Rigorous studies and data that inform regional tech policies
Infographic: From Framework to implementation
Based on Tech for Good Institute’s The Evolution of Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6 initiative, this infographic tracks selected policy and regulatory developments across the six economies.
Read the full report here: The Evolution of Tech Governance in Southeast Asia (Third Edition).
The Evolution of Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6 – Third edition
The Evolution of Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6 (SEA-6) is an annual series produced by Tech for Good Institute (TFGI). The series aims to examine how governance approaches to the digital economy and society are evolving across Southeast Asia, document regulatory developments and explore regional trends.
Building on two years of tracking governance developments across the region, this marks the third edition of our series. It highlights the transition of governments from agenda-setting towards more established regulatory frameworks, implementation mechanisms, and institutional arrangements within the digital economy and society.
Expert analysis on regional emerging trends
What ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement Means for Philippine MSMEs
Following the conclusion of negotiations in May 2026, tech policy veteran Monchito Ibrahim examines how the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) can propel local small enterprises into regional powerhouses—if national implementation leaves no business behind.
The Second-Mover Advantage: What the Philippines Can Learn from Vietnam’s AI Law
As the Philippines drafts its omnibus Artificial Intelligence Development and Regulation Act (AIDRA), it faces a fragmented, agency-by-agency regulatory landscape. This article examines Vietnam’s pioneering AI law and broader regional trends and proposes how Philippine policymakers can leverage a second-mover advantage to build a coherent and practical governance framework.
Governance Meets Reality: Singapore’s Evolving Tech Governance
In the last of our six-part country spotlight series under Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6, Lim How Khang, Assistant Professor of Law and Computer Science (Practice); Director, BSc (Computing & Law) Programme, Singapore Management University, examines how Singapore’s tech governance landscape is evolving at mid-2026.
Dialogues connecting policymakers, researchers and industry
Governance Meets Reality: Singapore’s Evolving Tech Governance
In the last of our six-part country spotlight series under Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6, Lim How Khang, Assistant Professor of Law and Computer Science (Practice); Director, BSc (Computing & Law) Programme, Singapore Management University, examines how Singapore’s tech governance landscape is evolving at mid-2026.
Assurance as Infrastructure: How Singapore Governs AI in Practice
As Singapore’s AI ecosystem continues to expand rapidly, regulatory frameworks are evolving to keep pace with new risks and opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI). This article examines Singapore’s distinctive tech governance architecture and explores how combining enforceable legal baselines, targeted interventions, and measurable AI assurance can build a safe and resilient digital economy even without an overarching AI law.
Shaping the Digital Future: Regulatory Updates from Singapore
In the last part of our 6-part series on Tech Governance in Southeast Asia for 2024, Keith Detros and Hamizah Myra from Tech For Good Institute dive into Singapore's tech governance landscape for the first half of 2024.
Interested to read the full summary of our Tech Regulation insights across Southeast Asia? Subscribe to the Tech for Good Institute mailing list to receive the latest research, insights, and updates.
Governing Malaysia’s E-Commerce: Navigating Growth, Competition, and Consumer Protection
As Malaysia’s digital economy continues to expand rapidly, regulatory frameworks are evolving to keep pace with new risks and opportunities in e-commerce. This article examines the ongoing policy reforms aimed at strengthening consumer protection, enhancing market accountability, and improving competition, and explores what these changes mean for building a more balanced, inclusive, and secure digital marketplace.
Malaysia’s role in AI Safety in Southeast Asia
The 2025 global pivot from AI safety to rapid acceleration is placing new pressure on Southeast Asia, creating a critical gap between the push for technological supremacy and the need for collective regional governance. This article, republished from
Malaysia Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (MYCentre4IR),
explores the necessity of regional cooperation to combat transboundary AI risks, and Malaysia's pivotal role as ASEAN Chair in 2025.
Charting Malaysia’s Digital Future: A Digital Odyssey
In the rapidly evolving global digital landscape, Malaysia must chart an ambitious course towards technological transformation. As 2025 approaches, the nation should not merely adapt to the digital age but actively reshape its economic and social fabric through a bold, comprehensive digital strategy. In this article, Fabian Bigar, Secretary General of Malaysia's Ministry of Digital, shares his aspirations and vision for 2025, with a particular focus on the future of Malaysia's digital landscape.
Governance Meets Reality: Thailand’s Evolving Tech Governance
In the first of our six-part country spotlight series under Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6, Anont Tanaset, Senior Policy Specialist at the Office of the National Higher Education Science Research and Innovation Policy Council (NXPO), examines how Thailand’s tech governance landscape is evolving at mid-2026.
Fit-for-Purpose Digital Platform Regulations: Navigating Thailand’s Economic Future
As Thailand navigates economic challenges and an increasingly dynamic digital landscape, Jirawat Poomsrikaew explores the urgent need for fit-for-purpose digital platform regulations that balance innovation, competitiveness, and public interest, laying the foundation for a resilient, forward-looking digital economy.
Navigating Thailand’s AI Law: Development at a Crossroads
In this article, Khemmapat Trisadikoon and Wichayada Umponkitviwat, researchers at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), explore Thailand's evolving AI policy landscape. Through an examination of the legal frameworks surrounding AI, emerging regulatory trends, and the critical issues shaping the country's approach to AI governance, this article offers insights into the future of AI development in Thailand.
Read the Thai version of this article.
