IDA reports Accreditation@IDA successes, launches cloud security certification initiative

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore has announced that eight companies have been accredited since Accreditation@IDA was launched in July 2014. The initiative helps young Singapore-based tech companies build their credentials, and to be in a better position to win projects by government agencies and large enterprises.

Of these eight accredited companies, KAI Square and Inspire-Tech have successfully won two new government projects, and three more projects are undergoing final evaluations.  These are estimated to be worth more than a million Singapore dollars.

“We set up the Accreditation@IDA programme to help promising Singapore-based young tech companies grow their business, as well as to bring new innovation into Government services. With the robustness of the accreditation process, the participating companies have been able to improve the quality of their products and business structures. We have worked with our government CIO teammates to open doors for the accredited companies, helping them bring their new ideas and technologies to key stakeholders and decision makers across government. The results so far have  been amazing, with accredited companies having developed a pipeline of more than 100 projects in cooperation with at least 50 agencies, worth potentially many millions of dollars to these small companies,” said Steve Leonard, Executive Deputy Chairman, IDA. 

IDA further said it would be launching a programme named Support for Cloud-enabled Certified Secure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or SUCCESS in short. The launch follows on the completion of the first major phase of the Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Singapore Standard (SS) 584. Thirteen cloud service providers (CSPs) are now certified across different tiers.

SUCCESS seeks to collaborate with MTCS-certified infrastructure-as-a-service CSPs to encourage and support more independent software vendors (ISVs) with SaaS offerings towards MTCS certification. ISVs sign on to host their services on a SUCCESS partner for a range of incentives. In return, they will undertake MTCS certification for their SaaS, encouraging their adoption of sound risk management and security practices.

Some of these incentives can include SaaS enablement support, training & professional services support, technical consultancy support and discounted pricing for cloud services.