Joe Keen Poon has a proven track record in senior leadership roles across Asia and Europe, and has successfully led organisations, from start-ups through to large and mature businesses.
In his current role, Joe helps to deliver world-leading smart city solutions, guiding Surbana Jurong to fulfil its mission of building cities and shaping lives.
Previously, as President at Xchanging, a top Business Process Outsourcing firm, Joe led the company to commercial success in the East Asia and Japan markets.
Joe also spent nine years at Microsoft. His role as Segment Director, OEM Business in Singapore, involved leading Microsoft’s success in not just the flagship Windows, Office and Server businesses, but also the growth of emerging mobile device businesses. During this time, Joe was the winner of three top awards – Circle of Excellence, Champions Award, and Worldwide IW Sales & Marketing Award.
We caught up with Joe to find out more about his life in Surbana Jurong.
To date what is the most interesting project you have worked on at SJ Group?
Joe: I am almost one year into my Surbana Jurong (SJ) adventure, and to date the most interesting project we have worked on is the very rapid launch of the new Smart City in a Box. This is shaping up to become Asia’s largest independent multi-asset, multi-discipline, city-wide monitoring system, and there is no reason why it cannot become the world’s biggest.
What opportunities are you excited about for SJ Group within your function?
Joe: By 2050, 6.4 billion people will live in urban areas. Such massive urbanisation will bring about challenges in terms of security, environment sustainability, asset maintenance and community engagement.The trinity of smart city technology, urban planning and city management will have to be part of any solution to address these challenges. SJ happens to focus on all of the above!
What makes you tick? (Professionally, of course)
Joe: The ability to take a problem and solve it in a real and practical way.In my first year with SJ, we have achieved exactly that. We took existing challenges that Singapore townships face, and applied simple and practical solutions.
We are lucky to witness first-hand the difference our solutions make to the daily lives of Singapore residents.
Surbana Jurong is still on a mission to continue refining its “smart city in a box” city management technology system. Following two acquisitions in the last four months to boost its capabilities, the consultancy on Friday announced a tie-up with Microsoft to move the solution to the cloud. This will especially benefit clients in developing countries, it says. Click here to read more
Surbana Jurong’s Group CEO, Mr Wong Heang Fine with Mr Alberto Granados, Vice President, Microsoft Asia Pacific signing the MOU
Surbana Jurong is proud to announce our partnership with technology giant Microsoft to jointly develop cloud-based solutions for our integrated solutions platform “Smart City in a Box”, while enhancing its suite of applications, in the Asia Pacific region.
The Memorandum Of Understanding was signed today by Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of Surbana Jurong and Mr Alberto Granados, Vice President, Microsoft Asia Pacific at Microsoft Auditorium, One Marina Boulevard.
Launched in July 2016, SJ’s Smart City in a Box is an integrated set of solutions with a dashboard that allows city officials to load customisable applications (Apps) in four key areas – security, efficiency, sustainability and community. This enables them to track, monitor and manage cities better.
Surbana Jurong will tap into Microsoft’s Azure – a cloud computing platform for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres – to upgrade its Smart City in a Box to the cloud, which will bring the following benefits to clients:
Deployment of Smart City in a Box solutions from anywhere
Scalability – flexibility to expand and increase capacity
Cost savings: No need for CAPEX investment in hardware and infrastructure
Disaster recovery as backup can be provided for Business Continuity Plan
Automatic software updates
In addition, Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of Surbana Jurong Private Limited said: “When implemented, Surbana Jurong’s predictive lift analytics solutions using Microsoft’s technology has the potential to disrupt the market and reshape the way we tackle lift breakdowns. As our predictive analytics capabilities are refined and enhanced over time, we could see a reduction in the number of lift incidents in the future.”
Surbana Jurong’s Group CEO, Mr Wong Heang Fine with Mr Alberto Granados, Vice President, Microsoft Asia Pacific at the MOU signing
Singapore, 25 November 2016 – Surbana Jurong and Microsoft announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to jointly develop cloud-based Smart City in a Box solutions, while enhancing its suite of applications, in the Asia Pacific region.
Launched in July 2016, Surbana Jurong’s Smart City in a Box is an integrated set of solutions with a dashboard that allows city officials to load customisable applications (Apps) in four key areas – security, efficiency, sustainability and community (See Annex A). This enables them to track, monitor and manage cities better.
Surbana Jurong will tap into Microsoft’s Azure – a cloud computing platform for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres – to upgrade its Smart City in a Box to the cloud, which will bring the following benefits to clients:
Deployment of Smart City in a Box solutions from anywhere
Scalability – flexibility to expand and increase capacity
Cost savings: No need for CAPEX investment in hardware and infrastructure
Disaster recovery as backup can be provided for Business Continuity Plan
Automatic software updates
The MOU will also see Surbana Jurong using Microsoft’s technology to enhance its Smart City in a Box with more sophisticated predictive data and stream analytics, cognitive services, sensing technology and machine learning.
