Jason See, Senior Director of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Division at GovTech. Photo by Ore Huiying for Microsoft
- Using services such as Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI, GovTech 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 over 3,000 monthly active users across all government agencies, LaunchPad has already sparked over 400 ideas and 20 prototypes, laying the foundation for the government to harness the power of generative AI.
The Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech), the technology arm for the Singapore government, has developed LaunchPad, a whole-of-government AI platform powered by services like Microsoft Azure OpenAI, to help drive digital transformation and adoption of AI capabilities within the public sector with the goal of building technology for public good.
With the rising popularity of generative AI assistants like ChatGPT, GovTech was looking for ways to scale the use of AI across the Public Service. “We envisioned a platform to bring together ideas from public officers and help them discover products and exciting prototypes that will help them in their work,” said Jason See, Senior Director of the Data Science and AI Division (DSAID)*.
This eventually led to the development of LaunchPad. Whole-of-government can now use the platform to 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 deploy. LaunchPad also offers training resources such as a Prompt Engineering Playbook to encourage widespread adoption.
Since its debut in April 2023, LaunchPad has surged in popularity among public service officers. The platform currently has over 3,000 monthly active users from multiple government agencies, all contributing their own ideas. It has sparked over 400 ideas and 20 new prototypes, laying the building blocks for the Singapore government to harness the power of generative AI.
The Appraiser tool being used to generate personalized student testimonials. Photo by Ore Huiying for Microsoft
Among the key solutions born out of LaunchPad is the development of Appraiser, a product that simplifies and speeds up the process of writing testimonials for teachers. The idea was first contributed by a polytechnic lecturer and after further iterations with users, the prototype was developed into a full product, which has generated more than 40,000 testimonials to date.
“Microsoft is thrilled to see the impact that LaunchPad has made in advancing AI innovation in Singapore’s public sector. Such meaningful collaboration with GovTech is crucial in scaling these AI innovations across the public sector as we enable every person, and organization, to achieve more. By working together, we can inspire and encourage public officers to adopt AI solutions to enhance their productivity, which will help them thrive in the age of AI,” said Ms. Lee Hui Li, Managing Director, Microsoft Singapore.
With the solution ready, GovTech’s next goal is to double down on using LaunchPad to help the wider Public Service ideate, discover and learn, with plans underway to support agencies with the use of LaunchPad for their own ideathons and hackathons.
*Jason See, formerly Senior Director of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Division at GovTech, now serves as CIO at the Ministry of Education, with effect from 1 April 2024.