When it comes to the telecommunications industry, it is clear that there is a growing demand for purpose-trained engineers with specific expertise in the new media technologies.

DCU's new undergraduate degree - Digital Media Engineering - fulfils two functions. As a new course starting this September, it will provide qualified engineers for the constantly evolving technology-based communications and entertainment industry. It is also a response to the needs of those students with a fascination for how the new media and gadgetry that we use in our everyday lives actually works.

While there are those who are happy to simply use the Internet, the mobile phone, the digital camera and the digital television as communication and entertainment tools, there are always those who want to delve further into the functioning of these technologies. These are the potential digital media engineers - anyone who has ever wondered how digital video can be stored, processed and displayed on a computer, for example.

The Digital Media Engineering programme provides all this and more. It encapsulates digital signal processing, digital audio processing, image and video processing, web server design, web usability, mobile data and voice telecommunications as well as database systems. According to the Programme Chair, Dr Noel O'Connor, it is an ideal programme for any student interested in what makes an information-based society tick.

"We are now in the Information Age. In order to sustain technological innovation, we need a solid base of trained and expert engineers who can not only use the technology, but understand it, develop it and take part in the continuing 'Information Evolution'," he said.

ENDS

For further details:

Eilis O'Brien:700 5217 or 087 2057125
Eileen Colgan:700 5656