The COVID-19 pandemic has left no country untouched or industry undisrupted. It has proven to be a challenge too large for any one government or sector to tackle alone. From healthcare authorities and big pharmaceuticals to tech companies, one crucial factor in the fight against this dreadful disease is the ability to adapt. But to rise to the occasion, organisations first have to understand where they need to get to, and that requires information, or data.
Across the globe, the monitoring and analysing of big data for actionable insights is being put to use, giving rise to initiatives such as contact tracing, movement control in highly-affected areas, or the distribution of financial aid to people in need. But state-sanctioned measures or corporate-led campaigns can only go so far. To make a real impact, the public and private sectors must work together, sharing information and combining resources.
In Southeast Asia, with infrastructure development and public funding so varied between nations, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are even more vital to ensure timely and beneficial solutions to socio-economic challenges.
By removing barriers and information silos between sectors, data-driven PPPs can be formed, which will effectively address some of the biggest hurdles of the crisis, such as healthcare infrastructure, and general wellbeing and mental health, and create swifter and smarter responses to the pandemic that will pave the way to a more resilient and sustainable economy.
In the region’s more developed economies, such as Singapore, strategic and open collaboration between public and private entities has led to an effective, agile and inclusive crisis response. A strong example of this is contact tracing. In Singapore, the government collaborated with a group of private-sector technologists to build a secure and comprehensive COVID-19 contact tracing system, named TraceTogether.
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Taking the form of a physical token and a mobile app, the system exchanges Bluetooth signals with other TraceTogether users nearby, gathering data to aid digital contact tracing efforts. The incredibly short timeline of this project – the TraceTogether app was launched in March 2020 – can undoubtedly be attributed to the collaborative efforts between the government and the private sector.
Combining information sources, as well as knowledge and expertise in hacking, firmware development and privacy, this PPP leveraged data-driven insights to deliver an effective and secure solution that would not have been achieved without swift contributions from both sectors.
Similarly, in Danang, Vietnamese authorities worked with tech companies to effectively execute localised lockdowns to curb isolated COVID-19 outbreaks whilst managing to avoid a wide-scale economic shutdown. Having to amass far-reaching, ear-to-the-ground data on COVID-19 cases, the government identified alternative solutions from the private sector.
Leveraging Facebook’s Disease Prevention Map and Google’s Community Mobility Reports, the Vietnamese authorities were able to access and study mobility data. This collaboration led to a rapid and efficient curtailment of movement in specific areas, as opposed to a full lockdown nationwide.
As a result, Vietnam was able to limit the economic impact while containing the disease and reopening the targeted areas faster than it would from a national lockdown. Through this PPP, the government was able to monitor and evaluate the impact of its national policies almost in real-time, iterating and refining measures adaptively based on big data insights made possible by private-sector companies.
In another example of a successful collaboration between the government and the private sector, Gojek established a data-driven initiative in Indonesia to provide financial assistance to millions of essential transport workers during the pandemic. Gojek worked with Indonesia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs to help identify ride-share drivers and provide them with over IDR1 million (US$93) in economic aid.
By leveraging insights from driver data, Gojek helped the government identify those most likely to be financially impacted by the disruption so it could distribute aid in tiers to support those most in need.
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The above PPPs offer valuable lessons and a blueprint for future innovation and resilience in Southeast Asia. Thanks to a surge in tech companies investing in the region, there is a growing wealth of data being generated and collected. This presents exciting potential for innovation across Southeast Asia, based on actionable insights mined from big data that go far beyond the pandemic response.
The opportunity is twofold: first, in solving mobility problems – such as traffic congestion and pollution – in traffic-heavy countries such as Indonesia and Thailand, and second, in building smart cities in densely populated and technologically-advanced countries such as Singapore. For example, in 2019, Gojek signed a partnership with the Indonesian government to accelerate the development of Jakarta’s smart city project, with the goal to build a safe and more integrated transport system.
Under the partnership, Gojek used open data to identify the city’s most-frequented transit hubs and worked with the government to build shelters or pick-up zones at the hubs. The result was an increase in public transport ridership, with Gojek serving as the first and last mile transport provider for those journeys. Such innovations are made possible through collaboration between the public and private sector, which leads one to think: How can we foster a culture of even greater collaboration, and what other possibilities are there?
Greater collaboration will require higher levels of trust and openness between the public and private sectors. For governments, they should view the sharing of data with private companies as integral to improving people’s lives from a more ground-up, community approach. For companies, they will need to ensure easy and secure access to data for partners, and foster an insights-driven culture.
Building such a culture is easier said than done, as it includes building a robust data architecture and infrastructure, hiring the right talent, and empowering all employees to think like data scientists. As nations across the world hunker down to get through the awful effects of COVID-19, governments and businesses must embrace the lessons, failures and achievements from this year, to work towards their targets, and build a brighter and more resilient future that is driven by data.
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