Archive Nov'11

Dear readers,

Welcome to the School of Interactive & Digital Media (SIDM).

We are coming to the end of another exciting year, 2011. Our students have reasonably settled into their second semester and for the final year students they are just one semester away from graduating.

All the best to them ! Looking forward to FUSION12, their graduation show in March 2012

Let me take this opportunity to update our readers on some of the happenings recently.

SIDM has just extended its Sony PlayStation collaboration with Sony CE Asia for another 5 years. What this means is that through our Game Resource Centre (GRC), we will continue to provide the necessary PS3 game development training to our full-time game students and participants of the Specialist Diploma in Games Development. Thanks to Sony CE Asia, we are able to continue our support to startups working on the PS game platforms as well. We are heartened to note that 2 of the startups, Dark Potato Studios, founded by our graduates and Red Hare Studios are progressing well in publishing their games with SCE Asia.

SIDM is also happy to note that our experience and effort in setting up the GRC has been recognized by MDA – the Media Development Authority of Singapore. We were recently appointed as centre manager of MDA’s Games Solution Centre (GSC) to do the same but at a larger scale and reach. With more game startups in the GSC, we hope to provide more opportunities in game development, attachment and employment for our students. The GSC is located at Level 4, Block 71, Ayer Rajah Crescent.

On the international front, our students were also busy collaborating with their counterparts through our student exchange and attachment programs with institutions and organisations in LA, Seattle and Boston in USA, Beijing, Suzhou and Guangzhou, China, and Nagoya in Japan. Our target is to give as many of our students to have such an exposure.

Finally, we would like to congratulate our alumnus, Ms C S Ling for having been conferred Singapore Women’s Weekly Greatest Women of Our Times 2011 (Arts & Media) and Ms Marilyn Tham, who recently represented Singapore at the World Skills International Competition 2011 in London. Marilyn beat 25 other countries and returned with a Medallion of Excellence for her effort in the Graphic Technology trade. This adds to the Gold, the School won in 2009.

We would also like to congratulate the 10 recent graduates who secured MDA and Singapore Institute of Technology scholarships to pursue their studies at DigiPen Singapore, as well as the 15 alumni who recently graduated from NTU. We wish all of them every success in their future endeavors.

To the graduating batch of O-level students who are looking for diploma courses in the IDM industry, do check our 6 diplomas out – be it in animation, games art and design, entertainment technology (C++ programming), motion graphics, digital visual effects and interaction design (web design). Come for our Open House in January 2012 or if you like, send me an email (daniel_tan@nyp.gov.sg) for more information.

I would like to end off with a quote from a fellow educator, Mr James McCampbell, Department Head, Computer Animation, from Ringling College, one of the top animation schools in USA in 2011.

“Ringling College of Art & Design has had great success with the students we have received from Nanyang Polytechnic. Nanyang's dedication to teaching the fundamentals of art and design has given their students the solid foundation necessary to excel in Ringling College's highly-competitive computer animation major. We have consistently found the Nanyang Polytechnic students to be extremely professional and well-prepared. You can judge the quality of an educational institution by the graduates it produces, and this is why I feel that Nanyang Polytechnic is one of Singapore's most well-respected and successful educational opportunities.”

Best Regards

Director, School of Interactive & Digital Media
Nanyang Polytechnic