News

Stephen Wang's novel emotion-aware navigation system won Smart Traffic Fund

We are pleased to announce that a Smart Traffic Fund of HK$2.74 million was recently granted by the government Transport Department to a project led by Prof. Stephen Jia WANG, Professor of School of Design and Founding Director of the Research Centre for Future Caring Mobility.   The awarded project ‘An Empathetic Navigation System Design Based on Drivers’ Emotion Inference from Traffic Contextual Data’ aims to develop a novel emotion-aware navigation system for drivers. It is also the first Design-led project winning the fund. It is no doubt a piece of exciting news to Prof. Wang and PolyU Design. ‘The grant represents a recognition of our vision on “Caring Mobility” - interdisciplinary, cutting-edge, STEAM (STEM plus Art and Design) and innovative design approach with an emphasis on living, caring and wellbeing under various scenarios of mobility,’ Prof. Wang said. Taking this opportunity, he would like to thank the continuous support from the industry partners XPeng AeroHT (匯天) and XPeng Auto Group.   Read more in "PolyU project designs novel emotion-aware navigation system supported by Smart Traffic Fund" by PolyU Research and Innovation Office

Prof. Stephen Jia Wang joins Royal Society of Arts as Fellow

Prof. Stephen J. Wang has joined the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) as Fellow. The RSA, with an almost 270 years history, today, the RSA has fellows elected from 80 countries worldwide. It is a global network consisting of more than 30,000 entrepreneurs, educators, and innovators. Their collective goal is to work together for the advancement of society, the economy, and the environment. Notable past Fellows (before 1914, Members) include Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Stephen Hawking, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Marie Curie, Nelson Mandela, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, William Hogarth, John Diefenbaker, and Tim Berners-Lee.  As a Fellow of the RSA, Prof. Wang will be committed to the 'Design for Life' mission, taking a leadership role in making the world a better place. Being part of the RSA Fellow Community will provide Prof. Wang with access to new ideas and innovative future-focused research, which will further inspire him in his endeavours.  Prof. Wang's profile at RSA: https://www.thersa.org/fellowship/find-a-fellow/profile/180310  

Professor Stephen J. Wang led researchers and students to A'Design Award and iF Design Awards

Once again, good designs from PolyU Design have proved themselves on global platforms. This time the stage is set at the internationally well recognized A’Design Award and iF Design Awards 2023 where Prof. Stephen Jia Wang and his team of researchers and students won four professional awards.    ‘Sunflower’, an Interactive lamp developed under the Research Centre for Future (Caring) Mobility led by Prof. Wang, is the winner in the Wellness, Health Promotion, and Preventive Care Design category of A’Design Award. It is a health IoT product focus considering the circadian rhythm as the core element to monitor user's lifestyle. It engages users through creature-like movements, providing a brand-new organic and interactive experience. Heroes and heroines behind this project are Jiajuan Li, Stephen Jia WANG, Yangwu CAI, Yanjie Zhan, Sein JEONG, ZhengTao Ma, Sark XING and Le FANG. The iF winner ‘Motar’ is an AR-based outdoor educational system designed to encourage urban grade-schoolers (5-12 children) to go outdoors and stay in the natural environment by providing immersive real-world-based games. It is designed by Chenbei Gui under Prof. Stephen J. Wang’s supervision. Chenbei who is our MDes student graduated from our BA(Hons) in Product Design last year. Motar was her Product Design graduation project.   Another iF and A’Design double award winner is ‘Mel:mory Cube’, designed by Xiang Yi and Felix Tsoi from MDes (Interaction Design) and supervised by Prof. Stephen J. Wang. The product aims to raise the awareness of Chinese amnesia, and further remind, rebuild and enhance the interest and memory development of Chinese characters through a multi-sensory and playful approach by translating Chinese characters (visual sensory) into distinctive melodies (auditory-driven) generated by a self-identified mechanism.  These projects would not be possible without our long-term client also collaborator, Huawei Technologies Ltd., leading global provider of ICT infrastructure and smart devices that is always supportive to researchers and young designers. 

PolyU Design and Royal College of Art (UK) co-organised workshop on future shared autonomous vehicle experience