Using Microsoft Azure’s predictive analytics services, including machine learning and video analytics, Surbana Jurong will be able to enhance its predictive lift and asset management services.
Predictive Lift Analytics– New sensors can be installed in lifts to predict breakdowns before they occur, thus shifting the lift maintenance / repair regime from reactive to predictive. By detecting abnormal speeds and jerkiness, the information is fed into the system which uses an algorithm to predict when the lift is likely to fail and trigger an alert for repair / maintenance works before a breakdown occurs. Through predictive analytics, spare parts can be ordered in advance to ensure that they are available when maintenance / repair works need to be carried out.
Video Analytics– Video analytics can be used to enhance surveillance effectiveness and reduce reliance on manpower to monitor multiple video screens. Video analytics use algorithms to detect situations which may require follow up action. For example, it is able to detect when a person faints in the lift or if a suspicious package is left behind and trigger an alert for help faster. Cost savings will also be achieved in the long run while increasing productivity.
Surbana Jurong will also be able to access Microsoft’s latest research and development, new technology for smart city solutions and open up opportunities for collaboration with each other’s partners.
This MOU is the first of its kind collaboration for Microsoft in the region, which will leverage Surbana Jurong’s live operating experience in Smart City Solutions. Surbana Jurong currently monitors over 24,000 lifts in Singapore’s public housing estates. Microsoft will also gain a partner with mutual interest to develop and adopt solutions from its growing partner ecosystem.
Said Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of Surbana Jurong Private Limited: “We are very happy to partner Microsoft to enhance our Smart City in a Box solutions. By bringing our Smart City in a Box solutions to the cloud, our clients will be able to deploy more solutions seamlessly across more geographies at a lower cost. They will enjoy scalability and have the latest technology solutions at their fingertips without heavy upfront investments in hardware and software. When implemented, Surbana Jurong’s predictive lift analytics solutions using Microsoft’s technology has the potential to disrupt the market and reshape the way we tackle lift breakdowns. As our predictive analytics capabilities are refined and enhanced over time, we could see a reduction in the number of lift incidents in the future.”
“We are very excited to partner Surbana Jurong. We see great synergies as Microsoft’s leading edge cloud solutions can be deployed in Surbana Jurong’s existing Smart City ecosystem in Singapore’s public housing estates. While we test-bed different solutions in Singapore, we also hope to eventually deploy these in the Asia Pacific region where relevant,” said Mr Alberto Granados, Vice President, Microsoft Asia Pacific.
The MOU was signed by Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of Surbana Jurong and Mr Alberto Granados, Vice President, Microsoft Asia Pacific during the event at Microsoft Auditorium, One Marina Boulevard.
About Surbana Jurong
Surbana Jurong (SJ) has a rich 50-year heritage in the development of Singapore’s urban, industrial and infrastructure landscape. SJ traces its roots to the Housing Development Board (HDB) and the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), agencies synonymous with Singapore’s early township and industrialisation efforts.
Headquartered in Singapore, Surbana Jurong Private Limited (SJ) was formed in June 2015 through the merger of renowned urban planning & affordable housing design expert Surbana International Consultants, and Jurong International, Singapore’s premiere industrial and infrastructure engineering design stalwart.
In August 2016, SJ completed a transformational merger with world-renowned infrastructure engineering designer SMEC Holdings. With this complementary merger, SJ now boasts a combined global workforce of 10,000 employees in over 95 offices across 40 countries in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. SJ is also presently the largest Asia-based urban, industrial and infrastructure consulting firm. SJ today provides one-stop consultancy solutions across the entire value chain of urbanisation, industrialisation and infrastructure domains.
SJ’s motto ‘Building Cities, Shaping Lives’ reflects its belief that development is more than just steel and concrete. SJ creates spaces and infrastructure services where people live, work and play, shaping cities into homes with sustainable jobs where communities and businesses can flourish.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Dubbed ‘Smart City in a Box’, it is an integrated set of solutions with a dashboard that allows city officials to load customisable applications (Apps) in four key areas – security, efficiency, sustainability and community, enabling them to track, monitor and manage cities better
Smart City in a Box launched in July 2016 with eight modules
Some of the Apps provided in the first batch include:
Sustainability: energy saving e.g. smart lighting, energy usage monitoring
Security: facial recognition technology, water quality monitoring, smart lock, fire and smoke detection
People: feedback and engagement
Efficiency: asset upkeep and maintenance
Working with Surbana Jurong’s city planners, customers can choose to deploy the relevant Apps from this set of solutions.
