World University Rankings video contest winner announced

A third-year student from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has won Times Higher Education’s 2013 World University Rankings video competition.

The video by Tran Nguyen Tuan Anh, who is studying art and design, emerged as the clear winner among a shortlist of seven entries, after a vote by THE’s editorial team.

A special commendation was given to the entry from University College Cork, as its video proved to be the most popular online, attracting almost 7,400 views on YouTube at the time of going to press, thanks to a powerful community engagement campaign and strong use of social media by the university.

Students and faculty from across the world were invited to submit a video describing the best things about their university - in just 20 seconds.

Entries were shortlisted from institutions in England, Wales, Ireland, Finland, Japan, Australia and Singapore. The seven entries had been viewed, collectively, almost 30,000 times.

Tran Nguyen Tuan Anh’s video was the only one in the shortlist to use animation. The video listed the three best things, in his view, about NTU: a flexible curriculum, a balanced university life and “opportunities to stretch myself”. The animated protagonist contorted his body to spell out the letters “N”, “T” and “U”.

He said: “Going to NTU every day, I’m really inspired by every little corner around campus. Each of them tells a whole story, or maybe just a fun fact about the university. That gave me the idea of using little icons (such as books, a basketball, a burger, etc) representing each little place to illustrate the best things of NTU.

“Making an animation is fun, and it becomes more fun when I have a chance to make an animation about NTU, about things I love, about where I’m learning how to make an animation.”

The prize for submitting the winning entry was an iPad.

phil.baty@tsleducation.com