The Insitute of Policy Studies (IPS) is a think-tank that studies and generates public policy ideas in Singapore. Established in 1988, IPS became an autonomous research centre of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) at the National University of Singapore in 2008. One of my fond memories of IPS is when I participated in their Young Singaporeans Conference 2018 themed Disruptions and I must say quite a lot of disruptions have happened since then. Today's post will be about a new interactive, game-like Web app they launched in May 2022 based on the inputs of about 700 participants. According to this Straits Times article, IPS hopes to attract more than 20,000 participants for Quest2030. The app is part of the third phase of the think-tank's Reimagining Singapore 2030 exercise that began in 2020.
I first heard of the Quest 2030 web app at my onboarding meeting last week for a gig with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore or MUIS (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura), a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture,Community and Youth (MCCY). It is great that I could get some working experience with another agency as part of Public Service Dvision's Whole-of-Government initiative that allows for gigs or short-term immersion programmes (STIP) in another agency. I applied for this Futures & Policy Research Projects for MUIS' 7th 3-Year Plan (7M3YP) in March 2022 and my 3-month gig will require me to spend two days every week (flexibly) to work on a research project till September 2022. For a start, it would be good for me to do some explorations (desk research) of the work done by some of the 'futures thinking' players in Singapore i.e. IPS (the rest include LKYSPP, Centre of Strategic Futures etc.). I will be doing a little review of the experience below which I tried on my phone but I can imagine it being nicer to explore on a computer's browser.
Basically, at the start, the user will be asked to choose a 'guide' which is a character who takes on a particular persona that would be affected by the various plausible future scenarios. The web app is relatively easy to use with obvious buttons to click on and I really liked how relatable the various characters are without making it too stereotypical (see below). The user will be asked three main questions at the start focusing on agency, inequality and the region. As each question has two options, there are a total OF 8 (AAA ABA AAB BAA BBB BBA ABB BAB) future Singapore and I got the Sotong Arena which I believe is ala Squid Game. The radar map only comes up later after answering more granular questions about the economy, transparency and satisfaction levels.
The team took the liberty to come up with interesting 'artefacts' that could possibly become a necessity or the norm in the future Singapore that had been created based on the answers to the questions earlier. It is scary though to think that we might really need a plastic barrel each (see above) in the future. The future location called 'East Coast Lagoon Park' is also an interesting one especially with all this niews (or signals) about rising sea levels.
Besides showing how different personas will be affected by the choices we make, there is also the 'headlines' which unpack some potential news-worthy stories that might happen in that future Singapore. Also, users can see their list of achievements from the main menu to see the little badges that one earns (great gamification attempt).
With that, I hope to have a great experience at MUIS for this gig as you can see below I managed to get a pic at the office with MUIS officers in my family (my maternal uncle and brother) as well as my future SPPO family of colleagues.
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