A survey conducted in July earlier this year by Surbana Jurong amongst city leaders on Smart City readiness in conjunction with the World City Summit, revealed that over two thirds of city leaders listed that they are reliant on other cities for water and a quarter are also reliant on other cities for ICT services.
The Smart City in a Box aims to address the need for a coherent and coherent and standardised set of technology solutions to manage city operations.
Surbana Jurong’s integrated smart city solutions were developed from over 30 years of experience deploying its proprietary Integrated Estate Management System (IEMS) in Singapore’s public housing estates. The IEMS helps to monitor, relay, and analyse information to facilitate estate management.
About Surbana Jurong
Surbana Jurong (SJ) has a rich 50-year heritage in the development of Singapore’s urban, industrial and infrastructure landscape. SJ traces its roots to the Housing Development Board (HDB) and the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), agencies synonymous with Singapore’s early township and industrialisation efforts.
Headquartered in Singapore, Surbana Jurong Private Limited (SJ) was formed in June 2015 through the merger of renowned urban planning & affordable housing design expert Surbana International Consultants, and Jurong International, Singapore’s premiere industrial and infrastructure engineering design stalwart.
In August 2016, SJ acquired world-renowned infrastructure engineering designer SMEC Holdings. It also announced on 13 October 2016 that it has acquired 100% shareholdings in AETOS Holdings Pte Ltd (AETOS) from Temasek (an investment company based in Singapore), which will expand Surbana Jurong’s overall service offerings to include safety and security capabilities.
With these latest acquisitions, the Surbana Jurong Group will now have a global workforce of almost 13,000 employees in over 95 offices across 40 countries in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, with an annual turnover of around S$1.3 billion.
SJ is also presently the largest Asia-based urban, industrial and infrastructure consulting firm. SJ today provides one-stop consultancy solutions across the entire value chain of urbanisation, industrialisation and infrastructure domains.
SJ’s motto ‘Building Cities, Shaping Lives’ reflects its belief that development is more than just steel and concrete. SJ creates spaces and infrastructure services where people live, work and play, shaping cities into homes with sustainable jobs where communities and businesses can flourish.
From the monitoring of city traffic conditions, security, energy, efficiency to predicting lift breakdowns, mayors and city officials are finally able to do so through one integrated solutions platform. Click here to read more
Surbana Jurong has developed a set of apps based on the four pillars of a Smart City – Sustainability, Efficiency, People and Security
Singapore, 11 July, 2016 – Surbana Jurong Private Limited announced today that it has launched its first batch of integrated Smart City Solutions, beginning with eight modules with strategic technology partners.
Dubbed ‘Smart City in a Box’, it is an integrated set of solutions with a dashboard that allows city officials to load customisable applications (Apps) in four key areas – security, efficiency, sustainability and community, enabling them to track, monitor and manage cities better.
Some of the Apps provided in the first batch include:
Sustainability: energy saving e.g. smart lighting, energy usage monitoring
Security: facial recognition technology, water quality monitoring, smart lock, fire and smoke detection
People: feedback and engagement
Efficiency: asset upkeep and maintenance
Working with Surbana Jurong’s city planners, customers can choose to deploy the relevant Apps from this set of solutions. A survey conducted by Surbana Jurong amongst city leaders on Smart City readiness in conjunction with the World City Summit, revealed that over two thirds of city leaders listed that they are reliant on other cities for water and a quarter are also reliant on other cities for ICT services. Such high level of interdependence points to a need for a coherent and standardised set of technology solutions to manage city operations. The Smart City in a Box aims to address this need.
Said Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of Surbana Jurong: “‘Smart City in a Box’ is yet another offering we provide in our one-stop complete value chain consultancy services for urban and infrastructure developments. SJ is in the best position to infuse a city planner’s and developer’s perspective into our integrated smart city solutions. This ensures that the solutions deployed are in synch and better integrated with their overall development plans. Our solutions are also backed by more than 30 years’ experience in managing real life smart solutions for Singapore’s towns.”
Added Mr Wong: “Up till now, Smart City technologies are deployed on a piecemeal basis and are often focused on technologies rather than how technologies can best help to run a city and benefit the communities and businesses living and interacting there. We have developed an integrated smart cities solution that is easy to deploy, customise, maintain, and at the same able to upscale over time as cities develop. Taking a leaf from how consumers use Apps in their daily lives, we realised that city planners also need the same convenience of a plug and play integrated solution to manage cities. Our Smart City in a Box will also enable city planners to plan with the end in mind, and collate and analyse big data over time to deploy solutions to deal with specific problems. We aim to be the first stop and one stop for administrators managing townships and cities”
Surbana Jurong’s integrated smart city solutions were developed from over 30 years of experience deploying its proprietary Integrated Estate Management System (IEMS) in Singapore’s public housing estates. The IEMS helps to monitor, relay, and analyse information to facilitate estate management.
