Our support for Industry seeks to mobilise the industry, targeting 3 groups in particular – Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs), local flagship companies, and major international companies  – to engage in IDM R&D in Singapore by:

• Building up IDM R&D capability and capacity in our SMEs
• Encouraging significant investment by key or “flagship” industry players to develop new open access platforms that will in turn stimulate demand for applications, products and services
• Attracting major international companies to conduct R&D here

Recognizing that IDM is a fundamental enabler that could provide the competitive edge of sectors across the economy, we also endeavour to stimulate demand in various sectors and seed IDM R&D in them.

Read Futurescape Support Scheme Application Guideline

Read IDM Futures Support Scheme Application Guideline

Key Achievements – Poised for Growth

The 2011 IDM Sector Study by Deloitte for the 4 year period from 2007-2010 estimated that the IDM sector Value Added (VA) has grown by 26% CAGR to $1198m in 2010, while Employment has grown by about 22% CAGR to 11,072 jobs.  Sector Revenues have reached $2.09bn in 2010 (CAGR of 22%).  The IDM year-on-year VA growth of 29.3% continues to lead overall Singapore GDP growth of 14.5% from 2009-10.  A renewed spurt of hiring across IDM companies has also led to a 32% employment growth, 28% above national employment growth.  There are some 794 companies in the sector today; a CAGR of 14% over the four year period covered by the study.

The IDM sector is also predominantly driven by SMEs and Startups that make up 88% of sector establishments.  These SMEs and Startups made up 56% of employment and 41% of VA in the entire IDM sector.  Furthermore, local companies contributed to 66% of the overall IDM VA and 68% of the employment, while comprising about 80% of the sector.

The IDMPO has supported over 90 industry R&D projects in total.  EDB has been engaging several cutting-edge international labs, some of which are well-known names.  The larger games and animation industry in particular, has received a big boost with the world’s largest players such as Lucasfilm, Ubisoft and Koei here.

We have incentivised our local flagship media companies such as Razer, ST Electronics and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) to integrate R&D as a key component of their business strategies, setting up substantive R&D centres.

Learn more about Deloitte’s IDM Sector Study

The IDM Jump-start and Mentor (i.JAM) programme aims to drive innovation and entrepreneurship by creating in Singapore a capacity for continuous and self-sustaining grassroots innovation.

Under this programme, the i.JAM Micro-funding Scheme (i.JAM scheme) will support start-ups and individuals with breakthrough ideas that can be developed into innovative products and services. This will be done through a network of incubators who will work closely with IDMPO to manage i.JAM according to the spirit and intent of the i.JAM programme.

The i.JAM initiative marshals support from industry players, business mentors and technology suppliers to provide bottom-up support to the transforming of innovative ideas into useful applications and breakthroughs.

Visit the following sections for more information.

i.JAM Micro Funding Scheme Summary: More information about the scheme to support startups in their exploration of the technical merit or feasibility of technologies and ideas that have the potential to create business disruptions and build new industry subsectors.

i.JAM Project Application: Please contact the below incubators to obtain the latest application forms.

i.JAM Incubators: Appointed incubators of i.Jam

MDA (IDMPO) and NUS is organizing the Tourism Accelerator Workshop Series (AWS) with the objective of bringing together industry demand drivers, start-ups and researchers together to accelerate new technologies to the market.
Tourism AWS is the start of a series of activities which systematically matches the requirements of demand drivers, crowd source for interest and co create solutions. The lead partners of this initiative are Singapore Tourism Board (STB), Starhub and Far East Organization. (Overview of IDM In Singapore & AWS)

Vision Statement
To build a tourism centric ecosystem that will create unique tourists experiences in Singapore though the use of IDM (Interactive Digital Media) technologies and real world contextual analytics of big data to uncover real time 360 insights on tourists in Singapore.

