Interactive Digital Media R&D Programme Office

FAQs

1. What is IDM? Which industries or fields are categorised as IDM?

IDM or Interactive Digital Media is evolving and is a term we use to encapsulate digitised media that are highly interactive in the way it engages with users. It is related to the use of new media, multimedia and interactive services.

Digital Media can be defined as any medium of communication which has been digitised or made into digital. Examples of such media are voice, video, music, text, images, graphics and animation. Digitisation enables media to become immensely interactive – viewers or users can actively participate in creating their experience through, for instance, the Worldwide Web, games, interactive television and mobile telephony.

Digital media is on the verge of becoming integrative and immersive where the barrier between the digital and the physical is being broken through applications which enable people to move around and interact with information and computing in a more natural and instinctive manner.

The scope of IDM initiatives can be categorised into three broad areas:

Born-Digital – Digital media which do not have an analogue equivalent, e.g. Internet, games, mobile content and services.
Going-Digital – This encompasses traditional media and involves the transformation of the content and also the way in which traditional media is transmitted. These media include TV, radio, film, video, publishing and music.
Embedded – Refers to digital media that is being used in industries that are not traditionally associated with IDM. Industries that can potentially be transformed by IDM include industrial design, medicine and healthcare and education among others. IDM has the potential of helping to transform and enhance the competitive edge of key sectors across the economy.

2. Why is it a good time for IDM to be further developed now?

Singapore’s media industry has started its shift towards IDM. As a trusted capital with a best-in-Asia Intellectual Property (IP) regime, Singapore provides a safe and secure haven for creation in the IDM sector. Singapore also has excellent infrastructure and a vibrant, diversified economy to support growth in the area of IDM.

The time is ripe for MDA’s push for IDM, as the sector is poised for exponential growth that is fuelled by the following global key drivers and trends:

Technological advancement and adoption trends in computing, broadband and mobile telephony.
Sunk costs of the dotcom era make the economics of entrepreneurship much more favourable for today’s IDM sector.
Content creation has been “democratised” where the user can now create content, rather than simply consume it.

3. What is the oversight structure of the IDM initiative?

In January 2006, the National Research Foundation, chaired by Dr Tony Tan, identified IDM as a new area for R&D funding, alongside Environmental and Water Technologies, and Biomedical Sciences. A steering committee, chaired by Dr Tony Tan and comprising various ministers from the ministries of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), Trade and Industry (MTI), and Education (MOE), was set up to oversee R&D activities in the area of IDM.

An IDM Executive Committee (EXCO) was then established to support the steering committee in formulating plans and implementing projects in the area of IDM. The role of the IDM EXCO is to develop a comprehensive and holistic industry plan for the development of Singapore’s IDM sector. This EXCO is co-chaired by LG (NS) Lim Chuan Poh, MOE’s Permanent Secretary and Dr Tan Chin Nam, Permanent Secretary for MICA.

As the agency responsible for championing Singapore’s media industries and the development of the digital media sector, MDA was named the lead agency for the IDM R&D Programme Office, a multi-agency effort involving contribution from MDA, MICA, MOE, Economic Development Board (EDB), Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and A*STAR.

4. What is the role and vision of the IDM R&D Programme Office?

The development of the IDM sector requires the collaboration of a diverse range of public sector agencies, educational institutions, industry players and other stakeholders. To achieve this, the National Research Foundation (NRF) has allocated $500 million over the next five years from 2006 to fund the development of a strategic IDM research programme and the set-up of a multi-agency IDM R&D Programme Office within the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore to oversee R&D initiatives in the IDM space. This multi-agency team is accountable to the IDM Executive Committee and coordinates a cross-disciplinary effort to deepen Singapore’s research capacity in IDM.

Our vision is to use R&D to ignite and anchor the IDM sector so as to transform Singapore into a vibrant and global IDM capital.

