To date, 500 RSEs (researchers, scientists and engineers) have been engaged. We have also attracted some of the best universities around Asia, Europe and US to jointly establish R&D centres with our IHLs Thus far, we have established – or are in the process of establishing – 7 joint centres.

10 specialized incubators have committed to nurture over 400 start-ups and develop 2,000 entrepreneurial talents from across the country. Some 400 of our young technoprenuers, including many overseas students and permanent residents, are taking their ideas to market.

Further, we have mobilized over 60 VCs, angels and incubators to support these startups once they are ready to seek more funding. In parallel, we have been able to draw on the support of key leading global players such as Apple, Microsoft and HP to extend their technological and to-market outreach to help our startups access the global market. A number of our startups are already serving millions users in more than 200 countries, and becoming leading players in key IDM sub-sectors.

Further ahead, we want to imbue the ecosystem with a spirit of innovation and a culture of R&D. We need the industry to embrace R&D as its engine for growth, private-sector activism to help groom and grow our startups for global reach, and inspiring result outcomes to secure a stake in the next generation media.

A look at our Milestones in 2008

January

• The International Expert Panel (IEP) met on 14-16 Jan 08 to evaluate 27 proposals submitted for the second call for IDM in Education. The results were announced on 24 Mar 08. MOE awarded $4.13M to 4 research proposals on education.

February

• The IDMPO has developed a concept to tie in existing areas of IDM R&D and provide focus for the sector. Referring to this as “Co-Space”, we expect this to be the cornerstone of the next generation media.

March

• MOE launched the third call on 24 Mar 08, focusing on the use of IDM for participatory learning to bridge formal and informal learning environments as well as for alternative modes of assessment.

April

• Nanyang Technological University launched the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI), which would bring together 100 researchers from a range of disciplines, including art and design, engineering and education, focusing on the mega-trends in IDM research today such as next-generation multimedia search, advanced “intelligence” in media, as well as innovative digital cinema and television.

June

• MediaCorp Technologies to set up their Interactive Digital Lab. The IDM Lab, housed in Caldecott Broadcast Centre, will work with renowned research institutions e.g. A*Star, NUS, NTU in R&D areas such as scalable Video Coding, Video indexing, search and retrieval system, Interactive Mobile, P2P streaming technology and Language Translation.Read more.

July

• Local IDM startups and companies get a boost in their pockets thanks to the i.MATCH initiative, which aimed at bridging funding gaps in local IDM sector. The initiative meant to help raise the investment needed by IDM companies to further commercialise and develop their products and their companies. Read more.
• The Keio University, a top institute in Japan, sets up a research centre here with the National University of Singapore. Some 50 researchers from Japan and Singapore will be involved in the Centre. Read more.
• Singapore’s Interactive Digital Media sector was given a S$70 million boost. The money will be set aside to attract more international research centres to partner local institutes of higher learning and set up research centres in Singapore.

August

• Working with IDMPO, Hewlett-Packard is now calling Singapore IDM companies to submit their mediascape proposals using HP’s mScape software. Read more.

September

• 13 projects from local universities will be given a total of $18 million for IDM R&D in Co-Space technologies. This marks the second round of grants handed out to promote research in IDM. Read more.

October

• 15 firms that were selected from the inaugural Co-Space Industry Call for Proposals, received $12m from the IDMPO for digital media projects. The funding is expected to achieve for Singapore an increase of some $37 million in total business spending, 240 new jobs, and create platforms and services that will support some 1,300 third-party applications. Read more.
• The Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF), together with the IDM Research and Development Programme Office (IDMPO), will offer up to S$10 million worth of funding for a new mentorship programme. Read more.
• Team GAMBIT won Microsoft’s global Xbox game development challenge, beating 7800 participants from 100 countries. Read more.

