The centre will equip IT professionals with software quality and testing expertise to meet the demand from strategic industries.

More than 3,000 students and industry professionals will be getting real-world experience in software quality assurance and testing over the next three years, with the launch of the NYP-DSTA Centre for Software Quality and Security in August.

Chief Executive of the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), Mr Richard Lim, who mooted the idea for this collaboration, said, "As one of Singapore's key investors in IT, we see an increasing demand to interconnect disparate systems into networked systems. Software safety and quality assurance therefore becomes an important component to help identify potential issues and allow for fine-tuning before implementation. This results in more robust and resilient enterprise solutions."

Mr Lim said the NYP-DSTA initiative was a concerted effort between the public and private sectors to equip IT professionals with adequate software quality and testing expertise to meet the demand from strategic industries such as defence and homeland security.

The Centre, located at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), will incorporate software quality assurance and testing methodologies and tap on experts in software quality analysis and expertise from DSTA, who will share their experiences and provide insights into government and commercial companies' software development processes, software testing and applications of software security.

Mr Edward Ho, Deputy Principal for Development, Nanyang Polytechnic, said the collaboration will allow DSTA and NYP to pool resources and jointly develop training programmes for students and IT professionals.

The initiative also involves industry players such as Singapore Computer Systems, Borland, Fortify Software, IBM, McCabe Software, Parasoft Corporation, Systex and SPI Dynamics. Students and IT professionals at the centre will work on projects from the industry, and develop the necessary skills to meet the demanding challenges of developing quality, reliable and secure enterprise solutions. This will, in turn, give commercial companies a wider pool of IT professionals to tap on to enhance the quality and reliability of the software that they develop.

DSTA is at http://www.dsta.gov.sg/ and Nanyang Polytechnic is at http://www.nyp.edu.sg/. For more information on infocomm manpower initiatives in Singapore, visit talent.singaporeinfocomm.sg.