STB, as the lead tourism agency in Singapore, aims to further grow the sector through:

• Deeper understanding of tourist behavior for planning and resource allocation
• Enhance tourist experience using IDM based on real world contextual insights
• Increase overall revenues from tourist activities through collaborations with merchants and places of interest / attractions

Aims of the Tourism AWS
The Tourism Accelerator Workshops (AWS) aims to serve the IDM ecosystem in the following manner:

• Efficient and effective matching of demand driver needs with solutions from co-creation partners.
• Addressing the potential gaps between demand driver requirements and available technologies & solutions
• Accelerating the go to market process of developed IDM applications & services.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

How to participate

Organizations are invited to participate in the following groups:

Group 1

Demand Drivers - Organizations interested in crowd sourcing for innovative apps and services for tourism sector (Demand Driver Participation forms)

To Market Partners - Companies that aid in bringing the resulting tourism IDM apps & services to successful commercial deployment, both locally and internationally (To Market Partners Participation forms)

Expected outcomes
1. Demand Drivers - Successful crowd sourcing of new apps and services
2. To market partners – Opportunities to bundle new apps and services for local or overseas deployment

Group 2

Co creation partners - Start-ups, technology companies and institutes of higher learning (IHLs) with ready products and services looking for partnership opportunities. (Co Creation Partners Proposal to Demand Drivers)

Expected outcomes
1. Procurement or partnership with Demand Driver
2. Ready projects leverage on IDM Innovation Platforms for scalability testing or market research

Group 3

Innovation partners - Start-ups and companies keen to engage in R&D activities to develop new IDM technologies, applications and services for the tourism and hospitality sector.

Expected outcomes
1. Industry R&D projects co-funded by MDA
2. Development projects co-funded by STB's
3. Startup receiving Micro-funding through Incubators

Please email completed template to mda_idmpo_officer1@mda.gov.sg by 25^th May 2012.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Funding Support available
Start-ups - iJAM microfunding support for start-ups (MDA)
Companies - Futurescape Co-funding support for SMEs and larger companies (MDA)
Start-ups and companies - Tourism Development Assistance Scheme (STB)

The AWS Process

Diagram 1: Accelerator Workshops (AWS) – R&D to market process

Starting with a Call for expression of interests on the 20^th April 2012, the AWS has 5 stages to crowd source and co create products, services and technology to match the requirements of the demand drivers.

Tourism AWS timeline

For details of the requirements and offerings of the demand drivers and partners, please see the annexes below. These will be updated on a weekly basis.

Annex A –List of Demand Drivers updated 11 Jun 2012
Annex B – List of Co creation Partners updated 11 Jun 2012
Annex C – List of Innovation Platforms updated 11 Jun 2012

___________________________________________________________________________________________

About Tourism in Singapore
2011 was a record year for Singapore tourism. Visitor arrivals reached 13.2 million, a 13 per cent year-on-year increase. More importantly, tourism receipts hit S$22.2 billion, a 17 per cent year-on-year increase. The latest projections by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) indicate that international tourism will continue growing in 2012, with Asia leading the growth at four to six per cent. There continue to be opportunities to explore as Singapore’s top source markets are from the Asian region which has to date remained relatively resilient.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) forecasts S$23 to S$24 billion in tourism receipts and 13.5 to 14.5 million visitor arrivals for 2012.

In the need to sustain a pipeline of original tourism experiences, STB encourages the industry to embrace creativity and innovation to design experiences that resonate with customers. This requires connecting with consumers and building a deeper understanding of their needs to create relevant and value-added experiences. The recently announced S$905 million for the Tourism Development Fund supports the co-creation of innovative tourism products and events, and the enhancement of workforce capabilities.

MDA EXPLOIT TECHNOLOGIES CFP

EXPLOIT TECHNOLOGIES CALL FOR PROPOSALS

1. Background
   Exploit Technologies is the technology transfer arm of the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research. The Interactive Digital Media Programme Office (IDMPO) and Exploit Technologies are looking for partners to raise funds through IDMPO Futurescape and i.JAM funding schemes and develop solutions using the technologies.

