Press Release - N.E.

W AUTHOR – INTERACTIVE DIGITAL BOOK

COMPETITION

“N.E.w Author” - Singapore’s Next Generation Creative Authors

As Interactive Digital Media (IDM) plays an ever increasing important role in teaching
and learning, the first ever nation-wide National Education (NE) related interactive
digital book writing competition
“N.E.w Author – Interactive Digital Book Competition”,
is organized for Singapore Primary School students to do creative writing, designing truly
interactive multimedia e-books using the most advanced authoring platform.

“N.E.w Author - Interactive Digital Book Competition” is a nation-wide digital writing

competition open to all Singapore primary school students. In this competition,
participants have developed digital story-telling books making use of a variety of
National Education related digital resources, such as image, video, animation and sound,
and combine them into a truly interactive e-book. This competition aims to engage the
interest of technologically savvy young students and connects this interest more closely
with the promotion of National Education through the use of new IDM (Interactive
Digital Media) application tools and software platform.

This event is jointly presented to you by Zhonghua Primary School, Personal e-Motion
Pte Ltd, and supported by Nexus (Central National Education Office), MOE (National
Education Branch, Ministry of Education), MDA (Media Development Authority of
Singapore) and the NYAA (National Youth Achievement Award) Council.

Your journalist and camera crew are invited to the Awards Presentation Ceremony
happening on 30 August 2008 (Saturday), from 10am to 12 noon at Zhonghua Primary
School. Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs & Mayor, North East District Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC will be
gracing the occasion. "As highlighted by the PM in his National Day Rally speech about
the new media, this project serves as a good learning curve for students to use IDM to
reach out. I encourage more students to get interactive and to go the IDM-way."

We would also like to invite your journalist to arrange 1-to-1 interviews with some of the
primary students on their experience. The interviews can be scheduled anytime between
25th to 30th August 2008.

The organizing committee of this event aspires to make it the best National Education
(NE) digital book competition in Singapore and to encourage more students to be
passionate about NE, and to actively develop National Education resources through the
creative use of interactive digital media.
This competition has attracted more than 1,400 students from 64 Primary Schools in
Singapore. The students have participated and received the training on NE and Digital
Publishing workshops, and more than 400 entries were received for the competition.

The publishing tool used by the participants in this competition is called KooBits. It is
developed by a NUS spin-off IT company – Personal e-Motion Pte Ltd, founded by Mr
Stanley Han, Dr Xiangdong Chen and Professor Shuzhi Sam Ge, from Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering and Interactive Digital Media Institute.

KooBits offers an intuitive and effective platform where children can easily express their
ideas using different digital media, and create content that caters various senses of the
readers. Not only the process of KooBits authoring is highly interactive and intuitive, it
too has depth. Authors can go deeper to the next level of complexity, and create amazing
e-books that provide readers with an enjoyable and interactive experience. The “real-
time-ness” of KooBits greatly shortens the production cycles of making publications, and
helps to deliver content from authors to readers in no time. All the students’ work are
created using KooBits and are available at www.koobits.com. The viewer software to
view the e-books is freely downloadable.

Contact Information:

Stanley Han Xiaoyan (Mr)

Mobile: 94790296
Tel: 68732370 Fax: 68732309
Email: stanleyhan@personalemotion.com
Website: www.koobits.com
SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS of N.E.w Author competition

Nexus (Central National Education Office)

Nexus plays a leading role in developing a shared sense of nationhood among Singaporeans. It contributes
towards building a Singapore where every citizen takes pride in being a Singaporean, is confident of our
future and is committed to Singapore. To drive a comprehensive and coordinated nation-wide National
Education effort, in partnership with relevant organisations.
To achieve this, we:
• Lead in the strategic planning and coordination of National Education efforts at the national level;
• Evolve into a key resource hub that actively develops National Education resources, provides
comprehensive links to related resources and equips practitioners with the skills to use these resources; and
• Initiate and facilitate the development of new and creative National Education programmes, events and
activities that will touch the hearts and minds of the participants.
Website: http://www.nexus.gov.sg

MOE (Ministry of Education - National Education Branch)

The Ministry Of Education directs the formulation and implementation of education policies. It has control of
the development and administration of the Government and Government-aided primary schools, secondary
schools, junior colleges, and a centralised institute. It also registers private schools.
Website: http://www.moe.gov.sg

Media Development Authority (MDA)

Formed in 2003, the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA)plays a vital role in transforming
Singapore into a Global Media City and positioning it at the forefront of the digital media age. MDA
spearheads initiatives that promote developments in film, video, television, radio,publishing, music, games,
animation, media services and Interactive Digital Media. At the same time, in ensuring clear and consistent
regulatory policies and guidelines, MDA helps to foster a pro-business environment for industry players and
increase media choices for consumers.
Website: www.mda.gov.sg and www.smf.sg

NYAA (National Youth Achievement Award) Council

The National youth Achievement Award is an exciting personal challenge to young people between the ages
of 14 and 25. It is a balanced programme of activities designed to equip youth with personal qualities and
skills to make a difference to themselves, their communities and their world.
Website: http://www.nyaa.org