IBM and Nanyang Polytechnic strengthen partnership  
ConvergenceAsia staff
11/01/2010

IBM Singapore reaffirms its collaborative partnership with Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) by signing an addendum to the memorandum-of-understanding (MOU) for Business Software Innovation Centre (BSIC), which was signed on 4th March 2008 as a continual effort to build up capabilities and knowledge on IBM’s innovative collaboration solutions.

The main objective of this initiative, which values at approximately US$90,000, aims to encourage more NYP students to obtain IBM professional certification on software such as IBM Rational and DB2. Since 1999, the two partners have been collaborating on emerging technologies and capabilities development in the area of Web 2.0 technologies, Web Services, Open Computing Standards, Service-Oriented Architecture and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

Lai Poh Hing, NYP’s Director of the School of IT said, “This collaboration paves the way to sharpen Singapore’s IT workforce's competitiveness in the global marketplace.”

IBM certification programme for NYP students started back in year 2005 with the support of IBM Academic Initiative team. In 2009 alone, 214 NYP students have attained IBM certifications, four times its first run in year 2005 on WebSphere Software. Over the last four years, the certification programme has expanded to include Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software (RAD) and DB2 9 Fundamentals. With the completion of 2009’s certification programme, NYP's total number of certified students now stands at 421.

To build upon the existing strong foundation of IBM-NYP long-term partnership, NYP students will continue to be given the opportunities to take up industry attachment at IBM or respective customer sites.

Tan Jee Toon, Country Manager of Software Group, IBM Singapore said, “Together, IBM and NYP are enabling truly smarter education for these students. An IBM certification is not a mere badge of honour but assures NYP graduates of an applied and practice-oriented education that places them in good jobs and lets them make real contributions to the next phase of Singapore’s growth in becoming a smarter nation. It also assures businesses that they are hiring the best-in-class, and that they have a workforce with highly valued, global skills that are increasingly necessary in this instrumented, interconnected and intelligent world.”

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