Sealing the collaboration: (From left) Mr Kenny Mathers, Head of Developer Relations and Marketing, APAC, Forum Nokia & Developer Community; Mr Chan Lee Mun, Principal and Chief Executive Officer, Nanyang Polytechnic; and Mr Tan Tong Hai, Chief Operating Officer, StarHub.

A Mobile Inno Sphere Centre is being set up at the Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) to provide support and training to young developers in the mobile services and applications space. The strategic collaboration between NYP, Nokia and StarHub aims to drive mobile content and applications development in Singapore and foster the growth of an innovative society through an open developer ecosystem from ideation through to product development and commercialisation.

The Centre will train some 300 students from NYP’s School of Information Technology and industry professionals on various enabling technologies over the next two years. It will also undertake mobile development projects for the industry, and mobile solutions and services developed by the Centre will be promoted and marketed through Nokia and StarHub’s distribution channels.

Mr John Tan, NYP's Deputy Principal for Technology, described the collaboration between Nokia, StarHub and NYP as a long-term talent and research development partnership. “It will accelerate the delivery of Nokia Developer Trainings in Singapore and the region through enhanced knowledge transfer among the partners and the industry, bringing tangible values to the professional community,” he said. “The Mobile Inno Sphere Centre will also serve as an excellent platform for our students to participate in the development of innovative mobile applications and services and gain real-life industry experience."

Nokia, through the Forum Nokia organisation, will provide training on Nokia’s mobile technology platform, access to software development kits (SDKs) and tools, and loans of Nokia devices for application development.

Nokia’s collaboration with NYP dates back to 2004, when it set up the Nokia Certified Training Centre (NCTC) in the polytechnic, the first of its kind in the Asia Pacific. To date, NCTC@NYP has trained more than 400 students from Singapore and countries like Egypt, Philippines and Vietnam. NYP and Nokia have also participated in several joint projects to create mobile applications. One such example was the SMSDivert technology, which was developed and made available to the market in 2004 on Nokia’s Communicator series of business phones.

StarHub will help source for industry projects for the Centre, and also provide infrastructure support such as SMS gateways and location-based services. “We believe this initiative will help the local IT industry by boosting the skill sets for IT professionals and students, and look forward to seeing the Centre's creation of innovative and fast-to-market mobile solutions or services that we can introduce to end-users," said Mr Tan Tong Hai, StarHub's Chief Operating Officer.