SPEECH BY MR S. ISWARAN, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY, AT THE GRAND FINALS OF THE STAR CHALLENGE@FUSIONOPOLIS, 23 OCTOBER 2008, 3.00 PM, AT FUSIONOPOLIS

Mr Lim Chuan Poh, Chairman of A*STAR

Prof Charles Zukoski, Chairman of A*STAR’s Science and Engineering Research Council

Mr John Tan, Deputy Principal / Technology, Nanyang Polytechnic

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good Afternoon.

Introduction

I am pleased to be here at the prize presentation ceremony of the Star Challenge@Fusionopolis.I am told that the Star Challenge has attracted the participation of 56 teams from 17 countries.My congratulations to all the teams, especially the top 5 here today who have engaged in the intense final leg of the competition and acquitted themselves very well.

Community, Collaboration, Cooperation & Friendly Competition

The Star Challenge epitomises our vision for Fusionopolis.It has brought talent from around the world together in the spirit of community, collaboration and cooperation, and in this case, to engage in some friendly competition.The earlier rounds of competition saw the creation of a virtual community of Star Challenge participants as they pitted their skills against one another remotely, from different corners of the world.Over the course of the competition, the community members not only spurred one another on to be more innovative but were also able to learn from each other and appreciate fellow competitors’ talent and capability

The friendships and networks developed as a result of this competition will have planted the seeds for future collaboration to take place. It will certainly benefit the global exchange of innovative ideas and the building of international alliances among our participants.Such interactions are reflective of what Fusionopolis stands for and strives to achieve.

Creating the Future

The holding of this Star Challenge is indeed timely given the proliferation of multimedia content on the Internet. There is a need now for us to develop innovative and ground-breaking technology in order to access, manage and search for information from the growing mass of multimedia content.

In an ideal world, users should be able to search for multimedia information effortlessly by using text, audio or video inputs.Currently, however, our only method of search is by way of using keyword tags and associated text.This calls for advanced multimedia search engine technologies that are able to intelligently analyse and derive various meanings from multimedia data.

Meeting Challenges, Seizing Opportunities

I believe that such technologies may not be too far off in the future, especially if we keep pushing the envelope and strive for better solutions through innovation to meet the needs and challenges of the future.The work at A*STAR itself is a good example.The Agency’s Researchers have already invented a speech recognition technology called the bag-of-sounds which is able to identify spoken languages, dialects and even voiceprints and track them down based on a collection of sound patterns. I heard that it even works with Singlish!

The technology is now used in the award-winning speech engine, Abacus, and recently topped the scores and beat 45 other international teams at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology Speaker Recognition Evaluation.The bag-of-sounds technology opens up new opportunities in telecommunication services and applications, such as voice intelligence and voice biometrics.It also gives hope for an efficient and effective multimedia search technology for everyday use in the very near future.

Conclusion

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners of this year’s Singapore Games Creation Competition organized by Nanyang Polytechnic’s School of Interactive and Digital Media, with the support of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Media Development Authority (MDA).I understand from the organizers that this year’s competition saw a four fold increase in participation with 448 students from 43 secondary schools.I encourage our younger participants to keep up the competitive spirit, and be inspired to perform well in the future in global competitions like the Star Challenge.

The Star Challenge is a distinct step in the right direction in encouraging the research community to build on the capabilities of the search engines available today and to revolutionise the market.

I would like to commend A*STAR for organising this competition to bring together, here at Fusionopolis, talent from different countries and, for giving us a glimpse of future search engine capabilities.It is certainly one that holds much promise and great excitement. Once again, I congratulate the five team finalists and wish them a very enjoyable time in Singapore.I urge all of you to translate your short stay here into successful long term collaborations with your fellow competitors.

Thank you.