Aaron Krish has always been an avid gamer since the young age of 12. His parents would always have to remind him to drop his Super Nintendo console and focus on his studies. Little did they know that 16 years later, Aaron would have a chance to do more in the gaming industry, by designing and publishing his own video game.

The opportunity to delve deeper into the gaming industry was an opportunity provided to Aaron by Temasek Polytechnic (TP) in partnership with the Singapore Media Development Authority (MDA). The eight-week internship program at the world-renown Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) saw Aaron working on a side-scrolling, two-dimensional platform game called Afterland.

“I’ve always wanted to design my own video game and TP made this a reality,” said Aaron. Aaron joined TP in 2009 after finding out that the polytechnic offered a game development course. “I’ve heard others say that video games are a waste of time. But they’re created by intelligent people. Plenty of thought, planning and engineering goes into them,” says Aaron, “it’s a real challenge crafting well-written storylines, designing visually appealing graphics and creating games that are playable and educational.”

Afterland was published in October last year under the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Labs. The five-year research initiative supported by MDA that addresses important challenges faced by the global digital game research community and industry.

A six-member team named Minus 5 from the DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore (DigiPen) took home two awards at the 3rd Annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) China which ended last Monday. They were one of three student teams from Singapore that together managed a clean sweep of awards in the student category of the competition, which recognises the best in independent video game development in the Pan-Pacific region. Their product, Void, also clinched the Excellence in Technology award in the main competition besides winning Best Student Game. The other winners are Pixi, a psychedelic 2-D action game that is also from DigiPen, and Robotany a garden-building sandbox game from the GAMBIT Game Lab. It is also noted that both DigiPen and the Singapore-MIT Game Lab are collaborations between government agencies here and the respective foreign institutions: the first with the Singapore Institute of Technology, and the second with the Media Development Authority of Singapore.

The DesignSingapore Council International Advisory Panel (IAP) recently concluded their seventh annual meeting by holding a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel to announce their latest findings and discussions. This year’s focus was on how design can be harnessed for new opportunities presented by rapid advances in digital technology. The panel that addressed members of the press were Christopher Bangle, Dick Powell, Richard Seymour and Hael Kobayashi.

Prof. Richard Seymour opened the panel with his conclusion that we are being “Slowed down not by the technology but by our imagination.” The panel had spend the better part of the week visting an Interactive Digital Media (IDM) research center and meeting with developers, researchers from other institutions and companies. The panel have come to realize that in terms of skill levels, the developer and designer communities have “Huge potentials in Singapore on both sides, but even greater potentials if we can get the two to work together,” was how Christopher Bangle put it. And to put his point across, he showed a quick sketch that symbolizes what the underlying problem was. Designers and developers don’t necessarily work together.

“So the work that has been happening for the last few days here has been around what types of approaches are there to bring these two sides into better confluence,” summarized Bangle.

Talking on the suggestions to help bring the communities together, Kobayashi mentioned that “We have incubators, accelerators and if we add prototypers to this where we are actually able to, as a catalyst, drive the incubators and the accelerators by bringing ideas to the surface more readily. Some of them will succeed, some of them will fail but we need to be able to do this, be able to illustrate our thinking. And if this were to really work, it could create that kind of effect where we see that in this fast reactor model we are able to push forward and this gives an advantage.” The fast reactor model is explained by Kobayashi as one “where we can rapidly engage with people and do a fair amount of designing.” A sort of fast iterating model which is focused not only on the tech, but also on consumer usability.

So the formula of the solution would look something like this:

“Work at a higher speed + more accurate way + more cost-effective + bringing ideas to market much faster = enhanced ROI”

The panel presented a work-in-progress model on how they believe the solution would look like on how specific and wonderful technologies can be better applied and end up as a great product. “The way to do that is to generate a lot of exciting visions upfront before you start handing out large amounts of money,” says Dick Powell.

Powell talks about combining new technologies with human-focused designs that could involve a foreign-based party to create an “open-sourced” model of vision sourcing. There will be matchmaking events and online facilitations to group these people from both communities together at the early stage of the idea conception. The program would then see these ideas through various stages of pitching and funding as they prototype the product that is both equally thought out on the technology and also the design aspects. This would help ensure that the products are not only strong in the tech side, but also on the usability aspect as the products are designed for the users. Imagine it here, Create it here, Develop & Make it here would be the three steps for the skeleton of the program.