On 23 April, the Research Centre for Future (Caring) Mobility (RC-FCM) of PolyU collaborated with the Intelligent Mobility Design Centre (IMDC) from the Royal College of Art (RCA) to hold the Co-creation Workshop, guiding design students to come up with joyful, inclusive and intuitive shared autonomous vehicle experiences in the context of 2040’s city.  Led by Prof. Stephen J. Wang, Director of Research Centre for Future (Caring) Mobility of PolyU, Dr. Cyriel Diels, Deputy Director of Intelligent Mobility Design Centre, RCA, Ms Herin Haramoto, Mr Yichen Shu, Research Associates of IMDC, and Ms Yaqi Zhang, PhD Student, SD, PolyU, the workshop was designed to allow students to freely explore the possibilities of building novel relationship between a person and an autonomous vehicle.  Prof Stephen J. Wang emphasised that “One of the key themes of the workshop was the importance of designing for human-vehicle interactions and user experience. this workshop was well aligned with our Research Center (RC-FCM)’s vision ‘to tackle on the ‘wicked’ real-world challenges such as the future caring in transportation, transit UX, communication and integration of personal information in mobility, automobile cybersecurity, and UX in emerging transport modes, and wellbeing aspects in connected and autonomous vehicles.’ Multifaceted exercises and activities including bodystorming, user-journey plotting, and design evaluation were involved in the workshop. Students were fully engaged in the thinking process, from brainstorming to performing their results from bodystorming. The workshop is part of a research project co-conducted by PolyU and RCA entitled ‘Design for Autonomous Mobility’. Funded by AiDlab, the project aims to explore the experience of future autonomous vehicles, which are in the absence of steering wheels and pedals and will be driven by themselves. The workshop has provided a valuable platform for participants to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and collaborate on innovative design solutions for autonomous mobility.

PolyU Design and Royal College of Art (UK) co-organised workshop on Human-Centred AI Design Methods

Workshop on Human-Centred AI Design Methods to Understand “Intelligent Systems Design empowered by Multisensory Experiences with Textiles” has been successfully held in collaboration between our MDes Intelligent System Design (ISD) programme and the Royal College of Art, UK (RCA).   Co-organising the workshop were Leader of the ISD programme and the Lab Studies subject (Intelligent Systems Construction), Prof. Stephen J. Wang, and RCA’s Textile MA tutor, Dr Elif Ozden Yenigun, and Research Associate Ms Lissy Hatfield. This workshop was to achieve the aims of co-generating tactile-based sensorial data for AI design tools and delivering the material centric design workshop to understand embodied ad tacit knowledge of the textile world.   Benefiting from the unique nature of ISD “Lab Studies” subjects, the purpose of the workshop was to understand human sensory experiences of textile materials, allowing students to explore the relationships between physical properties and characteristics and the subjective assessment of materials through the evaluation of textiles based on a range of physical gestures and actions that human adopted.    Guided by such experience, the ISD students brainstormed and developed ideas in groups around human-robot collaboration contributing to textile assessment at the end of the workshop.   PolyU School of Design’s Intelligent Systems Design (MDes) programme highly recognises data and intelligence-related technologies as critical components in nowadays’ industry and society. To develop students’ future-shaping creative design vision using the intelligent system, the transdisciplinary workshop, as a part of the ISD’s “Lab Studies: Intelligent Systems Construction” subject, has provided students with an opportunity to be involved in real-world research projects.   Prof. Stephen J. Wang emphasised that “this workshop is well aligned with ISD’s vision ‘to educate a new type of designer, one that has an in-depth understanding of data and intelligent technologies, system-focused thinking, innovative design skills, and engineering or technology mastery’. We should especially thank AiDLab management team, Research Associate Mr Zhengtao Ma, RCA Textile Circularity Centre’s Dr Chipp Jansen, and PhD students of PolyU Design Ms Yaqi Zhang and Ms Cong Fang for their assistance in the workshop’s preparation and operation.”

PolyU Design Announces New Research Centre of Future Caring Mobility and Opportunity for Partnerships

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design (PolyU Design) has announced the establishment of the Research Centre of Future Caring Mobility (Centre). The Centre has recently won a $7.5 million seed funding from the University's competitive research grant with matching funds from PolyU Design and partner institutions. The Centre represents a vision of interdisciplinary, cutting-edge STEAM (STEM + Art & Design) and innovative design approach emphasizing living, caring, and wellbeing under various mobility scenarios.  Prof. Stephen J. Wang, Director of the Centre, remarked that his team is determined to tackle on the "wicked" real-world challenges such as the future caring in transportation, transit UX, communication and integration of personal information in mobility, automobile cybersecurity, smart city fluidity & liveability, UX in emerging transport modes such as versatile & on-demand transport, and wellbeing aspects in connected and autonomous vehicles. Prof. Wang said: "This Centre will be the first in the world to focus on blurring various mobility related boundaries to envision the future of "caring-moving", and the research and design outcomes will significantly contribute to Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area, and the region." The Centre will focus on the potential benefits of mobility innovations for the economy, society, health, and wellbeing to perform high-impact research. It will provide a distinctive platform that will enable visionary design-led innovations that are useful, user-friendly, and cutting-edge. This platform will also benefit the next generation of researchers, designers, and innovators in this field by focusing on the end-users' evolving and unmet needs from both the caring and mobility perspectives, in addition to specialized technological knowledge. The Centre is currently working with major corporations and welcomes proposals for joint-research projects.    An innovative adaptable vehicle interior design to boost income-earning opportunities and reduce downtime between income-earning events for public passenger transport drivers is one example of caring mobility projects currently on exhibit at the PolyU Design Show 2022. By dividing the labour between cargo fleet, ride-hailing services and taxis, this strategy also enables the delivery industry to employ existing automobile journeys as extra resources to spread out the industry’s high demand.