SINGAPORE - Media students at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) can now work on actual commercial productions in a new $2.6 million facility.
The new User Experience Hub at ITE College Central in Ang Mo Kio features a production studio, interactive screens in a gallery-style hallway and workstations with the latest technology.
Some of the courses supported by the Hub include the Nitec in Digital Animation and the Higher Nitec in Visual Effects.
Media technology and content production company Cgangs International helped with the design and sponsorship of the studio, while its hardware and software were sponsored by Alibaba Cloud, Blackmagic Design Asia, Electronics and Engineering, HP Singapore and its partner Nvidia, Quantum Corporation, and SCash Global.
The seven partners inked their collaboration with a memorandum of understanding on Thursday (Feb 17).
HP, among others, has also committed to refreshing its technology at the hub over the next few years.
Cgangs is currently running some of its own operations at the media hub.
Among its full-time staff is ITE student Ong Xiu Ling, 25.
Ms Ong, who did her Nitec and Higher Nitec qualifications at ITE, works as a junior production crew member while pursuing a Work-Study Diploma in Media Communication and Digital Marketing.
"I think being able to work on real-life commercial projects is very good for students, and this facility lets them see their work on the big screen and exposes them to a real professional environment," she said.
"It's much better than when I was a student and my projects would just be shown on a laptop or presented to the rest of my class."
Ms Ong is one of 17 Cgangs staff members based at the User Experience Hub. The company takes in ITE students as interns on major projects, and also trains other students as part of their coursework.
Eight ITE students were part of the Cgangs team that live-streamed the Asian Academy Creative Awards, part of the Singapore Media Festival, from the studio in ITE in December last year.
The facility is part of efforts by ITE to beef up and modernise its facilities to prepare its students for industry, job and work-flow transformation through collaboration with the industry, said ITE chief executive officer Low Khah Gek.
Getting the latest technology into ITE will help keep students up to date with the speed of change in the industry, and having established industry players come into the facility will help impart knowledge on students and staff, as well as the public through certification programmes, she said.
Cgangs business development director Alvin Lim said that it is in the industry's interest to help train and prepare the next generation of workers.
"We take interns here, and once we train them up to a certain level, we don't differentiate between them and our full-time staff in assigning them work," he said, adding that the company hopes to work with other institutions as well to grow Singapore's media ecosystem.
