Distinguished Guests
Principals and
Teachers
Good Afternoon
1. I am delighted to be here with you this afternoon to mark the opening of IP Camp 2008.
2. The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore or IPOS is the lead government agency that advises on and administers intellectual property (IP) laws, promotes IP awareness and provides the infrastructure to facilitate the development of IP in Singapore.
3. As part of our initiatives to create IP awareness amongst students, the IPOS organises programmes such as Assembly Talks and the annual IP Champion Camp. .
3. The annual IP Champion Camp is an IPOS’ educational initiative that is catered to students from the secondary schools. It is an innovative learn-and-share programme that aims to impart IP knowledge to participating students and equip them with essential skills to share their IP knowledge with their fellow school mates.
4. The theme for this year’s camp is “Know Your Copyright”. The aim is to have students demonstrate a basic understanding of the concept taught to them and at the same time, showcase their creativity in their artwork to create an educational material for their peers.
5. In school, students write, paint, draw, design, and engage in many other creative activities. Everyday, as they create copyright works, they also use others’ copyright works. While teachers are concerned with the legitimacy of students’ use of resource materials, students should also be aware of the Copyright protection in their works.
6. The IP Champion Camp has imparted knowledge of copyrights and its relevance in school projects since 2006. At the three-day camp, participants will also get a chance to develop their creativity and writing skills. They’ll be taught comic illustration and storyboarding skills. With these newly-acquired skills and knowledge, the participants will develop a comic strip on Copyright’s application in school projects.
6. In the past, one of the submitted comic strips was selected to be incorporated in a poster on IP messages circulated to all secondary schools in Singapore. This year, the winner will be offered an internship programme at one of the local creative multimedia schools. The winner will produce his/her own animation clip based on the winning comic strip, to be used in IPOS’ publicity campaigns. We will also be producing a comic book that comprises a selection of the finer entries from this contest as an educational resource for students.
7. With your support, we hope to reach out to students and to equip them with the essential IP knowledge which they can share with their fellow school mates.
8. Last but not least, I would like to take the opportunity to thank our partners for the strong support which has made this camp possible. Thank you.