MSF Strengthens Partnerships to Chart Next Frontier of Social Service Innovation

$15million investment over the next 3 years, MOUs with NCS and ST Engineering to harness technology for better family and community outcomes

1. At its Partners Conference today, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) announced measures to strengthen partnerships and chart the next phase of the sector’s transformation. With the theme "Better Starts with Us — Innovating Together", the conference focused on how innovation, technology and deeper collaboration can strengthen organisational capabilities, enhance service quality, and improve outcomes for families and communities. 

2. To support the next frontier of service innovation, Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli outlined three focus areas. First, strengthening prevention by harnessing data more systematically to identify emerging needs and enable timely intervention. Second, deepening partnerships with academia, social service agencies (SSAs), technology companies and international partners to develop, implement and scale solutions. Third, leveraging technology while augmenting the capabilities of social service professionals, to enable more accessible and targeted support for clients and their families. Minister emphasised that as we explore and deploy emerging technologies across the social care sector, we will be guided by human-centred design, professional oversight, transparent and explainable outputs, and safe, evidence-based approaches. Together, these efforts reflect a shift in how social support is delivered – one that is more proactive, more tech-enabled, and ultimately more effective in improving the overall quality of life for clients and professionals.

3. At the conference, MSF signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with NCS and ST Engineering to co-develop and pilot technology solutions together with SSAs and sector stakeholders (refer to Annex for details of the MOUs). These partnerships focus on early-stage technology experimentation, where solutions require further development or validation in real-world social care settings. This complements existing scale-ready projects, such as CaseCentral, MSF’s case management system, and Scribe, a transcription-summarisation tool developed by Open Government Products. MSF and NCSS will actively partner with SSAs to surface high impact use cases and test these solutions in service settings. 

4. These partnerships mark an important milestone in accelerating technology transformation in the social sector, by building long-term technology capabilities. MSF will be setting aside $15 million over three years to incubate and pilot emerging technology projects. 

5. “Every child deserves to grow up safe, supported, and able to thrive. Technology can help make that possible,” said Sam Liew, CEO, NCS. “Our MOU combines MSF’s domain expertise with NCS’ AI and technology capabilities. Together, we are exploring how AI solutions can safely support families and vulnerable individuals, and enable more proactive, personalised, and effective support. This enables frontline officers to spend less time on administration and more time on meaningful human connections."

6. Said Vincent Chong, Group President & CEO, ST Engineering: "Technology delivers its greatest impact when it addresses and solves real-world challenges. We are privileged to be selected by MSF as its technology partner to advance the social sector’s technology transformation. We look forward to leveraging ST Engineering’s extensive expertise in AI, digital solutions and mission critical systems to strengthen the social sector’s capabilities in supporting and uplifting our community in Singapore."

ISSUED BY
MINISTRY OF SOCIAL AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

Annex - Factsheet on the MOUs - MSF Partners Conference 2026