Living conditions of common man is a good enough indicator of the efficiency of the governor. The success of a process driven society can be seen in present day Singapore - with its very effective and world class social housing schemes. A visitor to the Housing Development Board (HDB Hub) is easily impressed with the efficiency of the systems and procedures already in place. The ease with which locations of upcoming housing schemes could be visualised along with their surroundings with the maps displayed made me think that Singapore would have an SDI in place. Surprisingly they do not. They too probably have data in silos and unconnected...but, does it matter? The data they have is relevant, useful, classified and available whenever required- doesn't matter how tall the silos and how unconnected. The success of their socially relevant housing and other infrastructure schemes is laudable.

The GSDI 11 World Conference which starts today could address and debate on the social dimension of implementing a successful SDI. A look at the program schedule left me a bit disappointed. Human and community issues appeared missing from the topics to be put under discussion. The need to build a society which understands the importance of sharing data is obvious - need to sensitise this very same society to be socially relevant is paramount.