Governance Meets Reality: Indonesia’s Evolving Tech Governance
In the second of our six-part country spotlight series under Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6, Ajisatria Suleiman, Regulatory Expert and Associate Researcher at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies, examines how Indonesia’s tech governance landscape is evolving at mid-2026.
Strengthening Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Framework
Adinova Fauri, a researcher at Indonesia's Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), explores the progress and challenges in implementing the country's Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law, highlighting key gaps that remain in the regulatory framework. This article expands on previous analyses of the PDP Law and provides the latest updates on its development.
Read the Bahasa Indonesia version of this article.
Addressing Legal Ambiguities and Regulatory Gaps: Defining Online Fraud and Scams in Indonesia
In this piece, Joanna Octavia, a researcher at Safer Internet Lab, explores the critical need for clear and consistent definitions of online fraud and scams in Indonesia, highlighting how regulatory ambiguity and fragmentation hinder effective action and coordination in combating these evolving threats.
Improving the Regulatory Framework for Tech Governance: The Key to Achieving High Growth in Vietnam
Breakthroughs in technology and digital transformation are set to drive Vietnam's economic growth. In this article, Dr. Nguyen Minh Thao, Former Head of Business Environment and Competitiveness Research at CIEM, and Dr. Nguyen Quoc Viet, expert in Public Policy at VNU explore the need for a regulatory framework to foster innovation.
Read the Vietnamese version of this article.
Shaping the Digital Future: Regulatory Updates from Vietnam
In the third part of our 6-part series on Tech Governance in Southeast Asia, Dr. Thao Nguyen Minh from Vietnam's Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) delves deeply into Vietnam's tech governance landscape for the first half of 2024.
Read the Vietnamese version of this article.
Interested to read the full summary of our Tech Regulation insights across Southeast Asia? Subscribe to the Tech for Good Institute mailing list to receive the latest research, insights, and updates.
Digital intermediary services play an integral role in the digital economy and have become familiar to users in Vietnam, significantly contributing to economic growth. In this article, Nguyen Quang Dong and Nguyen Lan Phuong from the Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development (IPS) explore the current regulatory policies for digital intermediary services in Vietnam and provide recommendations for fostering a more dynamic and efficient digital economy.
Read the Vietnamese version of this article.
What ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement Means for Philippine MSMEs
Following the conclusion of negotiations in May 2026, tech policy veteran Monchito Ibrahim examines how the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) can propel local small enterprises into regional powerhouses—if national implementation leaves no business behind.
The Second-Mover Advantage: What the Philippines Can Learn from Vietnam’s AI Law
As the Philippines drafts its omnibus Artificial Intelligence Development and Regulation Act (AIDRA), it faces a fragmented, agency-by-agency regulatory landscape. This article examines Vietnam’s pioneering AI law and broader regional trends and proposes how Philippine policymakers can leverage a second-mover advantage to build a coherent and practical governance framework.
Shaping the Digital Future: Regulatory Updates from the Philippines
In this fourth of our 6-part series on Tech Governance in Southeast Asia, Francis Mark A. Quimba, Senior Research Fellow, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, guides us through the Philippines' tech governance landscape in the first half of 2024.
Interested to read the full summary of our Tech Regulation insights across Southeast Asia? Subscribe to the Tech for Good Institute mailing list to receive the latest research, insights, and updates.
ASEAN’s 11th Member: Charting Timor-Leste’s Digital Future
Admission as ASEAN's 11th member offers Timor-Leste a clear pathway to diversify beyond oil through the digital economy. However, infrastructure gaps, high internet costs, and low digital literacy threaten to stall progress. This article examines the structural hurdles and strategic opportunities defining Timor-Leste's regional integration.
What does the World Cup teach Southeast Asia About Its Digital Future
AI can level the playing field, but technology alone never guarantees success. Using the 2026 FIFA World Cup as a lens, this article explores how football serves as a practical policy laboratory—revealing how nations must pair AI access with deep investments in talent, institutions, and local innovation ecosystems to build lasting digital capability.
The Architecture of Inclusion: Balancing Southeast Asia’s AI Infrastructure Boom
AI infrastructure is becoming a decisive layer of Southeast Asia’s digital competitiveness, influencing how countries attract investment, support innovation, and expand access to advanced digital tools. The region’s next priority is to ensure that cloud, compute, connectivity, and data systems strengthen inclusive, trusted, and sustainable growth.
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Programme Fellow
Mouna Aouri is an Institute Fellow at the Tech For Good Institute. As a social entrepreneur, impact investor, and engineer, her experience spans over two decades in the MENA region, South East Asia, and Japan. She is founder of Woomentum, a Singapore-based platform dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs in APAC through skill development and access to growth capital through strategic collaborations with corporate entities, investors and government partners.
Senior Fellow & Founding Executive Director
Dr Ming Tan is Senior Fellow at the Tech for Good Institute; where she served as founding Executive Director of the non-profit focused on research and policy at the intersection of technology, society and the economy in Southeast Asia. She is concurrently a Senior Fellow at and the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore and Advisor to the Founder of the COMO Group, a Singaporean portfolio of lifestyle companies operating in 15 countries worldwide. Ming was previously Managing Director of IPOS International, part of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. Prior to joining the public sector, she was Head of Stewardship of the COMO Group.
Ming also serves on the boards of several private companies, Singapore’s National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC), and on the Digital and Technology Advisory Panel for Esplanade–Theatres on the Bay, Singapore’s national performing arts centre. Her current portfolio spans philanthropy, social impact, sustainability and innovation.
