About the Project

Objective

The aim of the Crowdsensor: Smart Nation is to elicit a broad range of ideas about how worldwide trends could impact Singapore’s plans to become a Smart Nation. What changes in the economic, technological, environmental or other realms might occur by 2030 that could affect Singapore? Thinking expansively about what lies ahead can help Singapore to make the most out of the best circumstances, and guard against the worst.

Singapore's Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) Programme Office and the Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed this platform to elicit the best ideas from individuals around the world.

Approach

Anyone in the world can join the community to propose trends and evaluate their impact. Members propose trends in 6 different categories (Economy, Technology, Security, Environment, Society and Politics), which are then evaluated by expert judges to select a set of finalists. Members can then vote for the finalists, and judges will select 5 winners each of whom will receive $500 SGD. 

The 5 prizes will be awarded based on these guidelines:

• 2 prizes of $500 SGD for trends that represent opportunities for Singapore
• 2 prizes of $500 SGD for trends that represent challenges for Singapore
• 1 prize of $500 SGD for the trend judged to be the most novel 

 

The timeline for the competition will be: 

• Sept 1-Oct 10: Members of the community submit trends
• Oct 11-27: Judges select winners
• Oct 28: Winners announced

Rationale for using crowdsourcing

As the internet has grown, so has the power to harness the great diversity of individuals around the world. Crowdsourcing platforms such as Foldit have enabled the discovery of new proteins to target diseases, while the Climate CoLab has yielded strategies to tackle climate change. Here, Crowdsensor takes the same approach to elicit distinctive viewpoints from around the world, that will develop a wide range of possibilities about what growing trends will change the way we live in 2030.