November

• Our attempt to become a port-of-call for digital media companies is starting to materialise with more gaming studios and animation companies docking their regional operations in the city-state. Read more.
• Singapore’s fledgling online video game industry has attracted European animation giant Rainbow, which is investing $25 million to create a new game here. Read more.

December

• Singapore can become a world-class media hotbed, say participants of the first Asian edition of SIGGRAPH, one of the world’s most renowned trade shows on computer graphics and interactive techniques. Industry heavyweights Lucasfilm, Pixar, Autodesk and others at the show are bullish about Singapore’s investments in this sector. Read more.
• Singapore is trying to position itself as a media powerhouse. The republic announced a billion-dollar media hub, the Mediapolis, which will be completed by 2020.
• GAME developers here will now be able to create games using free software and publish them on an established online marketplace. They also get a chance to apply for a $50,000 grant to develop these games. Microsoft Singapore said the Republic’s game developers will be the first in Asia, ahead of more mature markets like Japan and Korea, to publish games online on its Community Games Channel. Read more.

Serene Luo from The Straits times looks at three funded projects that are yielding interesting results.

Jazzing up the games sector

FUNDING from the Government for scientific research and development, which helped push it to a record 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product last year, will not be cut in the current economic downturn, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong promised yesterday.

He said the Government remained ‘fully committed’ to its investment in R&D as a vital driver of the economy for the future.

Speaking at the opening of science and technology research centre Fusionopolis, Mr Lee said: ‘Our R&D programme takes a longer-term perspective. It will proceed despite these immediate ups and downs. Its funding will not be affected.’

R&D spending here ballooned by 26 per cent, from $5 billion in 2006 to $6.33 billion last year, its largest annual increase.

One-third of this came from the Government.

‘Our steady commitment will continue to draw researchers to set up and root their research activities in Singapore and give investors the confidence to establish high-tech industries and corporate R&D centres here,’ said Mr Lee.

Spending is well on track to hit its target of 3 per cent of GDP by 2010, he added, and the private sector’s huge share is a good sign.

‘This balance assures us that we are on the right track and that the R&D being done in Singapore is market-oriented and productive,’ he told the audience of about 400 scientists and industry players.

Fusionopolis, the second major research hub to be built in five years, will group together institutes in the physical sciences, engineering and digital technology.

It is the high-tech mirror to its sister in the biomedical sciences, Biopolis, 600m away on North Buona Vista Road.

Biopolis, conceived as a fertile breeding-ground for research, now boasts six research institutes and 10 companies doing research in stem cells, infectious diseases and bioengineering, among others.

The national Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), which leads science research here, has the same high hopes for Fusionopolis.

Said its chairman, Mr Lim Chuan Poh: ‘It could happen over lunch or a chance encounter in the lift, or even at formal meetings. There are many opportunities for ideas to spark when scientists talk to each other.’

Though the scale of Singapore’s R&D effort is new, R&D itself has played an important role in Singapore’s industrial development, Mr Lee said.

As an example, work from the Data Storage Institute, which has now moved to Fusionopolis, helped propel Singapore’s disk drive industry.

More than 20 years ago, Singapore had a 45 per cent share of the global hard disk drive market.

Today, it has a close to 80 per cent share of the world’s market for high-end enterprise disk drives, thanks to the R&D investments in the field.

So far, 13 companies have joined three research institutes at Fusionopolis, said PM Lee.

Another advanced digital sciences centre will be set up in January by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, partnering with A*Star.

The Media Development Authority is also providing $12 million in funding to 15 projects in interactive digital media R&D.

‘Our public research institutions are the bridge that translates public R&D into useful outcomes for the economy and society,’ noted Mr Lee.

They have done this by intertwining their research programmes with the needs of industry, providing companies access to new knowledge and competitive innovative technologies, he said.

To help companies bring their ideas to market, or spark interest in potential investors, the Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board and the Economic Development Board will also set up shop in Fusionopolis.

Along with Biopolis, it brings together in one location – one-north – the major research areas that Singapore has earmarked for higher-value economic growth, to complement its manufacturing sector.

