SINGAPORE: Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam
said Singapore will need to constantly leverage on science and
technology to enhance operational capabilities in homeland
security.
One way is to work with youths and tertiary
institutions to get them to take "a serious role" in helping to
make Singapore safe against security threats.
A group of polytechnic and university students have
topped the Novel Automobile Barrier Challenge, which was first
launched in September last year. They beat 26 other entries to
emerge as the top three winners.
The challenge requires participants to come up with a kind of
barrier that will effectively stop a moving vehicle travelling at
60 kilometres per hour, from crashing into a building or a
facility.
It is understood that this is the first time that the Home Affairs
Ministry has organised such a challenge with a tertiary institution
and it said it is the first of many to come.
The winning team from the National University of Singapore walked
away with a cash prize of S$8,000. One of the team members, Mr Tan
Chun Liang, who is a PhD student from the School of Design and
Environment, explains how the barrier works.
Mr Tan said: "The design is extremely portable, and we actually
designed it so it does not look like a barrier...car hits metal,
metal hits ground and ground hits spike. Car stops."
Some of the other ideas received may also be adopted by the
ministry but feasibility studies will still need to be
conducted.
Dr Lee Fook Kay, Chief Science and Technology Officer with the Home
Affairs Ministry, said: "We have barriers but a lot of the barriers
are fixtures that we put in the building. Those which are more
portable are not so effective, so that's why we are reaching out to
the students to see whether they can come up with good solutions.
And I think students also tend to look at the economical way of
looking at the problem. So they may not be very expensive solutions
but they work.
"If you look at events, people do put barricades but some of these
are pretty heavy to transport and they are quite a burden. So the
ideas that the students have come up with are really very novel.
They are deployable and very portable. Students tend to really
think out of the box."
A Memorandum of Understanding with NUS is also on the cards to
facilitate sharing of information and ideas in science and
technology.
Mr Shanmugam said: "MHA aims to stay ahead of evolving security
threats, and ensure that the Home Team is always prepared in the
face of an ever-changing security environment. A strong partnership
with our educational institutions facilitates capability, expertise
development and promotes mutual interest."
Mr Shanmugam added that such partnerships will take Singapore's
homeland security capabilities to the next level.
-CNA/ac