Seymour also noted that when it comes to interpreting the word “design”, “Singapore needs its own language. It needs its own way of defining things and the very useful way of thinking about that is “designing” the verb rather than “design” the noun.” Seymour had also emphasized the importance of getting design right at the beginning of the press conference by stating, “Design is humanization.”

Today, concluding the seventh annual meeting of the DesignSingapore Council International Advisory Panel (IAP), the members put forward suggestions to use Design to harness new opportunities presented by rapid advances in digital technology. The panel, chaired by Mr. Edmund Cheng, comprises renowned international design and business leaders from Australia, the United States, Europe and Japan.

During their time in Singapore, the Panel visited an Interactive Digital Media (IDM) research centre, and also met researchers and developers from other research institutions and companies. This gave them an overview of the challenges for technology innovators in Singapore, setting the context for them to explore how Design can make a significant difference. By using Design as a differentiator, Singapore enterprises will also be able to change the shape of the growth curve with a better understanding of the user experience.

“Singapore business needs to be agile and flexible in order to take advantage of the investments in infocomm and media infrastructure,” said Mr. Cheng. “The Design process can help businesses better understand the new global consumer and how we can tailor a user experience that will create a competitive advantage for Singapore through game-changing innovation.”

The panel made some key observations that looked at better addressing economic challenges. Mr. Richard Seymour, Co-founder, Seymourpowell, concluded that there is “A Convenient Truth, where globally we’re not being held back by technology, but by our imagination. Singapore’s opportunity is to bring human needs and desires to technological innovation through design.”

Mr. Chris Bangle, Managing Director, Chris Bangle Associates Srl, elaborated, “Design is often misunderstood, especially in a business and technology context. The process should be referred to as ‘Designing’ because it is an interactive process that when applied at the outset of ideation, catalyses the adoption of technological innovation and acts as an economic multiplier.”

The IAP proposed the definition of “Designing” as a process which melds human needs and desires with industrial and technological capability, to create new and meaningful products, services and experiences. To demonstrate the relevance of ‘Designing’ to the technology, business and design communities, the Panel suggested that Singapore develop a global initiative, driven by international thought leaders from multiple disciplines to explore how Design has been integral to the success of some of the world’s most popular technology products. This platform would also clearly articulate Singapore’s ambition to focus on the global imperative to zoom in on human needs as a core principle of Designing and how products can be made more human and desirable.

“To encourage design and technology entrepreneurs to reach out beyond their disciplines more readily, Singapore has the opportunity to take the strategic lead in facilitating partnerships between these dynamic groups by producing a forum where ideas and prototypes can be explored and implemented,” said Mr. Hael Kobayashi, Associate Director, Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC), University of Technology Sydney.

The IAP also discussed the need for an infusion of global ideas and talent to work on projects germinated in Singapore. This could be supported by configuring a funding model, which could become self-sustaining; that would enable better idea generation through to product realisation with the addition of design at the outset of the process. To that end, the Panel outlined a process for the DesignSingapore Council to explore, labelled the Vision Engine: Fuelling Imagination and Innovation.

“There are three distinct steps to the Vision Engine which will reward ideas through collaboration. By providing micro-grants to foster ideas, as opposed to fully-formed prototypes, we can instantly amplify and accelerate innovation where technology and design are working hand-in-hand,” said Mr. Dick Powell, Co-founder, Seymourpowell. “We are taking away the fear of failure by configuring the funding system to be used to generate ideas, not business plans.”

Ideas that show a potential to leverage the Designing process to improve the user experience, could then be further funded in a lab environment. Should they make it to a prototype stage, there is the possibility to showcase the ideas internationally for venture capital funding. Additionally, this could be a way of attracting design and technology innovators from around the world to come to Singapore to develop new products.

Singapore’s multi-cultural background is also a key advantage and a good resource. “Singapore is well-placed to act as a global Microcosm that extends the government’s living lab concept by providing a reality-testing environment with superior, faster and more accurate development,” explained Mr. Toshiyuki Kita, Product Designer, Studio Toshiyuki KITA. “There is an opportunity for Singapore to share design insights with the wider global community and this will not only encourage great collaboration but also focus more attention on this global design city.”

DesignSingapore will review these proposals in further depth and work with sister Government agencies and parties in the private sector to test the feasibility of these plans and explore bringing these programmes to life.