Industry and citizens who improve local digital services recognised at Digital Services Awards

24 NOV 2023

The annual Digital Services Awards (DSA)[1], organised by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) and supported by Smart Nation Group, expanded beyond government agencies for the first time to encourage broader participation and acknowledge the valuable contributions of citizens and private organisations.

Held on 24 November 2023 at the Devan Nair Institute for Employment and Employability, this year’s event saw 350 physical attendees, with another 500 joining via livestream. Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Communications and Information and Minister-in-Charge of GovTech, Dr Janil Puthucheary, graced the event as the Guest-of-Honour and presented awards to 33 winners across eight award categories. (Please see Annex A for event photos and Annex B for the complete list of award winners.)

Two new award categories to recognise industry efforts

The third edition of DSA features two new award categories solely for the private sector – “Best Usability (Industry)” and “Most Popular Informational Website (Industry)”. These two awards recognise non-government websites based on ease of use, how useful the sites are, and user satisfaction.

The “Best Usability (Industry)” award category saw close to 50 wide-ranging nominations from the private sector, including non-profit organisations, well-established companies, and media publications. The top 10 nominees were eligible for the “Most Popular Informational Website (Industry)” category, and the winner was determined through live voting by attendees during the award ceremony.

Award nominations assessed through analytics, and by expert judges and citizens

To ensure only the best digital services are recognised, DSA nominees and entries undergo a rigorous assessment process spanning four months. The process comprises multiple stages, involving technical scoring by GovTech’s Whole-of-Government Application Analytics (WOGAA) tool (https://wogaa.sg) and expert judges from Google, Microsoft, Meta, Design Business Chamber Singapore, GovTech, and many more. Two hundred citizens, including persons with disabilities, were also involved in selecting and evaluating the “Best Usability (Government)” and “Best Usability (Industry)” categories.

New award category to honour citizens’ contributions

In line with this year’s theme, “Empathy at the Heart of Tech”, which underscores the significance of co-creating digital services with users and serving their needs with ease and delight, a new award category (“Outstanding Citizen Contributor”) has also been introduced. This category celebrates citizens who have actively participated and contributed to improving government digital services.

Nine citizens who have generously devoted their time and resources to enhance government digital services were honoured at the Awards. Three awardees were selected through an open call for nominations across the Whole-of-Government, and six were selected from government-initiated tech communities such as Tech Kaki[2] and CrowdTaskSG[3]. Besides experts who drive social technology initiatives and strive to empower lives through technology, media representatives from The Straits Times and Channel 8 News were also part of the judging panel involved in the evaluation of this award category.

Raising digital standards in Singapore

Mr Goh Wei Boon, Chief Executive, of GovTech, said, “We hope the new award categories will encourage more citizens and private sector organisations to improve the usability and inclusiveness of local digital services. We want to foster more collaboration, innovation, and excellence in digital service delivery, and this expansion is a significant step in that direction. We thank the industry and citizen participation for joining us in this effort.”

For more information about the DSA, please visit:

ISSUED BY THE COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING GROUP

GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY AGENCY OF SINGAPORE

[1] Held annually since 2021, the Digital Services Awards was first introduced by the government to recognise outstanding achievements and excellence in delivering digital services to the public. Additional award categories were introduced in 2023 to honour the broader community for their valuable contributions.

[2] Tech Kaki is an end-user community established by GovTech in late 2016, to encourage citizen participation in the development of our digital products and services, ensuring they are designed to meet the needs of citizens and businesses.

[3] CrowdTaskSG is a gamified web portal developed by GovTech, for government agencies in Singapore to engage citizens and gather insights through crowdsourcing tasks.

About Government Technology Agency

The Government Technology Agency (GovTech) is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government’s capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

GovTech supports public agencies to manage enterprise IT operations and develop new digital products for citizens and businesses. GovTech is the public sector lead for cybersecurity, and oversees key government ICT infrastructure, as well as regulates ICT procurement, data protection and security in the public sector. GovTech is a Statutory Board under the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) in the Prime Minister’s Office.

For more information, please visit www.tech.gov.sg.

Follow GovTech on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram/ Linkedin @GovTechSG.

