Editor's note: As the first urban area in Shanghai to mention "Metaverse" in the government work report, Xuhui District will integrate and develop the Metaverse with regional advantageous and characteristic industries such as artificial intelligence and cultural creativity, and create a metaverse industry ecology with technology-led, enterprise agglomeration, talent flow, and rich scenarios. With the help of the construction of the Metaverse characteristic industrial park, the holding of flagship events, the co-construction of school-enterprise cooperation and the formation of alliances, etc., the abstract concept of the Metaverse will be concretized, stimulate the extensive participation of all sectors of society, and drive a virtuous cycle of technological innovation and industrial upgrading.
"Since I served as a judge of the Metaverse Design and Creativity Competition in 2022, in the past two years, I have frequently shuttled between universities, Hongmei Street and enterprises in the park of Caohejing Development Zone, and participated in the in-depth cooperation between universities, enterprises and the government." Li Qiansheng is the director of the Department of Digital Art at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University, as well as the leader of the digital creation camp and the guest speaker of the exhibition area of the competition.
The Metaverse Design and Creativity Competition is a flagship event in the Caohejing Yuanchuang Future Metaverse Innovation Park. In order to further promote the in-depth cooperation between universities, enterprises and the government, the park has established three linkage activities: school-enterprise workshops, digital creation camps, and special cooperation stations. Through the permutations and combinations of "government + university", "university + enterprise" and "enterprise + enterprise", the optimal allocation and efficient utilization of technology, talents, and resources will be realized, and the gradual improvement of the metaverse industry ecology will be promoted.
Government + Universities = Digital Creation Camp
When the government and universities are deeply integrated, it is the digital creation camp that Li Qiansheng is very familiar with.
Starting from 2022, Shanghai University and Hongmei Street will launch the "Yuan · Studies" academic season activity, with the help of Caohejing industrial resources and the power of multidisciplinary research of Shanghai University, focusing on related issues under the digital transformation of the metaverse empowering economy, life, and urban governance, actively working with the government and enterprises to jointly create public application scenarios with market recognition, and deepen the system integration and application of new technologies in the metaverse.
"The cultivation of talents in digital media arts must closely integrate the needs of society and industry, and embrace new technologies and new creative flows, so as to make the profession full of vitality." In Li Qiansheng's view, in the emerging field of the metaverse, content production tools and creative design methods are constantly updated, which puts forward higher requirements for talent training. As the leader of the digital creation camp, he led teachers and students from the Department of Digital Art, the Department of History and Theory of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Department of Architecture, and the Department of Design.
Now, in the park of Caohejing Development Zone, the team of teachers and students of Shanghai University has demonstrated the innovative achievements of the "Yuan · Studies" academic season through immersive ring screens and projections. Among them, the team of Zhao Xinyu, Huang Xinyi, and Chen Minyi designed a "Digital Tour Longhua" applet, which can make Longhua Ancient Temple "come alive" on the mobile phone through the application; The team composed of Li Lin, Ma Xuan, Yang Yue and Lan Yanzhe designed a set of digital IP for Wukang Road "Wutong Open Window Plan" and "Wutong Experience Officer" Wu Xiaojiao......
"Our goal for the future is to bring art and culture to more people's lives with a new perspective by constantly exploring cutting-edge technologies and innovative models. The creative camp program is not only to cultivate students, but also to condense the research results of disciplines, stimulate young people's creativity, and provide more new ideas and solutions for society and industry. Li Qiansheng said that from the second half of this year, the third quarter of the "Yuan · Studies" academic season will be officially launched and will continue until next year, "the form of the academic season will continue to innovate."
University + Enterprise = School-Enterprise Workshop
School-enterprise workshop, that is, the cooperation between enterprises in the park of Caohejing Development Zone and leading creative design colleges at home and abroad, focusing on the application scenarios of the combination of virtual and real to carry out joint creation, relying on the existing R&D projects of enterprises to focus on key research, fully stimulate the innovation vitality of innovative talents in colleges and universities, and promote the collaborative innovation of metaverse applications.
Zhuoyi Technology, which provided project support for the workshop, is an innovative Internet company, the first high-tech enterprise to integrate hardware, operating system, and application services, and a park enterprise that has participated in the school-enterprise workshop for two consecutive years and given many professional suggestions to the university contestants.
"For the customized topic of 'virtual assistant for teenagers' mobile phone operating system', it is recommended that students set up roles from the emotionally rich close friend aspect of 'interesting interaction + companionship', consider the virtual digital twin relationship of the metaverse, and personify the image and pinch the face." The person in charge of Zhuoyi Technology's UED, who is responsible for the product and creative design and user experience design guidance, introduced.
Project instructors Fan Fei and Gong Huaping also said in an interview that in the cultivation of professional practice talents, what has been criticized is the disconnection between the ivory tower and the real world, "so in the design of school-enterprise courses, we pay special attention to the combination of practice and theory." Through the mode of workshops, the tutors of both schools and enterprises provide guidance for students' works based on different knowledge backgrounds and experiences, and at the same time, students can also exercise their abilities and innovative thinking in practical projects.
Enterprise + Enterprise = Special Cooperation Station
In the metaverse industry ecosystem, cooperation between enterprises is also indispensable. As a new type of cooperation model, the special cooperation station promotes the cooperation between enterprises in the park and leading metaverse scene planning institutions at home and abroad through the form of project-based cooperation, and learns from advanced metaverse application innovation concepts at home and abroad. MiniMax's collaboration with Magic Number is a case in point.
MiniMax is a leading start-up company in China with a 100-billion-parameter language model that integrates text, speech, and vision, and has opened up the whole link of products. At the exhibition of the results of this year's competition, the "Poetry at Sea" project, cooperated by MiniMax and Magic Number Workshop, brought a new art form of "technology + culture" through immersive AI poetry writing. Users only need to enter keywords, and the system generates poems with related content, which are full of artistic conception and beautiful sentences.
This enterprise-enterprise cooperation model not only promotes the flow of technology, products, information and talents between industries, but also forms a closer innovation community based on the project community, injecting strong impetus into the metaverse industry.
Reporter: Yang Yixiu
Poster design: Huang Jiayue, Zhang Yiting
Editor: Chen Haixiao
Reviewer: Wei Li