Good News｜Seungwoo Je from the School of Design has been approved for the 2024-2025 MIT Greater China Innovation Fund.

On May 1, the results of the 2024-2025 MIT Global Seed Funds were announced. The proposal submitted jointly by Seungwoo Je, Assistant Professor at the School of Innovation and Creative Design at Southern University of Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as the School of Design), and Kent Larson, Professor at the MIT Media Arts and Sciences (MAS) department, was successfully approved for funding under the MIT Greater China Innovation Fund (MIT Greater China Fund for Innovation). The approved project is titled “Three-dimensional community simulation interface: Designing and manufacturing RoboScope, a pin-array display to facilitate understanding through iteration of a community’s common vision”. This year, only three research proposals were approved by the MIT Greater China Fund for Innovation, and the joint proposal by Assistant Professor Seungwoo Je and Professor Kent Larson was one of them. This is also the first MIT Global Seed Funds project approved since the establishment of the School of Design.

This research focuses on rethinking how to design and shape urban areas to ensure that development models are environmentally responsible and sustainable. The 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report noted that new urban development could “lock in” greenhouse gas emissions for decades. In light of this, the City Science Group, led by Professor Kent Larson of the MIT Media Lab, and the Immersive Design Group, led by Assistant Professor Seungwoo Je of the School of Design, proposed the development of a haptic interface based on a pin-array display and a data-driven platform. This platform enables city stakeholders, citizens, public officials, and developers to manipulate and visualize a shared urban vision, collaboratively explore transformative futures through collaborative learning, and advocate for sustainable, livable, and equitable urban environments.

We will design a new Pin-array Display, a deformable haptic interface that enables three-dimensional manipulation and visualization of urban form. This research builds on the City Science Group's initial small-scale prototype and will leverage the Immersive Design Group's expertise in design, manufacturing, and production to develop a larger, smarter, more reliable, and scalable Pin-array Display haptic interface. Unlike traditional static models, the Pin-array Display being developed in this project can change shape in real-time during interactive processes, supporting more flexible and collaborative design workflows. Through this approach, urban planners, designers, and community members can instantly modify and experiment with different urban planning proposals, thereby achieving more efficient communication and collaboration during the planning and design process.

MIT Global Seed Funds (GSF) is a program established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to promote global innovation and collaboration. The program aims to support innovative research projects through international collaboration, helping MIT faculty and staff work with universities and research institutions around the world to address major global challenges. Since its establishment in 2008, GSF has funded over 1,200 research collaboration projects, with cumulative funding exceeding USD 26 million, and supports approximately 100 collaboration proposals annually. The MIT Greater China Fund for Innovation is a component of GSF, specifically dedicated to supporting collaborative research with China and the Greater China region. It aims to foster collaboration between MIT and China's academic community, government, industry, and businesses, promote technology transfer, and address global issues such as the environment, sustainable development, and public health.

Professor Introduction

Seungwoo Je is currently an Assistant Professor and PhD supervisor at the School of Innovation and Creative Design at Southern University of Science and Technology, and the founder of the Immersive Design Group research team. He is a researcher and educator in the fields of haptics, virtual reality, and human-computer interaction, and also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Korean Society of Design Science (KSDS).

Professor Seungwoo Je's research focuses on creating new experiences through cutting-edge technology to enrich and diversify human-computer interaction. His research findings have been published in top-tier academic journals and international conferences in the field of human-computer interaction, including ACM CHI, ACM UIST, and IEEE ISMAR, which are listed in the China Computer Federation (CCF) Recommended International Academic Conferences and Journals Directory.

In terms of honors, he has been awarded the Global PhD Scholarship by the Korean Ministry of Education for his academic research, one of the most prestigious academic awards in Korea. Additionally, he has received internationally renowned design awards, including the Red Dot Design Award, iF Design Award, and IDEA Award, and holds international patents in South Korea and the United States.

In terms of research collaboration, Professor Seungwoo Je is currently participating in a national-level research project funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and conducted in collaboration with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Internationally, he collaborates with institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Birmingham in fields including computer science and industrial design. Domestically, he collaborates with Beihang University. Additionally, he has established deep partnerships with Korean tech startups and American product design studios.

For more information, please visit: https://www.seungwooje.com.