The number of researchers in Singapore last year hit a record of 27,301, up from 25,033 in 2006. About 60 per cent are in the private sector.

It is the meshing of high-quality research and industrial links in one location that is a selling point of Fusionopolis, say its tenants.

Said the vice-chancellor for research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mr Ravi Iyer: ‘It is a great advantage to have companies who are interested in our work also located in Fusionopolis. Plus, we have access to A*Star’s scientists and research facilities.’

Source: The Straits Times

Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society
The Move to Fusionopolis
$18m boost for IDM projects
International Experts Impressed with IDM Efforts
KooBits and PGK Media Wins the InfoComm Singapore Awards 2008
Developments of GAMBIT

Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society

The Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (AIMS) was established in April 2007 to study the far-reaching social, ethical, legal and regulatory implications of a rapidly growing Interactive Digital Media (IDM) sector and to make recommendations to the Government on how these issues should be managed while keeping pace with the development of IDM in Singapore.

For the first AIMS report, AIMS has decided to deal with four time-sensitive issues: e-engagement (or how the Government can use new media to better interact with the public), the regulation of online political content, the protection of minors, and intermediary immunity for online defamation.

Read on
AIMS consultation paper – Engaging new media, challenging old assumptions
Visit the website at www.aims.org.sg

The Move to Fusionopolis

IDMPO, hosted by MDA, has moved to its new home at Fusionopolis this month. With room to grow in the new and spacious building, the IDMPO can expand its operations to play its catalytic role in developing the interactive digital media sector here.

We are also excited about the Singapore Media Fusion (SMF) Centre, which will occupy Level 11 in one of the towers, Symbiosis. The centre will provide a physical environment that brings together the key players in the IDM sector through multitude of collaborative activities. It also will also showcase capabilities of local interactive digital media technologies. Fusionopolis is going to be the central place for digital media, with enough critical mass to generate innovation as a result of its focus on R&D.

$18m boost for IDM projects

13 projects from local Institutes of Higher Learning (IHL) will be given a total of $18 million to do R&D in interactive digital media (IDM). It marks the second round of grants handed out by IDMPO to IHLs. Fourteen projects were selected in the first round last year, and about $22 million was given out.

A panel of international scholars and industry experts was invited to pick the winners out of 85 applicants.

‘It was very difficult to reject projects because they were so good,’ said one of the panelists, Dr
Jose Encarnacao, a computer science expert from Germany. ‘We could have easily accepted twice as many,’ he said.

The funding, which typically goes towards projects with potential for commercial spin-offs, has been a boon for some local researchers. Last year, National University of Singapore researcher Chua Tat Seng received funding for a project that aimed to make video and picture searches more accurate and efficient. The technology has since been picked up by Comcast Corporation, the United States’ largest cable TV provider and one of its largest Internet providers.

International Experts Impressed with IDM Efforts

Overall, the panel concluded that the progress made in the last year was very substantial and exciting. The IRP were impressed by the companies and startups they saw, such as Koobits, Morange, Garena, Fresbo and thought that they had potential to become global players. The Chairman/IRP Dr John Seely Brown said, “I am stunned by your young entrepreneurs. I felt that I could have the exact same conversations in Silicon Valley. I am amazed that Singapore could make that transition within the last two years.”

More related news
18M Boost for IDM Projects

KooBits and PGK Media Wins the InfoComm Singapore Awards 2008

KooBits, an innovative ICT authoring platform developed by Personal e-Motion Pte Ltd, and PGK Media was awarded with the Infocomm Singapore Awards 2008 at the awards ceremony held on Friday night at the National Library penthouse in Singapore.

Personal e-Motion emerged as winner in the competitive e-Education category, earning the credit and recognition for its effort in developing an innovative authoring platform for students and teachers to easily create interactive animated e-books and other multimedia content.

