Primo ministro hacker

“I have set up the Smart Nation Programme Office… to use technology to achieve social and economic objectives, and to make a difference in all our lives.  The Smart Nation Programme Office lives in the Prime Minister’s department.  I take a personal interest in this. 40 years ago, after doing a math degree, I went on to study computer science, on my father’s advice.  He said there is a future in that, and he was right.

So for the Smart Nation Programme Office, I have put Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in charge, reporting to me.  Vivian is both a hacker and a dabbler – He used to be an eye surgeon but since he does not get to operate on eyes nowadays, he dabbles in building simple robots, assembling watches, wireless devices and programming apps.  His day job is to be the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, and so when he builds apps, he uses the real time APIs generated by the Ministry.  That’s called user-testing.  I used to enjoy this; it is a long time since I’ve done anything.  The last programme I wrote was a Sudoku solver in C++ several years ago, so I’m out of date.

My children are in IT, two of them – both graduated from MIT.  One of them browsed a book and said, “Here, read this”.  It said “Haskell – learn you a Haskell for great good”, and one day that will be my retirement reading.”

via therealsingapore.com

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