In late February, Guangdong province's High-quality Development Conference was successfully held in Shenzhen, setting a high starting point, high standards and high-quality tone for the development of this future city. As an important member of Shenzhen, a city of innovation, industrial design, as an important starting point of new quality productivity, shoulders the important mission of promoting high-quality development. SIDA's pace has not stopped, moving forward on the road of empowering the product, industry and city, completing various work in 2023 and achieving proud results.

In the New Year, SIDA adheres to the pragmatic and practical work style, exploring changes and opportunities, seeking progress in maintaining stability, and the 8th Meeting of the 3rd Council comes as scheduled.

On the afternoon of March 12, the 8th Meeting of the 3rd Council of Shenzhen Industrial Design Profession Association (SIDA) was held in Shenzhen innoX. President Shirley Feng and representatives of the director units and other 56 people attended the council meeting.

Moderated by Chen Wenxin, Deputy Secretary-General of SIDA, the council has six main agendas:

01 SIDA2023 Annual Work Report

02 Hearing and deliberating the new members of SIDA 

03 Hearing and deliberating proposals on adding and adjusting members of the 3rd council

04 Topic sharing

05 Live interaction, free talk

06 SIDA President Shirley Feng made a concluding speech

Looking back and looking forward

The year 2023 will be the first year to fully implement the spirit of the Party's 20th National Congress and a year for economic recovery after three years of COVID-19 prevention and control. This year, SIDA and every member rode the wind and waves, walked steadily and far, excellently completed the annual work tasks, and achieved phased achievements.

At the meeting, Luo Junjie, Deputy Secretary-General of SIDA, the representative of SIDA Secretariat, introduced the work deployment of SIDA, in-depth analysis and summary of SIDA's main work in 2023, and study and deployment of key work in 2024. In the next step, SIDA Secretariat will also make greater efforts to lead the industry to the international first-class standard. Let Shenzhen products become the national hot products, make industrial design become the characteristics of new industrialized Shenzhen, become an important starting point of new quality productivity; further polish the golden sign of the design city, and contribute industry strength to the construction and high-quality development of the district.

In 2023, there are six aspects of the main specific work and phased results: first, government and enterprise research and visits, output industry development experience and promote the development of design and empower industries and cities; the second is to investigate the pain points of the design industry, understand the development trend of members and explore the innovation and development strategy of the design industry; third, multiple innovation activities, leading the design of enabling high-quality development of the city; fourth, the application of design awards and professional title evaluation, to promote the realization of international commercialization of design results; fifth, the promotion of member units to enhance the design brand awareness and exposure; sixth, promoting industrial design to the east and northwest of Guangdong province, to help local industrial innovation and development.

In the future, SIDA will continue to serve for members, always maintain the original intention, uphold the innovative concept, and promote the high-quality development of the industry with all members. The key jobs of SIDA for 2024 will be on the following five areas:

1. Promote Shenzhen industrial design brand to go out and set up development models for member units.

2. Make AIGC empower scientific and technological innovation and cultivate design talents to become new quality productivity.

3. Implement the design to light up industry action plan, and make a good communication bridge between the government and enterprises.

4. Strengthen the self-construction and comprehensively upgrade the member data management system.

5. Management upgrade, work together with partners towards a new journey.

Cross-boundary experts discuss design innovation and value

At the meeting, Jin Le, head of Alibaba International Digital Business and Industry AIGC Business, Zhao Bi, founder of Designest, and Duan Qiangang, head of SIDA AIGC Division and founder of Singularity AI Lab, shared their new perspectives and new thinking in the field of design services and the opportunities and challenges facing AIGC.

Jin Le, head of Alibaba International Digital Business and Industry AIGC Business

Jin Le, head of Alibaba International Digital Business and Industry AIGC Business, made a shared speech on the theme of AI helps SMEs to create good products and sell globally. By analyzing the three major challenges for SMEs to go global (localized cognitive barriers, localized channels and operations, and localized goods and services), he explained the comparison between traditional solutions and AI solutions in terms of trend insight, creative design, and market validation. Through the technical advantages of stable computing power, controllable cost, security compliance, and copyright protection, Alibaba International AIGC has built four product service modules, namely AI trend tracking, AI product design, AI content marketing, and AI training introduction, in order to become the innovative growth standard of small and medium-sized enterprises as a vision, and is committed to using AI to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to create good products and sell globally.

