A Smart Vision
The Selangor government has set its sights on transforming Selangor into a Smart State by 2025. This transformation will harness the people’s collective potential to do greater things, and create an open and collaborative culture. To achieve this vision, the Smart Selangor Delivery Unit (SSDU) partnered with Microsoft
to kick off the Smart State initiative with a Community Opinions Online (COOL) platform. “We envision the COOL (Community Opinions On-Line) platform as a window for Selangor citizens to be better connected to the government, and empowered to better participate in the local community-building process,” shared Dr. Fahmi Ngah, Managing Director, Smart Selangor Delivery Unit.
The COOL platform will allow citizens to co-create with their local governments. They will also be encouraged to share their ideas and feedback in the design of local community development programs. “With this app, we feel like we’re better connected and our ideas have a better chance of getting heard,” shared Richard Lee, a Selangor citizen. COOL will connect citizens with their local assemblymen, local points of interests and local services, and
serve as a window for the government to conduct citizen opinion surveys on a range of policies and developmental plans to be implemented.
“We envision the COOL (Community Opinions On-Line) platform as a window for Selangor citizens to be better connected to the government and empowered to better participate in the local community-building process.” – Dr. Fahmi Ngah, Managing Director, Smart Selangor Delivery Unit
Cost-effective innovation with on-demand scalability.
One of the key challenges to deploying the COOL app was access to hardware as well as software licenses that can be accessible almost immediately to ensure that COOL remained scalable at any point of time—the choice was clear for the IT team, they opted for Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure is an agile development platform that has allowed SSDU to quickly develop applications on a pilot level and then to scale-up in tandem with larger data volumes while enabling them to innovate on flexible cost structures. This flexibility is crucial as it has allowed SSDU to develop the COOL application cost-effectively.
To solve this issue, Microsoft partner, Enovade made use of the Microsoft Azure platform that is not only secure but which also provides Infrastructure as a Service that is available on demand. “Azure is the perfect platform for us to build, deploy and operate our applications, and is ideal for our DevOps team. As a platform, it works like a swiss-army knife for a company like us to build breakthrough innovation,” Mr. Hanafiah Hassan, Managing Director, Enovade.
Beyond COOL: Building a smart state on a trusted platform.
With the requisite Azure platform in place, the SSDU is well-positioned to deliver on its goal to harness the collective potential of its people for a better society and growth. Beyond COOL, SSDU will be looking to launch a Smart Selangor Digital ID program and implement new initiatives to enhance digital connectivity across the state and eliminate the rural-urban digital divide. “We’re ready for change. It’s great that Selangor will be a smart state, especially with the help of a leading tech giant,” shared Iskandar, a Selangor citizen.
“Azure is the perfect platform for us to build, deploy and operate our applications and is ideal for our DevOps team. As a platform, it works like a Swiss Army knife for a company like us to build break-through innovation.” – Mr. Hanafiah Hassan, Managing Director, Enovade
Azure has opened the way for a scalable and agile infrastructure to drive COOL and upcoming digital initiatives, without prohibitive costs associated with hardware investments. Now in its pilot stage, the COOL platform is on trial across three local assemblies, and will be rolled out across the entire Selangor State by the end of Q3 2018. “We have 300 registered users when we implemented the pilot project (under three constituencies) and we expect a significant increase once we roll out to the other 53 constituencies in the next couple of months,” pointed out Dr. Fahmi Ngah, “MBI and SSDU envision COOL to become a leading digital collaborative platform for Selangor citizens to cocreate
with the State Government in planning the way forward, rolling out policies and programs in relation to community development.”
In future, each citizen will be identified by COOL’s ‘Digital ID’, which upon successful verification will offer citizens access to eligible state benefits. “The Selangor Smart State effort is a pioneering initiative that holds the potential to bring about a more open society,” shared Ms. Azizah Ali, General Manager, Small & Mid-Market Solutions and Partner Group. “We are thrilled to see that cloud solutions delivered by Microsoft pave the way for the Selangor Smart State to re-envision their operations and citizen engagement model, and we congratulate them on their vision to better serve citizens’ needs.”