Broadly, the IDM Exco aims to support the IDM sector in:

Education and manpower – to strengthen local capabilities and develop industry expertise to sustain the growth of the IDM sector through developing, attracting and retaining entrepreneurial and creative talent and experts.
Infrastructure – position Singapore as a trusted IDM capital for the management of digital assets, assists companies in establishing international networks and market access by working with industry players to put in place a next generation National Infocomm Infrastructure (NII) to plug into the global knowledge grid and enhance competitive edge.
Finance – catalyse the growth of the IDM sector by putting in place a sound financial infrastructure to channel deal and investment flows as well as attract and grow IDM companies that serve as receptacles for talents and R&D capabilities by addressing financing gaps in investment promotion and enterprise development.
Research and Development – fortify Singapore as a global IDM capital by leveraging Singapore’s multi-cultural society and international connectivity to establish a collaborative IDM R&D niche by drawing the best experts around the world to develop new intellectual property that can be commercialised into IDM services, content and tools.

5. What are the main focus areas of the IDM R&D Programme?

To date, IDM R&D Programme Office has identified three focus areas, including Animation, Games, & Effects, Media Intermediary Services, and “On-the-Move”, and has formulated interlinked programmes to support the development of the key areas and transform Singapore into a global IDM capital. Aimed at addressing both the supply and demand requirements of the sector, the programme will actively match results of R&D to the industry, in order to build a thriving and sustainable IDM industry in Singapore.

Animation, Games & Effects

The Animation industry will grow from US$59B in 2006 to US$80B in 2010 and the worldwide video game and interactive entertainment industry is expected to grow from $29 billion in 2005 to as much as $44 billion in 20111. Our focus on AGE will strengthen existing investments in AGE technology and support R&D for tools, platform development and new genres for the AGE industry. Areas of focus include, but are not limited to: Game design and aesthetics, game spaces and worlds, knowledge reuse, learning in games, modeling, multicore programming, process management, rendering and simulation.

Media Intermediary Services

Media Intermediary Services are crucial for the effective flow of information in the IDM sector. To ensure that Singapore has the ability to arbitrate this in a safe and efficient manner, we will invest in R&D to enhance technical capabilities in the organization, distribution and security of digital media. R&D areas of focus include: Accessibility, coding, transcoding & compression, digital rights management, saliency algorithms, search & retrieval, multilingual translation & understanding.

“On-the-Move”

The market for mobile content and services will be worth $150B in 2011, compared with $89B last year. Of this, $13.6B is expected to come from user-generated content; with the number of people sending videos to sites like YouTube jumping four times by 2011 to 198 million2. IDMPO will invest in R&D to identify new ways of reaching and interacting with mobile-connected people who are always on the move so as to latch onto the growth of this market. Areas of focus include: Ambient intelligence, human-computer interaction, immersive environments, location-aware computing, mobile computing, personalization, pervasive / ubiquitous computing.

6. What initiatives are in place to support the development of IDM in Singapore?

Funding initiatives have been developed to stimulate the growth of IDM through Research and Development and, transform Singapore into a Global IDM Capital. Please click on the following links for more information:

7. What are the targets set by the NRF in the area of IDM?

Our long-term vision is to grow Singapore into a Global IDM capital and to position Singapore at the forefront of the media age. Through its leadership of the IDM R&D Programme Office, MDA and its partners will drive strategic initiatives in order to achieve by 2015, increased value-added contribution of S$10 billion, (from S$4.2B in 2005) and creating 10,000 new jobs by 2015. This will be achieved through initiatives to encourage R&D, strengthen Singapore’s IDM capabilities, create the necessary infrastructure for growth, and augment talent in the IDM sector.

8. When can we expect to see results?

Research and Development is a mid to long term commitment and it will take sometime for it to see the impact on our economy. We expect a significant transformation of the sector by 2015. However, there will be significant changes over the next five years as we build up the foundation for the transformation.

In the interim, we expect to see a growing vibrancy in the local IDM industry, with an increase in the number of industry R&D projects, as well as in the expertise of local Institutes of Higher Learning and Research Institutes to conduct IDM R&D.