Mr Chan Chun Sing: I am pleased that our youths have been provided with opportunities to further their IT aspirations through participation in the NIC.

Creativity and innovative thinking can help improve lives, and a prime example of this is Temasek Polytechnic’s Elder Rehabilitation and Support System which allows stroke patients to undergo rehabilitation by playing games using Microsoft Kinect.

The project emerged as the national champion at the Singapore finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 Competition (Software Design Category) and the team went on to represent Singapore in the worldwide finals in New York in July 2011.

Such innovations are what the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is looking to encourage amongst students as they take part in the annual National Infocomm Competition (NIC). NIC is a year-long infocomm competition circuit, made up of individual competitions, termed as “challenges”, that allows students to hone their skills and showcase their talent in infocomm domains such as programming, mobile application development, networking/network security, games design and creation.

Since it began in 2006, the competition has attracted more than 13,000 entries from secondary schools, junior colleges, the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and polytechnics competing in more than 75 challenges. “I am pleased that our youths have been provided with opportunities to further their IT aspirations through participation in the NIC,” said Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, who officially launched NIC 2012 at La Salle College of the Arts on 16 April 2012.

Mr Chan also presented prizes to the winners of NIC 2011 from the secondary school, junior college and polytechnic/ITE categories. The top NIC teams for each circuit will go for a one-week knowledge acquisition trip to Silicon Valley, United States.

Last year, NIC winners visited companies such as Autodesk, Google, HP Labs and Microsoft to find out more about the work of infocomm professionals in Silicon Valley. Winners from two NIC challenges - the National Olympiad in Informatics and the Imagine Cup Singapore 2011 - also represented Singapore in the international rounds of these competitions. These were: the International Olympiad in Informatics which was held in Thailand in July 2011, and the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals which took place in New York, United States, also in July.

For many of the NIC winners, the overseas experience has been an eye-opener. Mr Mong Yunheng, 20, a final-year student at Nanyang Polytechnic who came in third in the IT Challenge category at the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals, described the New York experience as “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," he said.

For Mr Kim Evangelista, a member of the Temasek Polytechnic team behind the Elder Rehabilitation and Support System, the overseas exposure has spurred him to want to do more for the less privileged. “We learnt how others had to cope with health and other problems which Singaporeans didn’t have,” he said.

Similarly inspired by the potential of infocomm was Ms Charmaine Lau-Rie, 17, from Pioneer Junior College. She was one of the 19 recipients of the inaugural JC Computing Awards which were also presented at the NIC event. Awardees, who will take up H2 Computing as a GCE 'A' Level subject (or equivalent), will be given exposure to the infocomm industry through industry attachments, workshops, company visits and participation in infocomm seminars.

Ms Lau said she looked forward to carving out a career in infocomm and would like to work in the United Nations (UN). “The UN would be a good place to go to develop my infocomm skills and, at the same time, seek opportunities to help others,” she said.

Besides the NIC 2011 and JC Computing Awards presentations, winners of the “Can’t Live Without Tech!” contest were also announced at the 16 April event. The online contest, co-organised by IDA and the IDM chapter of the Singapore Computer Society, was aimed at increasing the awareness of infocomm possibilities, identifying young ICT advocates who can inspire the younger generation to pursue infocomm-related education and careers, and injecting vibrancy into the infocomm student online community.