic and ever-changing hybrid landscape? The panel will discuss the role of innovations for the future of remote employment and hybrid workforce, and the changing role and accountability of the civil servant.

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• Rahul Daswani, Head of People and Culture, Open Government Products, Singapore

• Shazly Zain, Research Assistant, Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS

• Interviewer: Kuan Hian Tan, Editor, The Birthday Book 2021

10:00

Fireside Chat: Digital Inclusivity

Building a digitally inclusive society is at the top of the agenda for many countries. The panel will address the increasing digital divide and how governments around the region are tackling these important issues. What are their plans to empower their people and promote digital literacy for everyone?

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• Debashis Nag, Regional Digital Transformation Specialist, Bangkok Regional Hub, United Nations Development Programme

• Akanksha Balani, Regional Alliance Head - Team AWS, APAC & Japan, Intel

• Interviewer: Sean Nolan, Reporter, GovInsider

11:00

Panel: Spotlight on Singapore's innovation

In times of unprecedented change, new technologies are needed to not only help governments provide the necessary public infrastructure and services citizens need, but also to maintain their standing on the global landscape. Governments and agencies are looking for the right partnerships to help survive and thrive in the new hyper-connected age, and build national level, both post-pandemic and long-term. These solutions must be accessible even to non-digital natives, and clear engagement and communication both internally, and externally is key for governments to enable nations to adopt new technologies for new times.

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• Dr Hong Yee Low, Associate Head of Engineering Product Development (EPD) Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design & Centre Director, Digital Manufacturing and Design (DManD) Centre, Singapore

• Prof Kenneth G. Huang, Academic Director, Master of Science in Management of Technology, Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management, NUS and Department of Strategy and Policy, NUS Business School

• Bidyut Dumra, Executive Director & Head of Innovation, DBS Bank

• Moderated by Poon Yun Xuan, Deputy Editor, GovInsider

14:00

Fireside Chat: The Future of Preserving our Past

Technologies can help us protect and preserve our past. Whether it’s virtual exhibitions or preservation and conservation, digital tools relying on 3D modelling, innovation and technologies can add a new dimension to preserving, and promoting a nation’s art and culture. The panel will discuss the vast potential of conserving the past and rich heritage with technology, driving social change and empowering communities.

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• Dr Yanyun Chen, Artist & Lecturer of Arts and Humanities, Division of Humanities , Yale-NUS College, Singapore

• Honor Harger, Executive Director, ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

• Interviewer: Shirley Tay, Senior Reporter, GovInsider

15:00

Fireside Chat: Rebuilding for Good

in partnership with AWS

The COVID-19 pandemic has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds for well over a year. Now, as the prospect of the new normal completely free of the virus remains elusive, governments are turning to innovation to look past – and perhaps live with – COVID-19. Whether it’s planning an effective, ethical smart city roadmap, or geospatial mapping to monitor crowded public places in real time, or predictive analytics to drive decisions in public policy, tech and innovation will be their tool for long-term resilience and sustainability.

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• Dr Piret Tõnurist, Project Manger, Lead on Systems Thinking and Anticipatory Innovation Governance, Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OECD)

• Jonathan Wong, Chief of Technology and Innovation, Trade, Investment and Innovation Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)

• Interviewer: Spencer Marley, Solutions Manager, Amazon Web Services (AWS)