1. Technology Offerings
   Interested parties can submit proposals leveraging on the technologies not limiting to the following projects:

• Fashion Latte is an online fashion catalogue aggregator solution which uses image recognition technologies to automatically match colours and patterns across catalogues and products.
• Speech2Singingempowers the user to read lyrics and have the speech automatically converted to melody-perfect singing in-sync with the backing music track.
• Audience Measurement uses a single webcam mounted on a display panel to automatically count faces, gender, age ranges, face position, and facial emotions.
• Human Tracking enables real-time multi-camera tracking of moving objects, detect human shapes, and employing  robust face recognition to track humans.
• Mobile User Locomotion Recognition is a real-time mobile app which can inform a service if the user is sitting down, standing, running, climbing, walking or has fallen down.
• Location Liveliness is a mobile app service which compresses up-to 17 times a variety of raw data streams from on-phone sensors such as light, temperature, sound, GPS, accelerometer, to indicate the liveliness of a particular location.
• Natural Speech Synthesis for Mandarin benchmarks tops in similiarity measures (how similar is the synthesized output from recorded human speech) in the 2008 Blizzard Challenge, which is an annual international speech research competition. Available also for Malay and English.
• Mobile Interactive Multimedia Access System enables image recognition on-phone complete with video view tracking for real-time augmented reality information display.
• Face Recognition has the potential to be made available as a real-time on-phone as well as a cloud service supporting Windows, Linuz, iOS, and Android.
• Data Visualization Kit is a Java-based real-time interactive library for multi-dimensional data analytics supporting complex network, geospatial, and sematic data visualization.
• Scalable Multimedia Platform is a platform built on the standards-based extension of the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video compression specifications. The platform provides standards-compliant encoder, transcoder and intelligent streaming server supporting existing decoders that auto-adapt and optimize the playing back of the packet bit-streams to available network bandwidth.
• Interactive Media technologies include mobile 3D Face Reconstruction, mobile High Dynamic Range photography with auto-alignment and de-ghosting, Auto Music-beat Extraction, Auto Virtual Dance Sequencer, mobile cloud Application Deployment Kit.

1. Technology Licensing

Details on the licensing terms & conditions for using the Exploit Technologies are extracted below:

Typical terms in a technology licence

• Non-exclusive or exclusive
• Field of use and territory
• Term of license
• Sublicensing rights
• Financial provisions
• Warranty and indemnity
• Grant back rights
• Performance milestones

Some Typical Terms

• Royalty rates to be negotiated (typically 2 to 10% of sales revenue); Sublicensing typically at 25% to 75%; Minimum royalty payments to be backloaded
• Standard A*STAR confidentiality, indemnity and warranty terms
• Performance clauses based on business plans of the company
• Termination for cause only

Option to Evaluate

• 30- 90 day, no-fee option to assess commercial value and performance of IP (non-exclusive)
• Restriction of use to evaluation and marketing activity only
• Standard A*STAR confidentiality, indemnity and warranty terms
• License agreement put in place if company exercises option after evaluation

1. Eligibility and Funding Support
   This call is open to all Singapore-based startups and organisations.

We are seeking proposals with innovative solutions to connect the R&D technologies into industry applications. Proposals must be accompanied with clear R&D breakthrough and impact, which will eventually lead to potential commercialisation.

Funding awarded cannot be used to support overseas R&D activities. All funding awarded must be used to carry out the research activities in Singapore.  

The support available are:

• i.JAM microfunding scheme for startups
• Futurescape scheme for industry (SMEs and larger companies). Co-funding from the industry is expected for Futurescape support.
• Testbedding support from IDM Innovation Platforms

1. Evaluation
   Proposals will be evaluated against the following criteria:

• High-technical-merit research and innovation that is novel, internationally competitive and can lead to breakthrough results.
• Excellent execution by an experienced research team, with a good track record and whose members have the relevant and complementary expertise.
• Economic benefits to Singapore in terms of capabilities and manpower development as well as commercialisation spin-offs.

The evaluation process will be carried out as such: All proposals eligible for funding will be forwarded to IDMPO for shortlist and evaluation. Proposals applied under the i.JAM scheme will be forwarded to IDMPO appointed incubator for evaluation.

1. Briefing Session

The briefing session will be held on 7 Sep 2012 (Friday), 10am.

