16 April 2012 - To tackle the issues of cost and the monotony of rehabilitation exercises, a group of students from Temasek Polytechnic put their creativity and infocomm skills together to develop the "Elder Rehabilitation & Support System", aimed at making rehabilitation fun and interactive for stroke or accident patients.
Singapore, 16 April 2012 | For Immediate Release
Student representatives to receive support for international competitions under new NIC format
To tackle the issues of cost and the monotony of rehabilitation exercises, a group of students from Temasek Polytechnic put their creativity and infocomm skills together to develop the "Elder Rehabilitation & Support System", aimed at making rehabilitation fun and interactive for stroke or accident patients. This project emerged as national champion at the Singapore finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 Competition (Software Design Category) and represented Singapore in the worldwide finals in New York in July 2011.
Such innovations are what the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore seeks to encourage amongst students as they take part in the National Infocomm Competiton ("NIC"), a year-long infocomm competition held annually that allows students to hone their skills and showcase their talent in infocomm across fifteen such "challenges" in infocomm domains such as programming, mobile application development, networking/network security, games design and creation.
Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, officially launched the NIC 2012 at La Salle College of the Arts and presented prizes to the winners of the NIC 2011 from the secondary school, junior college and polytechnic/ITE categories (See Annex A for the full list of NIC 2011 winners) today. The top winning NIC 2011 teams for each circuit will be going for a one week knowledge acquisition trip to Silicon Valley, USA. Last year, NIC winners had visited companies like Autodesk, Google, HP Labs and Microsoft to learn first-hand from infocomm professionals in Silicon Valley about working in the infocomm industry.
Singapore students also obtained international accolades through the National Infocomm Competition ("NIC") last year. Winners from two NIC Challenges, the National Olympiad in Informatics ("NOI") and the Imagine Cup Singapore 2011 represented Singapore at the international rounds and challenged for top positions - the International Olympiad in Informatics ("IOI") held in Thailand and at the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals at New York, USA, both in July 2011.
Mong Yunheng, a final year student at Nanyang Polytechnic, 20, who came in 3rd position for the IT Challenge category at the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals said of his experience, "The competition enabled me to further hone by IT skills as I got to learn new technologies and how to interconnect the best of their functionalities to serve the needs of a business organisation. The Imagine Cup experience at New York City was also unique. It was possibly the largest gathering of students who were all passionate about technology together. You could feel the passion for technology and how every software solution on display had a common aim to make the world a better place."
Recognising the importance of exposure to students for such international competitions, NIC 2012 will be launched with a new format. Besides featuring a revamped set of challenges, Singapore student representatives competing at international legs will receive support from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. The NIC will also be introduced at the Primary School level to allow for greater participation from more schools and to develop interest of infocomm in students early. Currently, students form teams within three circuits, Secondary School, Junior College and Polytechnic/Institute of Technical Education.
Mr Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said, "One of the outcomes of the Infocomm Manpower Development Roadmap Version 2.0 is to increase the curiosity, interest and passion of our students for infocomm. The National Infocomm Competition revamp aims to further deepen student engagement, improve the infocomm skills of students and widen their exposure to international infocomm developments. We hope that it will also interest our students to take up infocomm as a career in the future."
19 students were also awarded the JC Computing Award at the event. These awardees, who will take up H2 Computing as a GCE 'A' Level subject (or equivalent), will be provided exposure to the infocomm industry through industry attachments, workshops, company visits and participation in infocomm seminars. The winners of the nationwide "Can't Live Without Tech!" contest were also announced.
ISSUED BY CORPORATE AND MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION
INFOCOMM DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF SINGAPORE
Related Resource:
- Annex A Factsheet on National Infocomm Competition (186.15KB)
- Annex B Factsheet on the Infocomm Manpower Development Roadmap v2.0 (109.78KB)
- Annex C Factsheet on JC Computing Award (104.86KB)
- Annex D Factsheet on "Can't Live Without Tech!" Contest (184.69KB)
About Infocomm Development Authority Singapore
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is committed to growing Singapore into a dynamic global infocomm hub. IDA uses an integrated approach to developing infocommunications in Singapore. This involves nurturing a competitive telecoms market as well as a conducive business environment with programmes and schemes for both local and international companies. For more news and information, visit www.ida.gov.sg.
For media clarification, please contact:
Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
Kenneth TAN (Mr)
Manager, Corporate & Marketing Communication
Tel: +65 6211 1420
Email: kenneth_tan@imda.gov.sg
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