Mr. John White, Chief Executive Officer, ACM
Mr. Scott Owen, President, ACM SIGGRAPH
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning. I am delighted to join you today at the opening of SIGGRAPH Asia 2008.
2 Today’s event is highly significant as this is the inaugural Asia edition of The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques. The hosting of this event in Asia for the first time signifies the increasingly important role that the region is playing in the world of Interactive Digital Media, or IDM for short. Singapore is proud and excited to be the first Asian country to play host to this event that celebrates the creativity, passion and excellence of the digital media industry. It is also a privilege for me today to be in the company of some of the brightest and most creative minds in this sector.
3 Asia leads all regions by accounting for almost 40 per cent of the world’s Internet users, but the region’s population penetration rate for Internet is only 15.3 per cent, compared to the penetration rate of 48 per cent for Europe and almost 74 per cent for North America. Asia offers immense potential as there remains a large, untapped market waiting to join the Internet revolution. These ‘base of pyramid’ markets are equally in need of new ways to connect, communicate and share with each other, and opportunities abound for the implementation of IDM to create “barrier free” local, regional and global social connectivity that will create deep and long-lasting impact for the people in Asia.
Strong support for IDM in Singapore
4 Singapore has identified the IDM sector as a strategic area of growth, and the government has committed S$500 million to develop our R&D capability in areas where Singapore can gain a strategic lead. A holistic programme has been put in place to encourage entrepreneurship, test-bedding and explorations in IDM from stakeholders in the industry, institutes of higher learning and start-ups. Approximately 200 R&D projects involving some 2,000 researchers, engineers and start-ups have been supported to date.
5 Our multi-agency Interactive Digital Media R&D Programme Office, or IDMPO, established in 2006, supports research and development in IDM. We believe in working with the best in the world to build our pool of R&D talent. We actively encourage the coupling of local institutions with top foreign universities in collaborative research, and we have established research centres in Singapore with institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for next generation game development, Chinese Academy of Sciences for communication mediation, and Keio University in Japan for research into wearable and pervasive media. We have also recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology of the University of California (Irvine) for long term synergistic research in Experiential Media Systems.
6 In fact, just yesterday, Minister (MICA) Dr Lee Boon Yang announced plans to develop a media hub, the Mediapolis @ one-north, to further bolster Singapore’s media infrastructure. We are excited by this vision to create the ideal home for international and local media companies, media schools and R&D firms. Mediapolis @ one-north will leverage the arts and creative community at Wessex Estate, as well as the science and technology R&D community at Fusionopolis, along with the institutes of higher learning in the vicinity of the media hub. I am looking forward to the first quarter of next year, when a total of 1.2 hectares of land for Mediapolis @ one-north will be made available for development.
Increasing visibility in the global arena
7 Singapore’s IDM industry is seeing good growth in recent years. Local companies are developing original intellectual properties across multiple media platforms, widening their appeal and winning new audiences through books, electronic games, merchandise, interactive websites and other media forms.
8 We are seeing more success stories. In October, our interns from the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab beat 350 entries from 100 countries to come up tops in the 2008 Microsoft XNA Dream-Build-Play competition. They received the top prize of US$40,000 for “CarneyVale: Showtime”, an acrobatic puzzle game.
9 In the same month, a team from the National University of Singapore demonstrated the quality of their research when it clinched the top prize of US$100,000 at the Grand Finals of The Star Challenge@Fusionopolis, beating finalists from countries such as China, France, Japan and USA. This 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.
10 I am proud to note that our start-ups are also proving their mettle in the competitive global markets. Five of our local entrepreneurs were recently nominated as finalists in the 2008 Business Week list of Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneurs. It is heartening that many of these companies are starting to find investments and interesting market strategies that are helping them to commercialise quickly as a business.
11 The vibrancy of Singapore’s IDM industry was also greatly enhanced by the slate of leading companies establishing their presence in Singapore this year. They include familiar names such as Ubisoft from France, Electronic Arts and Linden Labs from the US, Real U from Germany, Softworld from Taiwan, Sunwoo Animation from Korea, and most recently, Rainbow from Italy. These companies have all chosen to leverage our position as Asia’s leading digital media hub to site regional operations and develop content for international markets.
Conclusion
12 Ladies and gentlemen, it is our strong belief that even in these uncertain times, compelling innovation and a strong desire for breakthrough will continue to be the driving force for stakeholders and users in the IDM sector.
13 I am certain that the exchange of minds and myriad of business opportunities on offer at SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 will ensure you have a very fulfilling and fruitful time in the few days ahead. On this note, it is my pleasure to now declare SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 officially open.
Thank you.
