SITB promotes IT partnership in Canada

October 11, 2000

Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, Mrs Carrie Yau, started her visit to Canada by visiting the New Media Centre of the Vancouver Film School (VFS) today (October 11).

VFS is a private institution established by eight entrepreneurs in 1991. It has recently been named by "Shift", a media/entertainment technology magazine, as one of the Top 10 New Media schools in North America and the only non-American school among the ten. VFS's graduates have won awards at Cannes and participated in the production of many Oscar-winning films.

VFS Vice-President Daniel Craig explained to the Hong Kong delegation that VFS is a great believer in immersion training and has a culture of doing - doing every day, with relevant knowledge, relevant tools, and relevant outcome and with a certain virtuosity.

Mrs Yau noted that the success story of this private school which trained 750 full-time students and 2,000 students each year out of the lecture halls was a useful experience for Hong Kong to share. "It is a successful synergy of business venture, application of advanced technology and arts school for the new economy on which Hong Kong should model," she said.

"Hong Kong has a vibrant film industry and there will be a proliferation of TV channels in Hong Kong upon the issuance of new paid TV licences soon.

"The future demand for multimedia talents in Hong Kong is huge. It is about time for Hong Kong entrepreneurs to consider developing a dedicated institution equipped with the state-of-the-art technology similar to VFS," she added.

Mrs Yau was particularly impressed by the concept of community integration adopted by VFS. Members of the community can have free access to students' works displayed at the school's open Information Centre and can mingle with the students at the school's Web Cafe.

Both sides expressed interest in exploring collaboration between VFS and Hong Kong in the future.

While in Vancouver, Mrs Yau also visited the Information Systems Management (B.C.) Corporation, Multiactive Software, Sierra Wireless and Norsat to exchange views on further Canada Hong Kong IT cooperation.

She will meet with Canada's Deputy Minister of the Information, Science and Technology Agency, Mr Stuart Culbertson, tomorrow (October 12) morning and address the Canadian business, academic and community leaders at a luncheon in the afternoon.

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