The National Infocomm Competition (NIC) 2008 will challenge participants in the use of next-generation infocomm technologies, and the winners will get the opportunity to prove their mettle on the international stage.
"We are raising the bar in this year's NIC to challenge our students to use next-generation infocomm technologies to solve industry-related competitions," said Mr Leong Keng Thai, Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecoms), Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). "I am confident these students will do well, to become Singapore's pipeline of infocomm talent, who needs to stay relevant in the fast-changing infocomm scene."
The NIC is organised by the IDA together with the Institutes of Higher Learning, Ministry of Education and the industry, with the aim of inculcating interest in infocomm as a career.
Into its third year, NIC 2008 has been expanded to offer more next-generation infocomm technologies in the challenges, including interactive digital media, programming and Web 2.0 applications. Winners of NIC 2008 will have the opportunity to represent Singapore in other regional and international infocomm competitions. For instance, the winners of one of the NIC challenges, the Splash Awards 2008, will enter automatically into the semi-finals of the Imagine Cup 2008, a competition that encourages the development of innovative technology solutions to real world issues. Winners of another challenge, the 11th National Olympiad In Informatics, will represent Singapore in the International Olympiad in Informatics.
As with previous NICs, the students will compete in three circuits: Secondary School, Junior College and Polytechnic/ITE. There will be 12 challenges held over the course of the year. Making its debut is X-site, an educational website design competition, and the Schools Digital Media Awards which aims to get students to express their creativity through video, audio and animation. Points will be awarded to the top winners in each challenge and the school with the highest accumulated points will be the circuit champion.
Circuit champions for the 2007 competition, which attracted a record 2,500 participants, were Raffles Institution (Secondary School), Hwa Chong Institution (Junior College) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic School of Infocomm Technology (Polytechnic/ITE). The students will get to go on a knowledge acquisition trip to Silicon Valley in the United States, where they will meet with, and learn from leading infocomm and digital media companies such as Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Cisco Systems, Google, Pixar and Dreamworks.
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The Temasek Polytechnic team emerged second runner up in the Polytechnic/IT Circuit.
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For many of the top schools in last year's competition, a combination of programming panache and presentation skills were key to victory. Mr Darren Ang, 21, a member of the Temasek Polytechnic team which emerged second runner up in the Polytechnic/IT Circuit, said preparation for the competition involved intensive training as team members honed their presentation skills. "We actually simulated the competition and went through it many times," he said.
For teammates Ms Serene Tan and Ms Goh Chew Yan, the team's performance in the competition has also boosted their confidence in their infocomm skills. The two had originally planned to go into a tourism-related course but found themselves in the polytechnic's Informatics and IT School instead. "In the beginning, we weren't sure if we would do well in this area. But after going through this competition, we know we can do it," said Ms Tan.