Dr. Zhao Bi, founder of Designest

Dr. Zhao Bi, founder of Designest, made a shared speech on the theme of "Future Transformation and Value Creation of Design Services". He said that the three major factors for the rapid growth of DTC brand are: integration innovation, channel change, demand change, through the closed-loop business model of brand thinking, user thinking, incremental thinking, and differentiation strategy to let more enterprises successfully overcome the challenges. As a leading innovation incubator of "design-driven brands" in China, Designest helps enterprises integrate into the product innovation process of user value proposition through the service model of product innovation, brand incubation and scene marketing, and constantly strives to become an innovative design consultancy with global influence.

Duan Qiangang, head of SIDA AIGC Division and founder of Singularity AI Lab

With the comprehensive empowerment of AIGC in the new era, AIGC has also become a strategic research focus of SIDA. In order to better promote industry innovation and change, SIDA has set up a special AIGC division, which has achieved preliminary results after more than half a year of exploration and testing. Duan Qiangang, head of SIDA AIGC Division and founder of Singularity AI Lab, mentioned that the purpose of building an AI-based industrial design platform is to provide technology popularization for Shenzhen's design industry; the second is to provide low-cost and high-quality AI+ services; third, let design enterprises have the ability and thinking of applying artificial intelligence; the fourth is to cultivate AI application talents for the design industry; fifth, accelerate the integration of tools and rapid technology application. In the past year, the platform has implemented the application of artificial intelligence to enterprises, and verified its applicability and effectiveness. In the future, the platform will focus on the construction of a vertical application platform in multiple industries with the goal of co-creating and sharing.

In the on-site interactive exchange session, the participating directors focused on the two major topics of "AIGC to explore innovation and value of design" and "how to build Shenzhen’s hot products", actively shared their experiences, and made their own perceptions and views on the future development of the industry.

Zou Tao, General Manager of Shenzhen Zhixing Innovation Industrial Design Co., Ltd.

Through the use of AI technology, work efficiency has been greatly improved, and combined with today's topic sharing, I have a clearer direction for the future in customer service.

Kang Weijie, Deputy General Manager of the Design Center of Shenzhen Oracle Creative Design Co., Ltd.  

AI is a very good efficiency tool, and while making better use of this tool, we still need to focus on the core of creativity and ideas, and then become a strong player in the field.

Liu Feng, General Manager of Shenzhen Zunlian Technology Co., Ltd.

AI has brought great convenience to the industrial design industry, and also let us bring more surprises to customers, solve difficulties and pain points for customers, create more value, and can be a path for us to create national hot products.

Tang Liang, General Manager of Shenzhen ZCODESIGN Co., Ltd.

Shenzhen's innovation environment has greatly helped to shape the national hot products, but under the influence of capital and international environment changes, the entrepreneurial environment has become difficult, especially in the field of science and technology, small and medium-sized enterprises and makers. We recommend to pay attention to the field of hard science and technology, through the help of capital, may become the key reason for industries’ survival.

Embrace change, embrace the future

The blueprint has been drawn, and it is time to fight. Since its establishment, SIDA has led the member units to connect with the world and matching with industries, led the industrial design industry to speak frequently on the stage of global design and innovation, and made industrial design a loud international communication language. It has always been leading the design to empower products, industries and cities, and taking advantage of Shenzhen's drive to promote new industrialization and develop new quality productivity, constantly polishing the golden sign of "Better Life, Created in Shenzhen".

Shirley Feng, President of SIDA

At the meeting, Shirley Feng, President of SIDA said that although we have new opportunities, we are also facing great challenges and uncertainties, and under the tide of changes, designers should take the initiative to embrace new changes and embrace AI in order to find their most unique advantages and values. At the same time, she mentioned that "two high and two new" (high-quality development, high-quality life, new industrialization, new quality productivity) as a key path and driving force support for national development, but also the main direction for design industry in the present and future. In the future, SIDA will develop with AIGC to enable scientific and technological innovation, to enable industrial tourism and cultural tourism with digital transformation, to promote innovative elements in Shenzhen and even the whole country, so that industrial design become a new industrial Shenzhen characteristic, become an important starting point of new quality productivity, promote high-quality development to create high-quality life. "Today, the most important supporting force in this era of changers is our designers. We should look at China and the world in a larger pattern, and actively embrace change. In the unremitting exploration, the power of design will open a more free and innovative journey."

Group photo of the 8th Meeting of the 3rd Council

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of China and is a key year for achieving the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan. With the successful holding of the 8th meeting of the 3rd Council of SIDA, it has more clearly defined the way forward for industrial design in 2024, indicating that SIDA will be taken to a higher level. SIDA will live up to its mission, seek long-term development from a global perspective, continue to help Shenzhen design rise, embrace change, strengthen confidence, and move forward bravely, and strive to promote Shenzhen in the forefront of high-quality development.

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