PGK Media emerged as winner in the competitive Research & Development category, earning the credit and recognition for its effort in developing various innovative and world-first products and applications.

Both winners are companies funded by IDM R&D Programme Office (IDMPO)

“We would like to thanks the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation for the accreditation and the Media Development Authority of Singapore and Interactive Digital Media Project Office for their extensive support which was pivotal in bringing to reality many cutting edge projects.” said Mr Giulio Dorrucci, Chairman & CEO of PGK Media.

Mr Stanley Han, General Manager and Co-Founder of Personal e-Motion also thanked the Media Development Authority of Singapore and Interactive Digital Media Project Office, “for their extensive support which was pivotal in bringing to reality many cutting edge projects.”

Personal e-Motion, PGK Media, together with other SITF awarded companies and institutes, will represent Singapore in the international Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards which will be held in Jakarta in November 2008, and bring recognition to Singapore as one of the leading provider for interactive digital media, ICT tools and platform.

Developments of GAMBIT

The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Games Lab, one of our Institutes of Higher Learning, produced its second batch of students from the recent 2008 Summer Internship Programme. 45 students from the local Institutes of Higher Learning interned at MIT for 9 weeks to produce a total of seven games. Practical hands-on experience learnt throughout the course of the internship helped nurture creative thinking among Singaporean youths and build talent capacity for the local gaming industry.

Students who participated in GAMBIT showcased their projects in a media briefing held on 9 Sept and the Games Convention Asia 2008.

Read more about Singapore’s Strengths in Games

Singapore, 4 September 2008 – Imagine the convenience of practising yoga at home by wearing a special suit that tells you what positions to adopt through sensors in realtime and without the need of a physical coach.

This, along with 12 other proposals, were selected for S$18m in funding by a panel of international experts following a call for proposals by the multi-agency1 Interactive Digital Media Research and Development Programme Office (IDMPO) hosted by the Media Development Authority (MDA). These projects are expected to involve 120 local researchers with a range of international collaborators from six countries – USA, UK, Australia, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong – as well as deliver some 25 patents and 200 research papers.

Focusing on the research theme of Co-space, the proposals, selected out of 85 submissions, aim to make the virtual world more real by injecting human sensory and intelligence into the virtual through the use of sensors and haptic devices which mimic the sense of touch, and possibly even emotion.

The International Review Panel (IRP), which advises the IDMPO, met from 1 to 4 September. Apart from giving their recommendations on the projects, the IRP also felt that the progress made in the last year has been substantial and exciting.

The Co-Chairman of the IRP, Dr John Seely Brown, a Visiting Scholar and Advisory to the Provost at the University of Southern California (USC) said: “Many of the start-ups and young entrepreneurs have the potential to become global players. I am stunned by the young entrepreneurs in Singapore. I felt that I could have the exact same conversation with them as with their counterparts in Silicon Valley. I am amazed that Singapore could make that transition within a couple of years.”

The 13 projects cover five critical areas: Injecting more intelligence into the virtual world through, for example, the development of autonomous and context-aware avatars; greater integration between real and virtual worlds by inventing new form of interfaces that make “technologies disappear”; projects that mimic and simulate the sense of touch and other human emotions to enrich the virtual experience; addressing privacy and trust challenges in virtual worlds as it becomes increasingly fused with our daily life; and, enabling projects that are able to better manipulate and organise information from a myriad of new data types that capture senses and rich media.

Singapore’s efforts to spark off growth in the IDM sector have led to an overarching strategy to bring about a sustainable ecosystem. This involves synergising four key groups of stakeholders: Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), industry players, start-ups and individuals, and schools. To-date, most Singapore IHLs have established multidiscipline IDM research and innovation centres. This is complemented by the presence of a growing network of the world’s leading institutions which have set up joint R&D centers in Singapore. They include GAMBIT Game Lab by Singapore and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the China-Singapore Institute of Digital Media by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the recent Keio-NUS Connective Ubiquitous Technology for Embodiments (CUTE) Centre by Keio University.

