It’s been an exciting 2 months for IDM as our fundees from NUS beat 56 teams from 17 countries in a competition lasting10 months to win the The Star Challenge@Fusionoplis organized by A*STAR, students from Team GAMBIT beat 350 other teams from over 100 countries to win the top prize in Microsoft’s XNA Dream-Build-Play Competition, and local companies PGK and PEM swept the Research and Development and e–Learning categories of the 2008 Asia Pacific ICT Awards.

Even our start-ups are starting to gain recognitions, as 6 of our companies beat competition from countries like China, India, Korea, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Vietnam to emerge as finalists in BusinessWeek’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in Asia, and the Red Herring 100 Asia 2008 awards.

IDMPO Companies at the Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2008
The Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) is an international Awards Program initiated by the Multimedia Development Corporation of Malaysia to increase ICT awareness in the community and assist in bridging the Digital Divide. The program is designed to stimulate ICT innovation and creativity, promote economic and trade relations, facilitate technology transfer, and offer business matching opportunities via exposure to venture capitalists and investors.

Out of 126 nominations submitted by 10 countries, Singapore emerged as the biggest winner with 3 submissions winning 3 out of 16 categories. Our winners, PGK Media and Personal e-Motion came in tops for the Research and Development and e-Learning categories, with the Central Provident Fund Board winning the e-Inclusion and e-Community category. Singapore also received 6 merit awards in the the other categories.

Winners received the awards from the Vice President of Indonesia, H.E. Jusuf Kalla when the awards were announced during the Gala Dinners and Award Ceremony earlier this month.

Institutes of Higher Learning

Microsoft XNA Dream-Build-Play Content 2008
GAMBIT won the first place prize of $40,000 for “CarneyVale: Showtime” in Microsoft’s XNA Dream-Build-Play 2008, a game development contest to create innovative and fun-to-play video games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. The Singapore team from GAMBIT beat 350 games entry from over 100 countries.

CarneyVale: Showtime is an acrobatic puzzle game where players are asked to complete various circus stunts. Bruce Chia from Team GAMBIT even built-in a circus map editor for players to create their own obstacles to overcome, bringing user-generated content to a new a level.

The Star Challenge @ Fusionopolis
Team NUS led by Professor Chua Tat Seng won the top prize of US$100,000 in Singapore’s Star Challenge@Fusionopolis organized by A*STAR, beating finalists from China, France, Japan and USA. It was a culmination of 10 months of intense competition involving 56 teams from 17 countries using new technologies and algorithms created by contestants to perform multimedia search on a multilingual database. The contestants included search engine enthusiasts as well as several of the world’s top laboratories.

Nokia Ubimedia Mindtrek Award 2008
Babbage Cabbage (http://babbagecabbage.mixedrealitylab.org), developed by researchers from the Mixed Reality Lab of National University of Singapore was recently been awarded third prize in the prestigious International Nokia Ubimedia Mindtrek Award 2008. The head of the jury explained how the project was so compelling and forward thinking, that he used it as an example in his university class to teach his students about the design of cutting edge interactive systems!

IDM Companies

Red Herring 100 Asia 2008 Awards
IDMPO is proud to note that 3 of its funded companies are included in the exclusive list of finalists who came from 16 countries/regions including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Vietnam.

The companies are 2C2P, Mozat and Telliwave.

Our “finalists were selected from across 16 countries and regions are all excellent contenders…,they are exceptional companies who thrive on innovation and strongly define the important role of technology in Asia’s economy and throughout the world.” said Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief of Red Herring.

The finalists and winning companies will be celebrated at the Red Herring 100 Asia event in Hong Kong, on December 2-3, 2008. The event brings together an elite roster of entrepreneurial and global venture investment firms to showcase excellence in innovation. It features two days of keynote discussions, roundtable panels and intimate networking events designed for participants to make connections and learn what it takes to achieve the best in business and technology in Asia.

About Red Herring
Red Herring is a global media company uniting the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine; an online daily technology news service; technology research, and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy. For more information, visit www.redherring.com.

About 2C2P
2C2P is an e-commerce payment provider offering innovative payment processing solutions for businesses with online e-commerce sites. 2C2P is in compliance with the highest security standards and utilizes the latest web 2.0 technologies extensively to process payments faster and to enhance user experience. 2C2P manages a complete transaction life-cycle, which includes payer authentication, payment authorization, payment routing, settlement and post-settlement dispute and chargeback management. Its customer portfolio includes government agencies, financial institutions and other large corporations.

Since it began operations, 2C2P has been continuously developing and launching new products to offer unequalled benefits to its users. For more information about the company, please visit www.2c2p.com.

About Mozat
MOZAT Pte Ltd was incorporated in 2003 by two PhD research scholars from the National University of Singapore with the mission to mobilize the world’s information and make it universally accessible from mobile devices and useful for everyone. MOZAT is dedicated in thorough investigation of different mobile development platforms and establishing the first device independent platform that can help worldwide developers build and deliver elegant and powerful mobile applications and services of any category. For more information, please visit www.mozat.com

About Telliwave
Teliwave Pte Ltd was incorporated in Singapore on April 2007 and has established itself to be an innovative and revolutionary company. Teliwave Pte Ltd aims to provide users with useful and inventive technologies that connect people and services, regardless of devices or networks, in a seamless integrated communication environment. Teliwave’s ground-breaking communication solution – the Hoiio mobile application is an innovative communication solution that empowers the user with a smarter way to stay in touch with their loved ones at a reduced cost through Hoiio’s global low call-rates. For more information, visit www.teliwave.com

SIGGRAPH Asia 2008
The first ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia opens in Singapore on 10 December 2008.

For four fascinating days, SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 will extend the horizons of innovation and excellence. It will feature creative, scientific, and educational work that provokes thought, explores ideas in innovative ways, addresses contemporary issues, interactively engages viewers in discovery, and stimulates their intellect and imagination.

Visit event website

Italian animation firm sets up $25m gaming unit here
Singapore’s video games industry gets a boost as Italy’s top animation company Rainbow invests $25 million in a new gaming unit here, to create a virtual world based on its popular Winx Club fantasy franchise.

Rainbow’s chief executive office Iginio Straffi said at a press briefing yesterday that the studio in Chinatown is expected to have about 100 full-time employees by 2011. Right now, it has 12, half of them Singaporeans.

Mr Straffi – married to Singaporean Joanne Lee, who is an executive vice-president of the company – said the upcoming game is expected to create jobs for another 200 people such as external freelance artists.

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