Travis Ho was eight years old when he wrote his first text-based adventure game on his home computer. His parents, understandably anxious about his schoolwork, had refused to buy him any video games. This early precociousness and interest in video games has led Mr Ho, now 24 years old, to develop real-time strategy games. "Technology is there to capture everything you can think about," he said. "The only limitation is your own imagination."

2008 IT Youth Award winners Mr Travis Ho (left) and Mr Lua Rui Ping.

The combination of technology and imagination has led Mr Ho to a scholarship from the International Game Developers Association and internships at prestigious institutions. This year, his parents have even more reason to be proud - the young man was one of two recipients of the IT Youth Award at the Singapore Computer Society (SCS) IT Leader Awards 2008.

Now into its 12th year, the SCS IT Leader Awards aims to acknowledge vital contributions of individuals to the IT industry; illustrate the depth of talent in the field; and to encourage youths to pursue IT as a career.

The other winner of the 2008 IT Youth Award was Mr Lua Rui Ping, a 23-year-old student at Nanyang Technological University. Mr Lua was singled out for his leadership qualities within the student community, organising technology programmes, road shows, student workshops, and most recently helping to develop the Collaborative Developers Ecosystem Experiment – a virtual environment that allows students to work on their own ideas and products.

This year's IT Leader Awards were presented at the SCS Gala Dinner on 29 February 2008.

Giving his views on the state of IT manpower development in Singapore today, industry veteran Mr Wee Tew Lim, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame for his pioneering work in the electronic retail payments industry, said, "Singapore has done alright so far; we've managed to identify areas to focus on and train people for. But this is an ongoing process and hopefully we will continue to have people who can see ahead as to where the technology trends are moving, and (to then) design education programmes to make sure our people are always a little ahead."