Why are they called Jumpstart Minis? When it was introduced in 2019, we wanted to ‘jumpstart’ the NUS community’s interest in immersive tech and design, giving them that little push to venture into the uncharted territory of XR technology. We wanted to show that the technology is accessible by most as long as there is interest.

In the beginning, we held short introductory sessions to create awareness of the technologies available in TEL Imaginarium. Soon, students’ hunger for learning new skills grew and we decided it was time to offer more in-depth workshops for participants to have hands-on experience with the new technologies.

What started out as 20-min introductory sessions eventually evolved into full-blown 1.5 hour workshops demonstrating the use of immersive technologies such as 360° image editing, 3D modelling and even designing using the familiar PowerPoint.

With the workshops going online since the pandemic, we saw a huge increase in the number of participants — from the small 20-odd that could fit in TEL Imaginarium, to a hundred!

A vast majority of participants cited the desire to learn new skills as a reason for enrolling in the workshops. At least 70% specifically stated that they would be applying what they learnt in work and/or personal settings.

Here are some examples of works done by participants:
PPT Art: https://sway.office.com/wr5qJtgITfTH6Ahd
Web-Tour Maker https://wakelet.com/wake/l2i5yH1IubOaymyijknI1

In April 2021, digital badges were introduced to reward and motivate learning. Participants had to demonstrate an understanding of what they learnt in order to earn themselves digital badges. To date, more than 500 have attended our workshops and a total of 413 digital badges have been issued since April 2021.

Have you seen any of your friends with these digital badges in their LinkedIn profiles? You can get them too by joining our upcoming workshops and completing the assignments!