Annex: Award categories and list of winners

Note: This year’s “Best Search Engine Optimisation” and “Best Accessibility (Cat A)” categories see more than one winner, and one of the “Outstanding Citizen Contributor” winning entries comprises a duo; this resulted in a total of 33 awards.

Award: Best Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

No. of Categories: 3*

Description of Award: Recognises agencies with the highest SEO scores from WOGAA Inspect[4], with sites that are the most searchable on search engines.

Award Winners:

  • Cat A: Central Provident Fund Board, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, Ministry of Transport, Tote Board, Yellow Ribbon Singapore

  • Cat B: Institute of Technical Education

  • Cat C: National Heritage Board

Award: Best Accessibility

No. of Categories: 3*

Description of Award: Recognises agencies with the highest WOGAA Inspect accessibility scores across all their informational services, ensuring that people of all abilities can easily access public information and have the best user experience.

Award Winners:

  • Cat A: Central Provident Fund Board, Ministry of Transport, Tote Board

  • Cat B: Singapore Police Force

  • Cat C: National Heritage Board

Award: Best Customer Satisfaction Score for Transactional Services

No. of Categories: 3*

Description of Award: Recognises agencies that exceed user expectations with the best customer satisfaction scores from WOGAA Sentiments[5].

Award Winners:

  • Cat A: Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura

  • Cat B: Public Utilities Board

  • Cat C: National Environmental Agency

Award: Best Functionality

No. of Categories: 3*

Description of Award: Recognises the agencies that achieved the best combination score of page load time, SEO and accessibility across all their informational websites.

Award Winners:

  • Cat A: Tote Board

  • Cat B: Public Service Division

  • Cat C: National Heritage Board

Award: Best Improvement

No. of Categories: 1

Description of Award: Acknowledges the largest improvements made by the agency with the highest overall increase of scores from the start to the end of the qualifying period.

Award Winner: Singapore Police Force

Award: Best Usability

No. of Categories: 4

Description of Award: Comprises 2 sub-award categories: Best Usability (Government), Best Usability (Industry), Most Popular Informational Website (Government), and Most Popular Informational Website (Industry). The Best Usability evaluation process comprises qualitative and quantitative aspects, where sites go through pre-screening using an internal usability checklist, a panel of judges to evaluate, followed by assessment by citizens. All top 10 finalists from the pre-screening phase were automatically nominated for the Most Popular Informational Website category for live voting during the event day.

Award Winners:

  • Best Usability (Government): MOE Corporate Website

  • Best Usability (Industry): Gardens by the Bay Website

  • Most Popular Informational Website (Government): CPF Website

  • Most Popular Informational Website (Industry): DBS Website

Award: Outstanding Citizen Contributor

No. of Categories: 9

Description of Award: Comprises 3 sub-award categories that recognise citizens from WOG, Tech Kaki and CrowdTaskSG community:

  • 3 agency nominated winners via an open call for nominations; winners are selected based on a scoring matrix and evaluated by a panel

  • 3 Tech Kaki community members who have contributed the most to Tech Kaki initiatives (e.g. focus groups, events, activeness)

  • 3 CrowdTaskSG community members who have contributed the most to CrowdTaskSG’s initiatives (e.g. tasks completed, events)

Award Winners:

  • Whole-of-Government: Dr. Chiew Tuan Kiang, Nominated by IMDA

  • Whole-of-Government: Khoo Meng Kuan, Nominated by GovTech

  • Whole-of-Government: Wong Yue Heng & Siddhaarth Dharani, Nominated by Nexus, MINDEF

  • Tech Kaki: Loh Wai Poon, Low Jun Keat, Kendra Ong

  • CrowdTaskSG: Ashby Tai, Sean Goh, Wang Weizhong

*Category A = 1-5 Informational Websites, Category B = 6-10 Informational Websites, Category C = <10 Informational Websites

[4] WOGAA Inspect provides scores and suggestions on how to improve the website’s performance, accessibility, best practices, and search engine optimisation (SEO).

[5] WOGAA Sentiments is a tool that allows government websites to collect user satisfaction feedback and ratings.