Mr Elmie Nekmat, a graduate student from CNM presented his honours thesis titled ‘Youth and Online Gambling: The motivations and gratifications of online betting amongst Singaporean youths’ at the 17th Asian Media and Information Communication Centre (AMIC) Annual Conference. Jointly organized with the Philippine Association of Communication Educators Foundation (PACE), the conference attracted participants from leading universities, media industry professionals, government and non-governmental agencies and policymakers worldwide to Manila between 14-17 July 2008.

Spurred by his supervisor, Dr Sun Sun Lim, on the significance of communicating his research findings to the wider academic population, Elmie reworked his thesis into a conference paper which was shortlisted by the organizers for presentation. Elmie was drawn to this opportunity to highlight the importance of understanding youth’s motivation to gamble online in order to counter the rising trend.

“This is a valuable learning opportunity for me as a graduate student to be able to communicate with fellow students and researchers from different countries. It has added an important perspective to my interest in research – the potential to create awareness for the benefit of the wider society.” Elmie indeed experienced this when the Philippine media highlighted the significant findings of his thesis.

Congratulations to Elmie on his successful conference presentation!