Background and Purposes
Hotan, an indigent city in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, has been confronted with a series of prominent challenges: backward branding of poverty alleviation products, poorly-designed cultural and creative products, incapacity to sustain the poverty alleviation industry and resist market risks, meager income of villagers lifted out of poverty, and inconstant income stream. At the invitation of the Policy Research Office (Reform Office) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hotan Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee, the Global Challenge Program team of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) School of Design has worked with the state-owned enterprise in Xinjiang (Xuefeng Sci-Tech Group), local private enterprises (Xinjiang Zhichen Tianlin Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Xinjiang Kitchen Agricultural Development Co., Ltd.) and five local village committees (of Kalu Airike Village, Yiledamu Airike Village, Kuoqia Airike Village, Bositan Tireke Village, and Tuowan Airike Village), in a joint effort to explore a better model for village development and the ways to improve the design of cultural and creative products, based on the competitive products of Lop Bazha Agricultural Technology Development Co., Ltd, a local agricultural science and technology enterprise.
This project is designed to promote rural revitalization, help make breakthroughs in poverty alleviation for Hotan, and promote sustainable rural development with better design thinking and circular economy. It will also builds up local capacity to develop and design cultural and creative products and makes more academic contribution to local and regional economic and social development.
General Outline
1. Preparation: Recruiting qualified members and making arrangements before departure
2. Implementation: Paying visits to Hotan for basic research and field study, attending seminars, co-creating workshops, and designing workshops for empowerment.
3. Reflection and conclusion: Developing plans for rural revitalization in Hotan, producing and designing cultural and creative products, reviewing the summary report, and presenting outcomes back at SJTU.
Management Guidelines
(1) Management structure: A working group will be formed for the Global Challenge Program, chaired by the Dean of SJTI School of Design and comprised of leaders of the Department of Design, the Department of Architecture, the Department of Landscape and Engineering, the Office for Faculty Affairs, the Lab Center, the Office for Cooperation and Exchange and the Innovation Design Institute.
(2) Project leadership: The project will be overseen by a director, who will manage daily routines, propose the annual work plan, implement phased tasks, collect and summarizes information, edit brief reports, draft news releases, and promote videos, and posters.
(3) Supervision and evaluation: The working group shall conscientiously supervise and evaluate the project, define specific goals, and improve its own capacity.
(4) Cooperation mechanism: The project team will pool resources of various parties and converges their intereststo promote cooperation with local governments, businesses, and associations. By doing so, the team expects to get enterprises, universities, and research institutes to work more closely together in building talent pools, developing projects, and providing personnel training; moreover, through cooperation with local public and private sectors to build bases for on-site practice and training, a system of interaction to help nurture talents through business development projects.
(5) Coordination and support: As our partner in Xinjiang, the Policy Research Office (Reform Office) of the CPC Hotan Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee will provide solid support in recruitment, in-depth exploration of local cultures, and design and development of cultural and creative products.