Details on the location:

Blk 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent,

#02-18, Singapore 139951

Briefing Session Programme:

http://eastar.eventshub.sg/ems_wb_Details.aspx?CalID=28&EventID=955172

1. Proposal Submission and Submission Period

• Please refer to our iJAM and Futurescape application templates
• All submissions must be completed and sent to mda_idmpo_officer1@mda.gov.sg. Closing date for submission is 1 Oct 2012.

Annex A – Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd

Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL) is the technology transfer arm of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Its mission is to support A*STAR in transforming the economy through commercializing R&D. Exploit Technologies enhances the research output of A*STAR scientists by translating their inventions into marketable products or processes.

Through licensing deals and spin-offs with industry partners, Exploit Technologies is a key driver of technology transfer in Singapore. It actively engages industry leaders and players to commercialise A*STAR’s technologies and capabilities, bridging the gap from Mind to Market.

Over 80 licensing deals were signed largely with Singapore-based companies in Fiscal year 2011. Of these, more than 50% are Infocomm companies.

Enquiries on the technologies and / or to arrange for more detailed demos may be sent to the following contact:

Contact
Name: Tng Tai Hou
Contact: 98324261
Email: taihou@exploit-tech.com

Website:www.exploit-tech.com

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CENTER CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Background
The Interactive Digital Media Programme Office (IDMPO) and NUS International Research Centres (IRCs) are calling for proposals from industry for innovative research and development (R&D) projects in the interactive digital media space to be submitted for potential funding.

This call seeks to support innovative solutions that will adopt technologies developed by the International Research Centres (IRCs) in the areas of:

i.         Language Mediation
ii.        Multi-sensory Technology
iii.       Media Search

The technologies offered by the IRCs are broadly categorised into

i.          Technology ready for commercial use
ii.         Technology in development with prototype / POC available

Technology Offerings
Interested parties can submit proposals leveraging on the research technologies from the following IRCs:

1. CSIDM: Language Mediation - breaking the language barrier to enable communication between speakers of different languages
2. CUTE: Experience Media - Multi-sensory connection technology for playful, creative and interactive dialogue
3. NExT: Extreme Search - Multimedia based search techniques to search for live and dynamic data beyond what is indexed in the current web
4. COSMIC: Building social media services for technologically underserved communities

For details of the offerings from the IRCs, please refer to the annexes below. These will be updated on a weekly basis.

Annex A – Offerings from CSIDM (Updated 13 Aug 2012)

Annex B – Offerings from CUTE (Updated 13 Aug 2012)

Annex C – Offerings from NExT (Updated 13 Aug 2012)

Annex D – Offerings from COSMIC (Updated 13 Aug 2012)

Eligibility and Funding Support
This call is open to all Singapore-based startups and organisations.

We are seeking proposals with innovative solutions to connect IRCs’ research technologies into industry applications. Proposals must be accompanied with clear R&D breakthrough and impact, which will eventually lead to potential commercialisation.

Funding awarded cannot be used to support overseas R&D activities. All funding awarded must be used to carry out the research activities in Singapore.

The support available are:

1. i.JAM microfunding scheme for startups
2. Futurescape scheme for industry (SMEs and larger companies). Co-funding from the industry is expected for Futurescape support.
3. Testbedding support from IDM Innovation Platforms

Evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated against the following criteria:

1. High-technical-merit research and innovation that is novel, internationally competitive and can lead to breakthrough results.
2. Excellent execution by an experienced research team, with a good track record and whose members have the relevant and complementary expertise.
3. Economic benefits to Singapore in terms of capabilities and manpower development as well as commercialisation spin-offs.

The evaluation process will be carried out as such: All proposals eligible for funding will be forwarded to IDMPO for shortlist and evaluation. Proposals applied under the i.JAM scheme will be forwarded to IDMPO appointed incubator for evaluation.

Proposal Submission and Submission Period

1. Please refer to our iJAM and Futurescape application templates
2. All submissions must be completed and sent to mda_idmpo_officer1@mda.gov.sg. Closing date for submission is 24th September 2012 (12:00pm).

Industry Workshop
The slides presented by NUS Enterprise during the IRC – Industry presentation on 17 July 2012 can be found here.

