04400

25 Sep 00

RESULTS OF THE 16TH NATIONAL SOFTWARE COMPETITION

        The 16th National Software Competition (NSC), organised and hosted by the Ministry of Education, was held on 23 Sep 2000 at Singapore Polytechnic. Professor Harcharan Singh, Dean, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University was the Guest-of-Honour. The NSC was also co-hosted by the Singapore Polytechnic and supported by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. The lists of winners of the competition and all participating schools are attached at Annex A and B respectively. 
2.    The National Software Competition, which comprised two events, was opened to Primary School, Secondary School, Junior College and Centralised Institute students. The objectives of the competition were to: · promote Information Technology (IT) culture in schools; · develop students' creativity in the use of IT; · challenge students' skills in solving problems on the computer; and · promote and sustain interest in computer programming.

3.   One of the events, the Individual Event for Secondary School students who were not prize-winners at any previous programming competitions, was held on 1 July 2000. This was a new feature and it attracted a total of 59 student-participants from 30 secondary schools. Participants who achieved certain levels of competency were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals.

4.   The other event, the Team Event, consisted of two sections, the Algorithm Section for Secondary Schools, Junior Colleges and Centralised Institutes and the Multimedia Section for Primary Schools and Secondary Schools. In the Algorithm Section, teams of three were required to solve four programming problems within two hours. Teamwork, problem solving skills, speed and accuracy were the main factors for success in this event. Participants from 39 Secondary Schools and 15 Junior Colleges competed in this event. In the Multimedia Section, teams of three had to design an animated multimedia project based on the theme "A Good Deed". Clarity of theme, effective use of multimedia elements, artwork and teamwork were the main criteria for the evaluation of the projects. A total of 47 entries for the Primary Schools Category and 38 entries for the Secondary Schools Category were received. Eight teams from each category were short-listed for the final judging.

5.   The main sponsor of this competition is the Singapore Information Technology Federation. A list of other sponsors is attached at Annex C. For more information, please visit the NSC website at: http://www1.moe.edu.sg/nsc.

Annex A

The winners for the respective events in the 16th NSC are:

Individual Event

Team Event

                Algorithm Competition (Secondary School)

                Algorithm Competition (Junior College)

                 Multimedia Competition (Primary School)

                Multimedia Competition (Secondary School)

Annex B

Participating Schools

Team Event - Algorithm Section

Team Event - Multimedia Section

Individual Event - Programming Section

Annex C

OTHER PRIZE SPONSORS

	NEC Singapore (Pte) Ltd
	Macromedia Inc (South Asia)
	Challenger Technologies Pte Ltd
	Creative Technology Ltd
	SCV's Creative Classroom
	Intel Technology Asia Pte Ltd
	Hewlett-Packard Singapore (Sales) Pte Ltd
	IT21(Singapore)
	Daiichi Media Pte Ltd
	Inprise Pte Ltd
	Horizon Educom
	Lee Foundation
	3M Singapore Pte Ltd
	SEC-Multimedia
	Iomega Pacific Pte Ltd
	National Computer Systems Pte Ltd
	Sky Media Pte Lt
	IQMind.com