Singapore Trials State-Run Dating Service FirstDate, Built on a Nobel-Winning Matching Algorithm

September 30 (IT Home) — Singapore’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) has launched an official dating platform called FirstDate, the latest social engineering experiment by the city-state’s government in response to a rapidly falling birth rate.

According to the service’s website, FirstDate is a pilot dating service for single people aged 21 to 35. For now it is open only to civil servants, and applications close on October 5.

IT Home learned from the site’s introduction that FirstDate was designed to avoid endless swiping. Instead of browsing a stream of profiles, users fill in a questionnaire about their interests, habits, values and preferences.

The service then carries out one round of matching per cycle — the time needed for both sides to accept and expect a meeting. Every match includes a compatibility score, a brief introduction to the other person and a personal message. Once matched, you have three days to say yes. If you both accept, contact details are unlocked.

FirstDate uses a matching algorithm that once won the Nobel Prize in economics — the Gale-Shapley algorithm. It was proposed by Gale and Shapley in 1962 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2012.

The active side makes a proposal: one party (say, the men) sends proposals to the other party (say, the women) in order of preference.

The passive side defers acceptance: after receiving several proposals, the receiving party temporarily keeps the one it likes best, rejects the others, and does not accept any of them finally right away.

The loop continues until it is stable: a rejected proposer goes on to make a proposal to the next person on its preference list, until no one makes any further proposals — at which point the passive side finally accepts the proposal it has kept.

FirstDate grew out of an annual hackathon held earlier this year by Singapore’s Government Technology Agency. According to the Financial Times, Singapore’s population has just passed 6 million, and last year its fertility rate hit a record low of 0.87 children per woman, down from 0.97 in 2024 and close to South Korea’s global-low 0.8. Demographers argue that a rate of 2.1 is needed to keep a population stable, unless there is net migration.

Falling birth rates, combined with advances in medical technology that extend lifespans, are set to make Singapore a “super-aged” society this year — which the United Nations defines as a country where more than 21% of the population is aged 65 or over. By 2030, one in four Singaporeans is expected to reach that age.