Quotes from our partners
Said Mr Puspanathan K, Chief Operating Officer from ZWECC, “ZWEEC, a leader in video analytic solutions, is pleased to partner Surbana Jurong in launching this ‘Smart City in a Box’ to offer a range of sustainable water quality management and intelligent surveillance solutions to ensure the safety & security of the community.”
“Here in DNV GL, global impact for a safe and sustainable future is our vision, also underpinning our partnership with Surbana Jurong. We believe Surbana Jurong shares the same ideals espoused through tangible smart city solutions that engage the community, provide the security, promote sustainability and enhance efficiency. This is a symbiotic relationship and DNV GL is proud to be a strategic partner to Surbana Jurong.”, mentioned Mr Kees-Jan van Oeveren, Singapore GM from DNV GL
“By engaging our services through ‘Smart City in a Box’, one can mitigate fire risks effectively with our innovative early warning Smoke & Fire Detection Camera; conduct covert intelligence gathering with our Social Media Monitoring solution, or even safely immobilise a potentially dangerous vehicle with our Vehicle GPS Tracking System. Security is every smart city’s priority and AETOS offers a unique suite of reliable and customisable technology solutions to forge safer and resilient communities of tomorrow,” shared Mr Robin Littau, Vice President Business Development of AETOS Holdings Pte Ltd.
IE Singapore Group Director, Kow Juan Tiang said: “SJ is introducing disruptive technology to help cities operate and manage themselves through its innovative ‘Smart City in a Box’ platform. Working with global and Singapore’s leading solution providers, SJ is now able to diagnose and prescribe smart solutions to tackle modern urbanisation issues such as Security and Efficiency. SJ’s integration with its partners will result in the development of a product lifecycle management toolkit for cities.” For media enquiries, please contact:
Surbana Jurong is one of Asia’s consultancy powerhouses for urbanisation and infrastructure developments.
We have a distinguished track record in shaping Singapore’s urban and industrial landscape over the last 50 years and we deliver total urbanisation, infrastructure and engineering solutions to support sustainable social and economic growth for our clients.
Our multi-disciplinary team of specialists provides one-stop complete value chain consultancy services harnessed through years of successfully completing a wide array of projects in more than 200 cities in over 50 countries worldwide. We have designed and completed more than a million homes in Singapore, completed masterplans for over 30 countries and developed more than 50 industrial parks around the world.
In June 2015, Surbana Jurong acquired two companies – KTP Consultants Pte Ltd in Singapore and Sino-Sun Architects & Engineers Co. Ltd in China. These two acquisitions grew our staff strength by 25%, strengthened our infrastructure development capabilities and brought our market reach in China to 16 cities.
We announced in November 2015 that we had taken up a 20% equity stake in China’s CITICC (Africa) Holding Limited, a USD300 million investment platform set up between International Financing Company (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and Chinese multinational construction and engineering company, CITIC Construction Co., Ltd – which would see us potentially developing 30,000 affordable homes in Africa in the next five years.
Surbana Jurong also took up a 8.4% stake (USD 9.25 mil) in an American software company, FLUX Factory, Inc, a spin-off from Google X, which builds collaborative cloud-based software tool used for building design, urban solutions and master planning, which will grow our sustainable and building design capabilities.
With over 600 international and local awards under our belt, we have what it takes to understand, anticipate and exceed our clients’ expectations. Today, Surbana Jurong employs over 4,000 employees from 40 nationalities in 26 offices across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Surbana Jurong has secured the Orange Smart City project in India. We will be providing a comprehensive Smart City design solution for the client via the Vision Master Plan (pre-concept) and a Go-to-Market Strategy. Orange Smart City is a revolutionary Greenfield (city created from scratch) smart industrial development in close proximity to India’s financial capital, Mumbai. It is envisaged to be a city of the future that offers the best of business, living, learning, recreation, health and smart solutions.
This is a first of its kind project in India. A Greenfield Smart City project that incorporates three of the big ticket programs in the national development agenda – “Smart Cities”, “Make in India”, “Housing for All”, and also linked to the fourth – a major infrastructure program called the “Sagarmala scheme” (for port development). We will be providing them a vision that encompasses smart grid power, renewable energy, water, waste management, and smart mobility as part of the comprehensive urban solutions. The project is also seen as the Economic Access Corridor to the Client owned and operated Karanja port.
This project is envisioned to be spread over 1,000 acres across 4 distinct sites and is linked to the Karanja Port, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port (India’s largest cargo handling port) and the proposed Navi Mumbai Aerospace Park (India’s largest air freight terminal) with a dedicated elevated road link, making sure that the project gets the best connectivity to the rest of the world. Downstream opportunities include development of the concept, the detailed Masterplan, followed by Phase 0 and Phase 1 buildings, and infrastructure.
