Subscribe RSSVIRTUAL human beings will be used in a £1m online facility aimed at expanding design and creative businesses in the North-East.
Teesside University’s Centre for Design in the Digital Economy (DLab) is to establish an online version of the planned Northern Design Centre.
The £13m Northern Design Centre in the Baltic Business Quarter, Gateshead, will offer incubator space for small design sector businesses and house Design Network North.
The network enables firms to share knowledge and exploit opportunities through the use of good design practices to grow the design industry in the region.
The DLab project will offer exactly the same facilities but in a virtual world.
Users will appear as “avatars”, virtual human figures, which can move around the virtual business park to take part in meetings and conferences, attend exhibitions, use training facilities and take advantage of more general business development activities.
Although it may sound more like a computer game, it serves a serious purpose.