Other growth milestones include the embracing of new media by local flagship media companies, some of which have invested heavily in IDM R&D with the support from IDMPO to create innovative services and IDM research labs such as Singapore Press Holding’s recent RazorTV and ST Electronics’ Centre in Interactive Media (CiM).

IDMPO has also unleashed grassroots innovation in IDM and some young start-ups have successfully attracted funding from private investors to take their ideas to the next stage. This year, IDMPO is pushing for IDM to be embraced within key sectors. To-date, some 11 key sectors such as healthcare, sports, transport, design and leisure are involved in leveraging on IDM to bring about innovative and exciting services. The IRP was excited about this strategic thrust and urged the IDMPO to deepen the engagement, by co-creating compelling breakthroughs for the global market.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Jasmine Wong
Assistant Manager, Communications
Media Development Authority of Singapore
Mobile: 9296-7004
Email: jasmine_wong@mda.gov.sg

Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA)
The Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) was formed on 1 January 2003 to champion Media 21, a blueprint to transform Singapore into a global media city. Media 21 seeks to create a vibrant media environment by establishing Singapore as a media exchange, exporting Made-by-Singapore content, internationalising local media companies, nurturing local media talent and developing digital media. More information on MDA can be found on www.mda.gov.sg

Interactive & Digital Media (IDM) Sector
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 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 of Singapore to oversee R&D initiatives in the IDM space. This multiagency team is accountable to the IDM Executive Committee and coordinates a cross-disciplinary effort to deepen Singapore’s research capacity in IDM.

About Co-space
Co-space which has been identified as the next generation of the web where physical places coexist with dynamic, real-time virtual environments to provide users with the ability to process and manipulate information seamlessly between both the physical and virtual space. The concept underscores Singapore’s aspiration to be a player in the next generation Internet, where the web will become even more pervasive, immersive, and integrated into our daily lives.

About International Review Panel (IRP)
In 2007, five luminaries in the field of new media were appointed to the IRP for the IDM R&D Programme Office hosted by the Media Development Authority. Chartered to review the overall direction of IDM R&D, the IRP advises the IDMPO on strategic areas of IDM research and development as well as environment and culture of a vibrant IDM R&D community in Singapore. In addition, the IRP will select and recommend research projects submitted by the local Institutes of Higher Learning through an annual call for proposals.

RAdm (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, Senior Minister of State for Education and Information, Communications and the Arts, announced the initiative at the i.JAM Networking Session. The initiative is meant to help raise the investment needed by IDM companies to further commercialise and develop their products and their companies.

This is done by putting selected companies through an intensive programme consisting of business planning and presentation classes, business plan improvement meetings, and personal coaching sessions.

These companies will then pitch their products to venture capitalists and other investors who might be interested in their products. On top of the private investments, the companies also qualify for R&D grants from IMDMPO or co-investment by SPRING SEEDS Capital of Spring Singapore.

So far, the initiative has signed up 40 potential investors, including big names like SPH, ST Electronics, Mediacorp Technologies, IDG Ventures Vietnam, and Stream Global.

This initiative is part of IDMPO’s ongoing effort to create an interlocking ecosystem between the four key groups in IDM R&D, which are institutes of higher learning, industry players, start-ups and individuals, and schools, to create innovation and capacity in the IDM industry.

Source: Business Times Online

Other i.MATCH related news

MDA launches iMATCH to bridge funding gap for IDM startups (Channel News Asia)
IDM start-ups to get boost from i.MATCH initiative (Business Times)
MATCH to boost local IDM companies’ search for funding (Berita Harian)
IDM start-ups to get boost from i.MATCH initiative (Business Times Online)
MDA help for digital media startups (The New Paper)
MDA sets digital fund, new niche TV (The Hollywood Reporter)
Singapore govt to support interactive digital media startups (IndiaTelevision.com)

View the full press release (PDF)