Some 2,500 students are expected to hit the infocomm arena once again, and pit their skills against each other for the top prizes in the prestigious 2nd National Infocomm Competition (NIC).

Selected infocomm students from more than 100 secondary schools, junior colleges, polytechnics and institutes of technical education will compete in a series of 12 infocomm challenges from this month until December.

This competition is spearheaded by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), with the support of the Ministry of Education. It is jointly organised by the local three universities, five polytechnics, ITE, Singapore Computer Society, Singapore Institute of Management, SUN Microsystems and Singapore Science Centre.

The NIC aims to attract talented students from schools to join the future infocomm talent pool which is needed for Singapore to remain competitive globally.

Said Mr Leong Keng Thai, Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecoms) of IDA Singapore: "We need globally competitive infocomm professionals who are both technologists and strategists to transform key economic sectors and propel Singapore's growth into the future. The National Infocomm Competition is an excellent platform to talent-scout, groom young and talented students for Singapore's thriving infocomm industry.

"I strongly encourage all schools to take part in this competition and discover our next generation of infocomm professionals."

This year, the NIC will present nine existing and three brand new infocomm challenges. The National Software Competition, the Splash Awards, the National StrITwise Challenge, VirtualXgame, Innovate IT!, Singapore Games Creation, Alice-In-Action, Network Security Investigation and Quiz are the current challenges.

However, to expose the young talents to "hot" growth areas such as mobile technologies and software programming, three new challenges will be incorporated. This includes the Mobile Animation Challenge, Algo*Mania Challenge and the JavaJive Challlenge.

Schools will have to accumulate points for each challenge to emerge as winners in each circuit.

The top six positions in each challenge will earn points and the school which accumulates the highest number of points in each circuit will be the circuit champion. Circuit champions win an all-expense paid trip to top infocomm companies overseas where they would meet key executives and learn about the latest trends in infocomm.

Cash and prizes worth more than S$300,000 are being offered in the National Infocomm Competition 2007. This includes Playstation 3s, XBOX 360s, iPods, digital cameras and mobile phones. Schools should visit talent.singaporeinfocomm.sg to find out more about entry details.

The circuit champions of last year's NIC will be going on an all-expense paid trip to Redmond, Microsoft's headquarters and meet with its key executives to learn more about innovations for the future. They also get the chance to meet Microsoft's boss, Bill Gates .

Chan Wei Jian, a member of the winning secondary school team from Raffles Institution, said that it was important to be passionate and committed to the competition in order to win.