Details on the licensing terms & conditions for using the IRC technologies are extracted below:

Typical terms in a technology licence

• Exclusive or non-exclusive
• Field of use and territory
• Term of license
• Sublicensing rights
• Financial provisions
• Warranty and indemnity
• Rights to publish
• Performance milestones

Some Typical Terms

• Upfront is the out of pocket NUS has paid for IP protection
• Royalty rates to be negotiated (typically 1 to 5% net sales); Sublicensing at 20% to 80%.  Minimum royalty payments to be considered
• Standard NUS confidentiality, indemnity and warranty terms
• Performance clauses based on business plans of the company
• Termination for cause only.

Option to Evaluate

• 30- 90 day option to assess commercial value and performance of NUS IP
• No option fee if no patent filed and non-exclusive evaluation
• Restriction of use to evaluation and marketing activity only
• Standard Confidentiality terms
• License agreement put in place if company exercises option after evaluation

Application Form - Futurescape

Please click on the following links to download the sample application document (.PPT). Submissions can be sent to the email below. Kindly contact us if there is any clarification needed.

Submission template for concept proposals

Ms Lim Shan Shan
Manager
Tel: 9726 3121
Email: Lim_Shan_Shan@mda.gov.sg

Application Form – IDM Futures

Please click on the following links to download the sample application document. Submissions can be sent to the email below. Kindly contact us if there is any clarification needed.

Submission template for proposals

Mr Arthur Fong
Deputy Director
Tel: 9726 3025
Email: Arthur_Fong@mda.gov.sg

The IDM Futures funding initiative (FI) is an initiative by the IDM Programme Office (IDMPO) to leverage on Singapore’s strengths & environment to gain competitive advantage, and to encourage collaboration & partnership between Industry and academia. The FI supports high impact inter-disciplinary research, with tight linkages to exploitation of the eventual R&D results.

It aims to support the IDM R&D Centres and IDM Innovation Platforms in the following areas:

• The development of data analytics on a societal scale to garner Real-Time Contextual Insights as a unique strength in key industries
• IDM Innovation Platforms to provide large-scale testbeds for experimentation & trials, and to drive IDM applications in growth verticals (eg. Media & Entertainment, Tourism & Lifestyle, and Wellness & Learning)
• Deepening capabilities in critical IDM Enabling Technologies (eg. Socio-Cognitives Sciences and Deep Analytics) to support the above

Eligibility Criteria

1. Open to both private sector and public sector applicants.
2. Private sector applicants must be registered as a legal entity and incorporated in Singapore. The legal entity can be owned by local or foreign shareholders, subject to the provisions of the Companies Act (Cap.50). Private sector funding support would be on a co-funding basis.
3. Public sector applicants include Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs), public sector agencies & research institutions, not-for-profit hospitals/research laboratories, as well as companies & company-affiliated research laboratories/institutions.
4. In general, only research conducted in Singapore may be funded.

Application Procedure

Interested parties may send in their application form accompanied by the company’s proposal.

Please include the following details in the proposal:

Executive Summary

• Executive summary of the complete project plan; and
• Key benefits and impact of the project.

Applicant’s Company Profile

• Registrar-of-Companies (ROC) records; and
• Key business activities.

Project Description

• Scope of the Project
• Uniqueness of the Idea
• Economic Benefits to Singapore that will result from the project
• Challenges & Milestones
• Commitments from Partners and their specific interests
• Importance of Funding Sought
• Budget and In-Kind Contributions
• Key Performance Indicators

Form of Assistance

Under the Scheme, MDA will provide assistance through grants to cover up to 50% of the total qualifying cost of the project. Projects are expected to work towards self-sustainability in the long term. Examples of major allowable costs are:

• Manpower Cost
• Equipment (Hardware & Software) and ICT Materials & Services
• Other Operating Expenditure

Related link: Download application form.

AWS for Game and Media Innovation

MDA IDMPO, FutureMedia and FutureWorld Co-Space Test-Beds are coming together to organize the Accelerator Workshop Series (AWS) for Game and Media Innovation. The lead partners of this initiative are MatchMove Games, MyAppsMall, ASUS Technology, PrimeSense, Razer, SingTel, iCELL Network, MediaCorp, Microsoft, Nokia and  EON Reality.

