Award-Winning Ideas at Express IT! iN2015 Competition

More than 3,000 entries were received over two months in a competition to get Singaporeans to share their vision of how they expect infocomm technologies to impact their lives in the next 10 years.

Organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the Express IT! IN2015 competition was launched in May this year. It centred on the theme "Infocomm and I in 2015: How technology can help me learn, work and pay?". Respondents were free to submit their entries through a myriad of conventional and digital mediums from essays, drawings to digital photographs and videos.

The contest was aimed at engaging key audiences of the "three Ps" of the iN2015 initiative. These are the people, public and private sectors respectively. It provided an avenue for Singaporeans to contribute ideas to help shape iN2015, a 10-year masterplan which aims to grow the Infocomm sector in Singapore.

The top nine winners of the competition, which ended on 22 July, received their awards from Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, Dr Balaji Sadasivan, at the NTUC Centre Auditorium last month.

"The entries in the Express IT! iN2015 competition show that Singaporeans recognise how technology can be used to our advantage," Dr Sadasivan said.

"Many of you painted a very colourful, but challenging infocomm future for Singapore. Colourful because all the ideas show much interest in an infocomm-enabled future. Challenging because the ideas can only be implemented with the combined commitment of the government, industry and people. However, challenging doesn't mean impossible. It just means the work is now cut out for every one of us, but I am confident that we can create this future together," he stressed.

Ten-year-old Kean Lin Weijun's entry, a drawing of the digital future with virtual reality games , earned him the top prize of $3,000 in the primary category, as well as $10,000 for his school, Xingnan Primary School. The team from Tampines Junior Challenge came in tops in the secondary and pre-university category, earning themselves $5,000 and $10,000 for their school. Web designer Ms Jaqueline Aw went away with the $8,000 grand prize in the open category. Besides the top three prizes, 21 other entries were presented with merit awards.

All the contest entries can be viewed online at www.in2015.sg. The winning entries will also be making their rounds across three regional libraries in Singapore such as Woodlands regional library, Tampines regional library and Jurong regional library over the next two months.