Senior Minister of State for Communications & Information and Education, Dr Janil Puthucheary, officiated at the N.E.mation! 12 awards presentation ceremony at the Singapore Discovery Centre this afternoon, where he presented prizes to the winning teams of the annual N.E.mation! competition.

Team cedar3 from Cedar Girls' Secondary School submitted the winning clip for the Student Category, "It's in your hands", which depicts how each of us can make a difference through the actions we take. This is the team's third time participating in N.E.mation!, finishing as finalists for N.E.mation 10 and the first runner-up for N.E.mation 11. Teams String Cheese from St. Anthony's Canossian Secondary School and Volcayes from CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School clinched the first and second runner-up awards respectively in this season's N.E.mation!.

Winning story ideas from the pilot Youth Crowdsource Category were also recognised as their ideas were translated into animation clips by students from Nanyang Polytechnic's School of Interactive & Digital Media and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) College Central's School of Design and Media. Teams Nacho Cheese, Why are we N.E.mate and LYNDA from Nanyang Polytechnic emerged as the champion, first and second runners-up in this new category respectively. The champion team's clip, "String of Singapore", creatively unravels to tell the story of how Total Defence has helped us tide through past challenges such as racial riots and the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Singapore.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Dr Puthucheary commended the hard work and determination of the students in bringing their Total Defence stories to life. He also highlighted that having grown up in peace and prosperity, the current generation needs to demonstrate that they have the grit and resilience to do what Singapore needs and he has full confidence that they will be able to do so. Commending the quality of the N.E.mation! 12 competition entries, he added that, "We must take [these works] out to the wider Singapore, to reassure generation after generation that the next generation can, and will do, what it takes for the benefit of Singapore." 

N.E.mation! is an annual digital animation competition organised for youths to express their thoughts about Total Defence. N.E.mation! 12 returned with the main Student Category and piloted the new Youth Crowdsource Category. In a more challenging format introduced this year, participants were required to tell their stories in 30 seconds, half the time of the previous 60-second clips. N.E.mation! 12 received 643 entries and had 1,328 participants. The champion teams will go on a fully-sponsored learning trip to renowned animation studios in Japan.