We aim to use the AWS process to

• Accelerate the deployment of innovative Singapore-made games, mobile and TV apps
• Crowd source innovative apps for digital advertising on digital screen panels and games
• Match these innovations to the needs of the Sectors

________________________________________________________________________

Demand Drivers & Calls

The following partners are launching their calls:

Details

Nation as a Platform for Innovation

The Nation as a Platform for Innovation program is making the following test-bed and R&D resources available to all innovators:

Start-up Incubator Support

Crystal Horse Investments

Offerings:

• Receive lightning fast fundings after approval from CHI
• Exposure to existing users through some of our current incubatees that are in the media and gamification industry
• Secure access to our invaluable networks with Angels and VCs locally and internationally
• Tap into CHI's invaluable experience and networks in Malaysia and around SEA
• Receive free assistance and support with regards to business development, accounting, legal, marketing and software (technical) related problems

SITF’s 123JumpStart

123Jumpstart seeks to provide a holistic approach in nurturing startups. The platform aims to be a one-stop shop that avails startups to a broad range of resources such as:

Offerings:

• Mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs and captains of the infocomm industry
• Funding and incubation support
• Access to network of SiTF members in the infocomm technology industry
• Leverage on the various partner incubators, VCs and angels for follow-on funding
• Incubation space for startups
• Startup networking events, seminars, workshops and training

Funding Support

Suitable innovative R&D projects can apply for the following funding schemes:

R&D Start-ups – iJAM microfunding support for start-ups
Companies (R&D) – Futurescape Co-funding support for SMEs and larger companies
Start-ups and companies – Development Assistance, Production Assistance

________________________________________________________________________

Timeline of AWS for Game & Media Innovation

________________________________________________________________________

Call for Interest & Briefing Sessions

Session A : Call For Game and Media Innovation: (registration)
14^th Jun

1:00pm – 1:30pm
Opening & Introduction on AWS & Nation as a Platform for Innovation

1:30pm – 2:30pm
MatchMove’s Call For Games
MyAppsMall Call For Mobile Apps

2:30pm – 3:00pm
Tea break

3:00pm – 4:00pm
ASUS Technology Call For Innovation with Xtion Pro Live
PrimeSense Call For Innovation on Depth Sensor
Razer Call For Switchblade Apps

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Networking

Update : The presentation slides:

MatchMove’s Call For Games [Presentation][Video]

MyAppsMall Call For Mobile App[Presentation][Video]

ASUS Technology Call For Innovation with Xtion PRO LIVE[Presentation][Video]

PrimeSense Call For Innovation On Depth Sensor[Presentation] [Video]

Razer Call for Switchblade User Interface Apps[Presentation]

Session B : Call For Game and Media Innovation (registration)
15^th Jun

1:00pm – 1:15pm
Opening & Introduction on AWS & Nation as a Platform for Innovation

1:15pm – 2:30pm
SingTel Mobile – Call for Innovative Multi-Screen Apps
iCELL – Call for Innovative Advertisement Solutions on Multi-Screens
MediaCorp :  The Future OOH services

2:30pm – 3:00pm
Tea break

3:00pm – 4:45pm
Microsoft Call for Windows 8 N-Screen Applications
Nokia Call for Windows Phone N-Screen Cloud-Connected Applications
EON Reality – Call for Innovative Technology & Applications for Interactive Mirror

4:45pm – 5:30pm
Networking

Update : The presentation slides:

EON_Reality_IDM_AWS_public

iCELL AWS

MediaCorp AWS

Microsoft AWS

Nokia AWS

SingTel FutureMedia AWS

Future_Media_Testbed_AWS

AWS is a new initiative by IDMPO that aims to catalyze market adoption of home-grown interactive digital media by strategically matching local start-ups and technology providers with leading corporations in the various business sectors.The Interactive Digital Media Programme Office (IDMPO) and NUS Enterprise jointly launched the inaugural Accelerator Workshop Series (AWS) at the NUS Innovfest event on April 20.

Outlining the vision for AWS, Mr. Michael Yap, Executive Director of the Interactive Digital Media Programme Office (IDMPO), said, “Over the last few years, we have built up a palpable start-up ecosystem and emerging world-class research capabilities. We are focusing to speedily bring these technologies and innovation to market. We hope to bring together the nation as an IDM innovation platform, with scale and meaningful partnerships among key demand drivers, start-ups and research centres.”

In connecting the vision with the realities of the stakeholders involved, anchor industry partners StarHub, Far East Organization and the Singapore Tourism Board presented their business needs, while start-ups and researchers demonstrated relevant technologies, products and services that were ready for market adoption. Among the latter were IDMPO i.JAM start-ups Stream Media, Tyler Projects, Zopim, Flight Media, ZelRealm Interactive, Gozo Labs and Kai Square. T.Ware, a spinoff company from one of IDMPO’s public call projects, was also present.

The goal of the Tourism AWS is to have demand drivers and co-creation partners work together to improve the quantity and quality of innovation in the tourism sector, and create unique tourist experiences by applying innovative IDM technologies to increase productivity and enable customization of compelling experiences for the tech-savvy tourist.

“This workshop enables technology innovators and demand drivers to better understand each other’s needs and capabilities. More importantly, the outcome of these projects will be presented to senior management of the demand drivers in a few months’ time, for their support and implementation,” said Dr. Lily Chan, Chief Executive Officer, NUS Enterprise.

The call for expressions of interests from demand drivers, co-creation partners and to-market partners are now on here.

The China Ministry of Science and Technology and the Interactive Digital Media Programme Office, MDA are jointly inviting call for proposals in the area of Interactive Digital Media Research and Development (IDM R&D). We are accepting proposals from Singapore Registered companies, who have a China partner for an R&D project.

The area of focus for this CFP will be Interactive TV and Language Mediation Technology. Topics can be in the following areas:

• Language Mediation Technology

Going beyond translation of the spoken and written language, how can Interactive Digital Media help in the communication process of 2 different person with totally different language background?

• Non Textual Media Search and Massive Audio/Video Cataloguing Technology

Beyond doing search by text input, how can audio, video and other non-textual input be used to search rich media content? What will be the implication to the collection, storage and cataloguing of rich media.

• Cyber-Physical Technology

Use of virtual world to augment the physical world environment. Research and application can be in the area of communication, entertainment, education, training, health and wellness.

• Digital Rights Management

Digital content copyright identification and packaging technology. The characteristics of digital content for the record and ‘genetic’ comparison, digital copyright information, efficient retrieval and monitoring of forensics technology, content rights management and network forensics integration technology.

• Content Distribution Networks & Interactive TV

Digital TV smart terminal operating system and middleware. The R&D in interactive television, intelligent cloud and entertainment devices. The development of interactive media applications and cloud services platform.

Project proposals that are in either of the above technology areas, and are applied in the following industry verticals will be favorably considered:

1. Tourism & Lifestyle
2. Health & Wellness
3. Learning & Training
4. Media & Entertainment

The qualification and criteria follows the Futurescape funding scheme or the iJAM Reload funding scheme. Only Singapore registered Companies qualify.

Application Process:

1. Fill in the Application form and Proposal Summary. Template can be downloaded from this link:

MDA-MOST CFP 2012 Form

• If the applicant is a start-up, please refer the following URL for the rest of the application process

http://www.idm.sg/support/ijam/

• For all other industry applicants, refer to the following URL for the rest of the application process

http://www.idm.sg/scheme-summary/

2. Submit Application form and Proposal Summary, AND either iJAM application OR Futurescape application to email:

MDA_IDMPO@mda.gov.sg

Please indicate in the subject header [MOST-MDA CFP 2012 – “Company Name” ]

China Partner

The China partner of the applicate must do their own project submission in China. The application detail for the China partner can be found at

http://www.cistc.gov.cn/introduction/info_4.asp?column=375&id=78477

Deadline for submission:

18^th May 2012, 1700 HRS

Enquiries

For enquiries, please email to:

MDA_IDMPO@mda.gov.sg

Please use  “MOST-MDA CFP 2012 – Company Name – Query” as the subject.